How do I create, edit, and post employees’ schedules using the Labor Scheduler?
This article will walk managers through the various scheduling options of Decision Logic’s Labor Scheduler feature.
Overview
Decision Logic’s Labor Scheduler feature allows managers to create, edit, and post employee schedules. Posted schedules appear in the Employee Central mobile application. Additionally, managers can view the shift card on the Digital Manager mobile application.
The Labor Scheduler lets restaurants generate a sales forecast based on past sales to advise managers when building a schedule. Scheduling labor appropriately helps:
View and schedule based on employee’s availability.
Ensure you have the right people during the right times.
Easily identify which employee is a minor.
Reduce overtime hours.
Reduce turnover.
Additionally, the labor scheduler provides metrics for:
Service and Non-Service Hours
Total Labor Hours
Labor Dollars
Labor %
Scheduled (forecasted) Sales
Budgeted vs. Scheduled Shifts
Users will also see weather information for that store based on what is entered for that store’s zip code. Decision Logic will show weather up to 16 days, and refresh daily as weather changes. This feature is another tool to support best projections for labor scheduling.
Employees who are flagged with the minor icon are under the age of 18 years old. The minor flagged is based on the date of birth entered in the Employee Roster. The icon will appear on the Labor Scheduler and Shift Card on the web based platform.
Clicking on an employee’s name will populate a side panel with the employee’s information that is entered into the Employee Roster. The user must have at least View permissions to the Employee Roster to view the information. This will include their:
Name
Date of Birth and Minor icon if applicable.
Address
Home Phone
Job Roles
Stores they are assigned to.
When creating a schedule with a House Shift (one that is not assigned to an employee but needs to be ‘picked up,' the “Wage Amount” is the average pay rate for active employees with that same job code.
Clients who partner with Qu as their POS provider can reach out to their Account Manager or submit a request to enable Schedule Enforcement. Schedule Enforcement allows Decision Logic to push a posed schedule to Qu, where users can add parameters for how early or late an employee can clock in or clock out. We also will look for errors when posting a schedule and pushing to Qu.
Create Schedule
Before creating a schedule, operators will need to generate sales forecasting and make adjustments if needed.
Begin by navigating to:
Operations > Labor Scheduling > Labor Scheduler
Select the Store you are creating the schedule for.
Click Week or Day on the calendar.
Week is the default scheduling view.
Select a Schedule from the dropdown.
Select a Date or Date Range in the labor week.
Open and generate sales forecasting if needed.
Select Create a Blank Schedule.
Users can select Create From An Existing Schedule if one exists. This feature will copy all scheduled shifts from a previously posted schedule, including House Shifts.
Select a Schedule based on Labor Week to copy.
Click Copy.
Make adjustments as needed.
Click Post Schedule.
Add Shift
Stores may have more than one schedule they need to create. For example, a front-of-the-house schedule, a back-of-the-house schedule, a bar schedule, or one main schedule.
Before adding an employee to a shift, be sure to check their availability. All employees are marked as unavailable upon hire until the employee has their availability defined. The following icons indicate what the employee’s availability is.
Users can only add shift for future dates, and not ‘today.’
Icon | Description |
---|---|
Light gray stripes | The employee is unavailable all day. |
White circle | The employee is available all day. |
Half moon | The employee is partially available for the day. |
M icon | The employee is under the age of 18. This icon will appear on the Labor Scheduler and Shift Card on the web platform. |
By The Week
After a blank schedule or copied schedule is created, users will add or edit shifts. There are two views to add or edit shifts: By the week or by the day.
Select the Week tab.
Week is the default scheduling view.
Select a Week.
Click on a Day of the Week on the row of an employee.
Users will see the week’s updated weather projection to assist in decision-making.
Users can click on an employee’s name to expand the employee’s details when in Week view.
Select the Job Code from the dropdown.
Select the Start Time of the shift by scrolling or typing in the time. Increments are defaulted y 15 minutes.
Select the End Time of the shift by scrolling or typing in the time. Increments are defaulted by 15 minutes.
Ensure the employee is available during the times you have selected.
Managers can schedule an employee to work a double shift by clicking + Shift and repeating steps 3-5.
Click Save.
Projected Labor Table
This view displays a Projected Labor table to guide users on their current metrics when building the schedule. The store’s sales forecasting method will be included as the default. These are forecasts by sales dollars, customer count, or check count.
Users can choose which metrics are displayed by:
Click the Projected Labor gear.
Checking or unchecking the box next to a metric.
By The Day
Users can focus on a single day to add or edit shifts after a blank or copied schedule is created.
Select the Day tab.
Week is the default scheduling view.
Select a Date.
Select the Schedule.
Click on a Time on the row of an employee.
Select a Job Code.
Select the Start Time of the shift by scrolling or typing in the time. Increments are defaulted by 15 minutes.
Select the End Time of the shift by scrolling or typing in the time. Increments are defaulted by 15 minutes.
Click Save.
Users can drag the time frame within this view by hovering the mouse over a shift and dragging either the left or right bar.
The bottom of this view shows an overview of:
Total Hours scheduled.
Labor as a percentage.
Scheduled Sales.
Labor Dollars.
Edit Shift
Users can edits shifts for ‘tomorrow’ and future dates. You cannot edit same-day dates. Editing shifts follow the same general steps for the Week or Day view.
Hover your mouse over the shift you want to edit.
Click the 3-dot menu.
Click Edit.
Make the changes and click Save.
Additionally, users can move a shift from one employee to another who has the same job code. Managers will drag and drop the shift to an available employee. Employees that are able to work the shift based on availability and the job code will be highlighted in green.
Copy Shift
Managers have the option to copy a scheduled shift and paste it into other dates and employees when building the schedule. The job code, start and end date are copied. Managers can still make edits to copied shifts once they are pasted on a date.
Hover your mouse over the shift you want to edit.
Click the 3-dot menu.
Click Copy.
Click on an available Date.
Employees that are able to work the shift based on availability and the job code will be highlighted in green.
Managers can continue to click multiple dates to paste the same shift to multiple dates and employees.
Click Done.
Unassign Shift
Managers can unassign a shift. An unassigned shift will move to the top of the Labor Scheduler as a House Shift. Employees can accept an available house shift from the Employee Central mobile app if they are assigned to that job code. Managers will need to approve or deny any acceptance from an employee.
Hover your mouse over the shift you want to edit.
Click the 3-dot menu.
Click Unassign.
Click Unassign again.
Delete Shift
Hover your mouse over the shift you want to edit.
Click the 3-dot menu.
Click Delete.
Click Delete again.
Update Projections
The Labor Scheduler allows managers with Change permissions to update Target Hours and Target Labor % when creating the schedule through the Projections feature. This option signals the Projected Labor table at the bottom of the View by Week screen to turn either green or red depending on the labor entered.
White font: indicates that the schedule has not met the targeting labor hours or percentage.
Green font: indicates that the scheduled labor hours or percentage is within the recommended target range.
Red font: indicates that the scheduled labor hours or percentage is outside the recommended target range.
Toggle Option
When toggling on “All Schedules”, the Schedule Sales amount should change based on how the activity-based forecasting was designed.
When you toggle “All Schedules” on, it returns the estimated sales from all departments.
When you toggle it off, it shows sales for all departments assigned to the schedule.
Activity-Based Forecasting gives managers the ability to base their labor % on projected sales for specific department sales per schedule. If a job is flagged as "Manager" in POS Setup, it will not be included in the labor % calculation.
As the manager builds the schedule,
Click Projections.
Enter the Target Hours or Target Labor %.
Click Save.
Post Schedule
When a manager has completed all shift entries, they will post the schedule. The posted schedule will immediately appear in the Employee Central app, and the employee will receive a Push Notification if they are logged in and have it enabled on their mobile device.
Simply click Post Schedule.
Managers are able to make edits to a posted schedule.
Schedule Enforcement - Qu POS Users
Clients who partner with Qu as their POS provider can reach out to their Account Manager to notify that they would like to enable Schedule Enforcement on Qu. Qu’s Schedule Enforcement allows Decision Logic to push a posted schedule to Qu, where users can add parameters for how early or late an employee can clock in or clock out. We will provide for integration errors via alerts when a user clicks Post Schedule.
When a user makes changes to a posted schedule, Decision Logic will send the updated shift data to Qu and remove the previous data.
Users will need to have Schedule Push enabled in Decision Logic with at least one schedule pushed to Qu. Posted a schedule in Decision Logic is the equivalent as pushing shift data to Qu. After verifying labor shifts in Qu, users should have Qu activate the enforcement option in their system. Clock in and out time preventions are configured in the Qu system.
After clicking Post Schedule, that button will change status to either:
No Integration Errors - the button will gray-out and the schedule is posted and pushed to Qu. No further action is needed inside Decision Logic.
X Integration Issues - these issues must be resolved in order for Schedule Enforcement to work properly. When an error occurs, Decision Logic will still have the shifts saved in the Labor Scheduler and the employee will still view their schedule in the Employee Central app.
Potential reasons for Integration Issues / errors may be:
The employee has not been synchronized to Qu.
Troubleshoot: Employee Insert Validation should be viewed for correction.
An employee was a scheduled job ID that does not have POS mapping assigned.
Troubleshoot: Map the job code or POS ID in the Employee Roster.
One or more shifts from an employee have not been sent to the integration. Either the Qu POS has not been able to respond to the shift change or post, or the store is not configured for the Schedule Enforcement feature.
Troubleshoot: Reach out to Decision Logic’s helpdesk.
The Qu API returned an error while pushing the schedule or shift from Decision Logic.
Troubleshoot: Reach out to Decision Logic’s helpdesk.
The user attempted to update a shift that has not. yet been added to Qu.
Troubleshoot: Reach out to Decision Logic’s helpdesk.
View Shift Card
A shift card is a helpful tool that managers can use to review posted shifts, for all staff to review, or to print each week’s schedule. Decision Logic recommends using the Digital Manager to view the shift card while on the go.
This condensed, daily view adds transparency to who is working throughout the day and also provides