Active vs. Inactive Employees

The list of active and inactive employees in Shift Agent is stored on the Employees page.  Shift Agent invoices your store based on the number of active employees you have on your roster at the time of the invoice.  Only ACTIVE employees are considered to be a part of your accounting process. Active employees are […]

Add a Shift – With Employee

To create a shift and assign an employee at the same time, simply navigate to the scheduling page. TIP:  A shift has a start-time, an end-time, and a position.  You can assign shifts to employees after the shift has been created, or you can create the shift and assign an employee at the same time. TIP:  You […]

Add First Shifts

This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Make Your First Schedule

Here is how you add shifts quickly.  This is for when you want to quickly create a schedule for a day, or make a new template of shifts that don’t have employees in them yet.  *Option:  Drawing your schedule (no typing) Watch the 1 minute video here: Step by Step instructions Click the “Quick Add” button […]

Add Positions to an Employee

Adding positions to an employee is what allows you to have great flexibility when building a schedule.  Each employee can have any combination of positions. How to Add or Remove a Position to an Employee Navigate to the Employee Profile you want to change. Click on the Positions Tab. Click on the Position you want to […]

Add Shifts (quick add)

Here is how you add shifts quickly.  This is for when you want to quickly create a schedule for a day, or make a new template of shifts that don’t have employees in them yet. Watch the 1 minute video here: Step by Step instructions Click the “Quick Add” button on the upper left corner […]

Adding Employees

There are two main ways to add employees to the system.  The main way to add them is by going to the Employees Menu Area, and clicking the + Add Employees button in the upper right. This will bring up a little window where you can add several employees at one time.  You will need […]

Adding Positions (managing positions)

This entry is part 10 of 16 in the series Getting Started

“Positions” is the term that Shift Agent uses to describe different roles at your company.  Some places may use the term “Job Code” or some other term. Positions are added to employee profiles so that when you build the schedule, Shift Agent knows who can work the shift. Positions are the foundation of your store […]

Allocation of Employee Hours

Shift Agent is built from the ground up to help you allocate hours to the each employee the way you want to. With the Allocation of Hours button in the footer on the Scheduling Page, we help you answer the question, “Is everyone getting their target hours?” The process of both Smart Scheduling and adding one […]

Availability Anaylsis

This entry is part 7 of 11 in the series Availability

Shift Agent allows you to analyze the employee availability of your store.  When you run an availability campaign, this can be useful for seeing how the changes are affecting your store. Review:  What do the availability colors mean? Things you can do with Availability Analysis: View/Add/Update everyone’s availability. See the collective and individual employee availability for any day […]

Availability Instructions for Employees

This entry is part 6 of 11 in the series Availability

Currently, you must be on a tablet or computer to update your availability. You cannot update your availability from a mobile phone. Learn more about how to communicate your availability. 1.  Navigate to your profile. 2.  Click the Change Availability button in the upper right corner. 3.  See the status of the campaign and the […]

Budget and Man-hours Data

When you are building the schedule, the Guide Bar can be very helpful in providing real-time projections for labor cost. Every shift that you add to the schedule, will automatically calculate the cost of the shift and aggregate into total cost for the day.  Our philosophy is to let you seamlessly view this data, while you […]

Calendar Settings & Advanced

Calendar Settings The calendar settings are a part of the organization profile. Here is a quick overview of what the different settings affect. Week Start-Day:  Select the proper day that your work week begins. Latest Day Off Request: Decide how many weeks in advance you wish to limit days off requests. (Can’t ask for days […]

Company Profile

The Company Profile is the place where global settings are held. Access these settings by clicking on the name of your company in the uppermost-left corner of the app. Settings: OVERTIME Overtime threshold is the global setting Shift Agent uses to determine what overtime means as you are scheduling.  Default is 40 hours. Overtime Priority defaults to […]

Delete a Shift (published)

Deleting an published shift is fairly straight-forward. Deleting Published Shifts: Navigate to the day on the scheduling page that has the shift you want to delete. Click the “on the shift you want to get rid of.  You will now see this: You have the option to REMOVE the shift from this menu.The Shift will be […]

Delete a Shift (unpublished)

Deleting an unpublished shift is fairly straight-forward. Deleting Unpublished Shifts: Navigate to the day on the scheduling page that has the shift you want to delete. Click the “on the shift you want to get rid of.  You will now see this: You have the option to REMOVE the shift from this menu.The Shift will be […]

Departments

Departments are the major divisions of your store.  You start with one department called “Uncategorized.”  You will always have the uncategorized position, but you can create a new one called “Main” or whatever you want to call it that contains all of your positions. Departments are where you can have multiple areas of your store, […]

Deployment Sheets

You can print the deployment sheet for each day from the schedule view. This is separate from the week view.  How to read the deployment sheet: Every position is grouped within it’s respective department, in order. Every shift under a position is listed in chronological order The employee who is working each shift is displayed. At the bottom, […]

Download the Shift Agent App

Here is how you DOWNLOAD the Shift Agent app to your phone. (You don’t need to go to the App Store or Google Play store.) Open your favorite browser on your phone, then follow these screen prompts:   First, for the iPhone ®                       For the Android […]

Edit a Shift (unpublished)

Editing an unpublished shift is fairly straight-forward.  See a different post for information on editing a published shift. For more information on deleting shifts, go to delete unpublished or delete published shifts. Depending on the state of the shift, (published, unpublished, or assign) the process is a little different. Editing Unpublished Shifts: Navigate to the day […]

Employee Card (smart scheduling)

So you are loading a SERVER shift from 10:00am – 4:00pm from Smart Scheduling.  The top right of the view shows an employee card that displays lots of relevant information with respect to the shift you are filling. Current Hours = # of hours they have this week Target Hours = # of hours you want […]

Employee List for Managers (mobile)

From your mobile device, as a manager, you can access a list of your employees and see all of their profiles. Click the “menu” button in the bottom right corner, and then click the “Employee List” item.                       From the profile view, you can actually […]

Employee Profile (settings)

This entry is part 13 of 16 in the series Getting Started

Employee Profiles are one of the most important components to Shift Agent.  This is a control center for helping each employee have the correct schedule. Understanding Employee Activation Tabs of the Employee Profile Dashboard – See their upcoming schedule and days off and other information Information – View and edit contact information Pay Rates – […]

Guide Bar for Weekly Scheduling

The Guide Bar is designed to give you the week at a glance while you are scheduling. When you are on the scheduling page, you will notice the Guide Bar at the top of the page.  You can use this guide to help you achieve lean labor by using the productivity guide. The Guide Bar is […]

Much Faster Scheduling

Now that you have built your first day or even your first week, let’s help you streamline your scheduling process.  You can begin to take full advantage of what Shift Agent does to make your scheduling experience quick and efficient. Fastest Way to Build One Day: The draw shifts feature is the fastest way to build […]

Our Scheduling Philosophy

This entry is part 1 of 16 in the series Getting Started

Our Philosophy: We believe in building a culture of hospitality through better scheduling.  Your time is valuable, and we want to multiply your effectiveness by giving you the tools you need to schedule your store with excellence.  Shift Agent is designed to foster personal responsibility among your employees as we provide powerful flexibility. Main Website:  Shift Agent […]

Pay Rates in Shift Agent

Pay Rates and budget data in Shift Agent serve only as a GUIDE. The numbers for budget and man-hours do NOT necessarily reflect actual hours worked, and therefore should not be used to determine exactly what an employee should be paid. Every employee can have an hourly pay rate assigned to them so that the hours they are […]

Positions (skill-sets)

Who is Qualified to Work a Shift You have a unique way of running your store, and we want to maximize your ability to schedule people well.  Positions are a key factor in setting up your store to have a great schedule. In Shift Agent, a position is a unique skill-set.  For example, let’s say […]

Print View (week view)

Description: Print View (Week view) is a second way of seeing the schedule that gives you access to a lot of helpful information. See an alphabetical list of employees with their schedule shown across a particular week. Keep the view open as you build the schedule and watch the shifts appear in the spreadsheet as you […]

Print View Settings

The Print View has a number of settings that you can use to optimize your use of the print view for different things.  If you are having issues, try this troubleshooting information and FAQ post. To access the settings, open up Print View and click the Settings button in the header (upper right corner). Description […]

Prioritize Target Hours above Overtime threshold

Summary:  You can adjust the Shift Agent scheduling filter to accommodate for your need to have certain employees work overtime with regularity.  (For example, you have an employee that you want to work 52 hours, even though your overtime threshold is 40 hours.) Monitor the allocation of hours to track your distribution to employees.  Access this feature […]

Publishing

This entry is part 8 of 8 in the series Make Your First Schedule

Intro to Publishing: Publishing the schedule is when the shifts you built on the calendar are now visible to employees.  When they login, they will see their schedule. Before you publish, the shifts on your calendar are just a rough draft.  They will stay saved in whatever state you leave them, even if you log […]

Recommendations: Select the Right Employee for Each Shift

Shift Agent is not an auto-scheduler.  It’s one better.  Smart Scheduling is a recommendation system that calculates the operational decision so that you can focus on people while you select the right person for each shift.  This post describes most of what Smart Scheduler is doing to make recommendations on your behalf as you fill […]

Reordering Positions on the Schedule Page

You may decide that you want the positions listed in a different order from top to bottom.  The way the positions are listed on the Manage Positions area is exactly how they are listed on the actual scheduling page. Here is how you can accomplish this: 1.  Go to the Organization Profile. (Click your store […]

Request Management

As a manager, you have a Requests area in your menu, both on the mobile view as well as on the computer/tablet view.  Your response to these requests and affect changes to the schedule by inputting your decisions about trades and days off. Every trade has a status, and every day off has a status. […]

Responding to Availability Requests

This entry is part 9 of 11 in the series Availability

As a manager, you will have requests from employees to update their availability. When employees request to change their availability, or when you run an availability campaign, you will need to manage those requests.  You access this from the Availability button on the right main menu, and by tapping the Manage Availability Requests button. When a […]

Schedule a Day

This entry is part 14 of 16 in the series Getting Started

To schedule one day is essentially the process of adding shifts, assigning employees, and publishing the day.  Typical Method for Adding Shifts and Building the schedule: Put Shifts on the day:  Use the Draw Shifts feature, or use the Add Shifts feature. Fill each shift with the right employee:  Press Smart Scheduling button on the top […]

See the Calendar as a Whole Week

Being able to see a week as you build a schedule can be very helpful.  But, worrying about too many things at once can make the process overwhelming. Shift Agent provides a Print View that enables you to use the scheduler while you have a bird-eye view of a whole week. While you are using […]

Set Projections

This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Make Your First Schedule

Each week, Shift Agent provides you with the ability to set your labor level according to your sales projections.  These projections act as a helpful guide for you as you make the schedule for the week. The projections are reflected in the Guide Bar for the week, so that you can see your spending in […]

Skill Levels and the Training Indicator

Shift Agent provides granular control of indicating what skill level each employee has for each position. Employee A can have three positions, and have different skill levels in each position.  Skill levels are rated from Zero to Three stars (0-3)  Three being the highest. Training:   In addition, Shift Agent provides a Training flag  that […]

Smart Scheduling – Got interrupted

Did you get interrupted in the middle of smart scheduling and now you need to get back to where you were in the scheduling process? Navigate to the day you were scheduling. You will see any of the shift you filled. You will NOT see the shifts you haven’t filled from the template.  You WILL see unassigned […]

SMS Alerts for Managers

Admin’s and managers can choose whether or not to receive text message alerts when their are requests that need your attention. Managers can also set preferences for receiving emails by electing to receive the Daily Digest. By default, you do NOT receive these SMS alerts, but you can check a setting to receive alerts about […]

Store News Announcements

Shift Agent provides you with a platform to communicate effectively with your team. About Store News As a manager or admin, you can create a store-wide or position-specific announcement. You can select who the message goes to and how they will receive the message. Learn how to create announcements from your mobile device or from your computer. […]

Target Hours

Target hours are one of the key settings that affect Shift Agent’s recommendations for when you are filling shifts.  This setting directly affects the distribution of hours to employees.  As you build the schedule, you will be able to visualize the allocation of hours to each of your employees. Target hours is a number of hours […]

Templates: How do I apply one?

Once you have built a template, you can apply it to any day that you want.  You can even add more than one template to a day.  (This might be useful if you have multiple departments and multiple people who publish the schedule.) Once you have built at least one template, use the following steps […]

Templates: How to Edit a Template

In order to edit a template, you click on the button that says “Manage Templates” from the scheduling page.  Editing templates is a part of the process of achieving lean labor as you find ways to trim labor and then save the edited templates to recreate savings. You will see a new window that looks like […]

The Sandbox – Demo Mode

This entry is part 6 of 16 in the series Getting Started

When you first signup for your store’s account in Shift Agent, you will find yourself in The Sandbox.  It’s a term we use to describe the training environment where you can play around with the features and take a tour of the app. Before you setup your store Before you actually setup your store and […]

The Scheduling Calendar

Introduction to the Calendar – This is a detailed overview of the scheduling page and how to use it. Building One Day at a Time – The Shift Agent™ calendar gives you the ability to build the schedule one day at a time with confidence. You can start building right away, and we help you to distribute hours, […]

Trade Shifts Easily

Automatically find the best trade! Shift Agent is designed to help you find someone to trade with, so that you don’t have to worry about it.  Read here for full instructions, or just use this for quick reference for using our system to trade. For Example:  Let’s say that you want to trade your Monday, […]

User Levels

Shift Agent has three User Levels.  You can set the user level for each employee from their individual employee profile.  You can quickly see who has which user level by using the Permissions sort on the Employee List page. The three levels are: Employee Manager Admin  Feature Access for each User Level A MANAGER can […]