Getting started with a new app can feel a bit like exploring uncharted territory. But don't worry, if you're new to using apps or you're a tech god, our goal is to make your onboarding experience as simple as possible.
Follow these 3 simple steps and you'll live a calmer and smoother life:
Step 1: Add Employees Without Bothering Them
Step 2: Customize & Set Up The App
Step 3: Post Easy Tutorials Inside
And... Launch! 🚀
To make sure you have all of the information, I'll leave links to articles at the end of each section. Just look for the 💡 Emoji.
Let's get this cookie going!
Step 1: Add Employees Without Bothering Them
You can add your team members without them going on an unprepared app and getting a bunch of messages right away about what to do. This way, you can take your time to get everything perfect before inviting them to use the app.
First of all, if you're more of a visual learner, go check our setup portal to guide you through it all- Take me to the setup portal.
But we can break it down a bit...
Head over to the "Users" tab located in the left sidebar and add all of the users to the app by clicking the "Add Users" button. Make sure to uncheck the "Send an invite" checkbox in order to add but not invite the users just yet.
Once the users are in the app, click the "User Details" button to manage their information such as their role, team, and department. Not only is it smart to be organized- this will help you later with creating groups and filtering within the app.
Basically, you're going to manage your business via the app, so make sure the basic information of your employees is on it.
💡 Learn more about updating user's details here.
Step 2: Customize & Set Up The App
All of your users are in the app- Wonderful!
Now customize the features to fit how your company works. It's like moving things around in your room to make it comfy for you. You purchased Connecteam for specific things, and they need to work according to your company's goals.
***Before you jump into the set up, I recommend thinking how your current process translates into a digital solution- we may have a different way that will work better.
Setting up the Time Clock:
Enter the feature located on the left sidebar, and access your time clock.
You'll see that there are two main tabs- Today & Timesheets.
The Today tab is for your day-to-day operational needs, to overview what is happening, you guessed it- today 😍. You'll see your employee's clock in\out status and a summary of today's hours. If you scroll down, you can see their geographic location as well.
The Timesheets tab is for you when it's time to do payroll or review time-tracking per job. You'll have everything color-coded and calculated for easy exporting and analysis. If you scroll down you'll see the "Job Insights" section where we offer hours breakdown and analysis.
Next, head over to the settings, located at the top-right part of the screen where our setup wizard is waiting to help you set up the most important parts of the feature:
Payroll cycle - Align the feature with your cycle and have the data according to your payroll cycle.
Location tracking - Decide if you prefer to track the location of your employees when they clock in and out or throughout the working day (you can create geo-fences to have the employees clock in and out only on location).
Jobs - Basically, this is THE most important part, because this is what your employees will clock into and what you want to track time for. Later on, you can get analytics on how you're allocating your resources. Based on your industry and business, the jobs would be what you want to track time for (projects, clients, locations, or even roles \ services).
You can also dive deeper and customize overtime settings, breaks, shift attachments, and more to make the timesheets as accurate and productive as possible.
Check out this short video for some Time Clock orientation:
Setting up the Job Scheduler:
Enter the feature located on the left sidebar, and access your job scheduler.
You'll see that it's a very simple calendar view- dates on the top, and the users on the side (you can change the view to "view by job" if you prefer).
Head over to the Jobs button at the top-right part of the screen (if you already set up the jobs in the Time Clock section, you can skip this part).
Jobs - Basically, this is THE most important part, because this is what you will schedule your employees to, and later on you can get analytics on how you're allocating your resources and how many hours employees actually spent in the time clock. Based on your industry and business, the jobs would be what you schedule your employees to, so for example if you normally schedule per client then the job would be the client's name or location. If you're scheduling for a specific service and the client varies, the job would be the service.
***Don't forget that we offer further complexity with sub-jobs.
Templates - We all know that scheduling is not an easy task, and it takes work to fill out a lot of small details like hours, notes, tasks, and more. So if there are things that are repetitive, you can create the basic module and save it as a template. Once you're ready to use it, just click and drag it to the relevant employee (You can also create a full-week template and upload it to save more time).
Repeating Shifts - Another great time saver is the option to create a repetition of a shift. For example- if John works Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week in the same role\job you can create that weekly repetition and save manual work by creating all those shifts over and over again.
After it's all said and done, check out the settings at the top-right part of the screen to make sure the communication regarding the shifts is the way you need it to be.
Check out this short video for some Job Scheduler orientation:
💡 Learn more about the features in the following links- Time Clock \ Job Scheduler.
Step 3: Post Easy Tutorials Inside
Just like a guidebook, the app has easy lessons inside. They show the users how to use the app step-by-step, like following a recipe to make their favorite meal. These tutorials help you and your team learn everything easily with a short 3-minute video.
To post a tutorial, head over to the Updates feature and choose the templates option. There you will find a list of tutorials on the different features. The post will appear on the app's main feed, very much like social media posts. Something like this-
To see how to post an update and what does the feature do, check out this short video for some Updates orientation:
💡 Learn more about the Updates here.
That's it! 🎉
Once everything is set up, it's time to start using the app. Now you and your team can start working better together.
To invite them to the app, head over to the "Overview page" and look for the "Select users to invite" button or go to the Users tab to check who hasn't logged in yet and invite them from there. Learn more about both options for how to invite users here.
One final tip - But a very important one!
I tell all my clients to go over the notifications in the features they are using and set them up as they want. Nobody likes to get bombarded with a thousand notifications (check out the article on the Notification Center).
If you still need another little something extra, our support team is available 24\7 via the blue chat button located at the bottom-right part of your screen for any questions or technical issues.
Good luck!
Avery & The Connecteam team ❤️