Venues

Venues

A venue in StaffSavvy can be used for lots of different things; they are often physical departments or locations. A venue has its own shift schedules and budgets. Staff have a home venue but can be given access to any other venues as well.

Each venue has its own management structure and a lot of different configuration options. You can create as many venues as you want and configure them to match your needs.

See the Venues under Shift Management section for more details.

Venue Groups

Venue Groups allow venues to be grouped into different combinations for use in reports, shift management and time sheets.

Venues can be shown in as many venue groups as needed so you can split your different venues in different ways to compare both physical locations and different venue types.

You are also able to set the order of the venues within the group and this allows you to manage how they will be displayed on various reports.

Automatically assigned to all venues in a venue group

This allows you to ensure that all staff within any of the venues of a venue group have access to all of the other venues. It’s perfect for departments as it prevents any managers needing to manually assign lots of venues to lots of new staff.

Note that you will only be able to enable this option if you have permission to view all venues within that venue group.

Lone Working Notifications

Lone Worker notifications are designed to help keep single workers safe across a large venue, campus or complex. When enabled, the system will notify staff when they are the only clocked-in members on site or when they cease to be the only clocked-in staff member.

These notifications can be via Push notifications (in the apps or using desktop notifications), using SMS credits or email notifications. You can also choose the priority of the notifications so the system will try one before trying the next notification method.

Configure this feature on a venue group so that it covers all venues within the group. If you want the feature on a single venue, you’ll need to create a venue group with just that venue in it.

Then, enter the message you wish to show to staff when they start working alone and the message when they finish. Keep in mind that SMS messages are 160 characters so longer messages will take multiple credits.

Information Fields

These optional data fields are displayed on the manage Shift Week page and allow data to be shared across a venue group. They might offer information such as occupancy levels, expected attendees or other details useful for multiple teams.

To use these fields, enable the number of fields you need (up to 5) and provide a label. Once enabled then the venues who have this venue group set as their default group will have the options displayed within the week view:

Venue Staff and Access

Access to a venue must be granted. There are three ways this can happen.

Full Venue Access Permission

There is a permission that allows included staff to see all venues all of the time. This grants them access to the venue in a technical sense. They might not have permissions to actually do anything at that venue nor have any roles/skills assigned that allow them to work at the venue.

This option is useful for casual staff who you might want to offer additional shifts or unskilled shifts to any staff in your organisation. It’s also useful for System Managers who need access to everything.

Home Venue

Every employee must have a home venue. This is where they are based and will grant them access to this venue. This will also dictate who their default line managers are. Home Venues are assigned via the Authorisation page, Staff Member’s Venues or Control Staff.

Venue Groups

Multiple venues can be grouped together to form an umbrella ‘Venue Group’. This can be managed under Dashboard > System > Venues > Venue Groups.

Under the actions menu, you can access the option to Create a Venue Group which will allow you to manage multiple venues at the same time.

Assigned Venues

Every employee can also be assigned individual access to certain venues. This can be accessed via the staff member’s profile page or via System > Venues > Staff Venues (Venues might be replaced with your own name for a venue).

You can also change their home venue via this page.

Venue Managers

Venue managers are the default line managers for all staff that have this venue set as their home venue.

They are also displayed on different pages as the venue’s managers.

Managing Different Venues

If you have access to different venues then you can jump between them using the button in the top right side of the screen.

Venue Settings

There are a lot of different settings on each venue that can control the tools available and the way the site behaves for shifts at that venue. Settings can be updated at any time and will take effect within a few moments.

Details

• Venue Title
  The main title used throughout the site. This should be the full official department or venue name.Please ensure your venue titles are unique within the site to prevent confusion.
• Venue Short Title
  Shortened title to be used when space is tight. Try to use your existing acronym for the department/venue. Please ensure your venue titles are unique within the site to prevent confusion.
• Title for Exports
  This is used for several of the bespoke export formats. You can set any title to be used in the exports. You can also set the same title for several different departments/venues and the exports will combine the figures for these venues into one line for your reports.
• Sage Payroll Department
  This will only display if you have the Sage Payroll service enabled.
• Ops Groups
  Operations Groups are a way to combine any combination of venues together for reporting purposes. Venues can be in any number of groups so you can venue reports from a single location or all venues of the same time across different locations.

Shift Configuration

• Staff Availability
  • Lock Weekly Preferences
    When enabled, this will prevent staff who are set to have this venue as their home venue from editing their weekly preferences. They can see the times they have set but not make any changes to it.
• Covershift / Extra Shift Restrictions
  • Allow Shifts to be Relinquished
    Relinquishing shifts is the process of simply giving up a shift as setting it to be unassigned/extra shift. This means the staff member has no further responsibility for the shift at all. It should be used carefully! You can see how close to the shift start time that a staff member can simply give up the shift. Under this time setting, they will need to request cover instead.
  • Number of cover/extra shifts which can be taken in advance
    This setting overrides the Shift Ranges option that is set globally. It will restrict the number of covershifts or additional shifts that a staff member can take in advance. They will be allowed to take an additional shift once they have worked one of cover/extra shifts. This simply prevents one staff member from taking all shifts before other staff are able to choose some to work. The staff member can always take additional shifts, they just can’t take them all at once.
• Clock In Settings
  • Clocking In Times
    How early a staff member can clock in for a shift. This is when they will be displayed on the Awaiting column of the clock in screens.
  • Paid Shift Start & End
    These settings allow you to automatically adjust the clock in start and end times to match the planned shift times.Shift start simply sets clock in times to be the planned shift times even if staff clock in earlier. When in use, this will display the staff member under the Clocked In list but will show their actual start time in the green box under their name.Shift end settings means that if someone clocks out just a few minutes after their shift end then it will set the end time back to the planned shift times. Note that employment law is strict on what activities need to be paid for so speak to your HR and finance managers before adjusting this setting.
  • Lateness
    This is the grace period after the shift start time that the staff member can still clock in and not be late. Once this has passed, their button in the Awaiting column will be flagged as late and they will be reminded that they are late when they clock in. The shift will also automatically be flagged as Late for reporting. You can see which Reason/Excuse is used for this lateness flag under Global Settings.
  • Arrival for Shift
    You can set an arrival time on your shifts. This will be displayed in email reminders and on the shift details page. It will state the time the employee needs to be ready to clock in by taking the shift start time and deducting the set number of minutes from it.
  • Arrival Message
    This message accompanies the arrival time and can be used to tell staff where to go or what not to have with them on duty (mobile phones etc). It’s displayed on all shift reminders and on the shift details page.
  • Paid Break Grace
    If an employee is on a paid break and does not clock back in on time then the system will automatically stop their paid break and start an unpaid break. This setting controls how quickly this happens once the paid break finishes.
  • Overtime
    This allows you to set how much time past the end of the shift times should be considered as working excessive additional time. Shifts below this setting won’t be flagged for additional review and will be considered “normal” for approval purposes.

     

  • Timeline Settings

    • Day Start Time
      This is what time your timeline will start in a given day. It’s useful for departments that open late as you can see your full set of shifts in one view.This is also the setting that dictates what “day” a shift is displayed on. For example, if a shift works midnight to 4am you will probably think about it as being part of the rota from the previous day. Using this setting, it will be included with all shifts from the previous day for reporting and editing. Ideally set this time to be before your first shift of the day.There are no limits to shifts and they can be worked beyond this time but viewing them on a timeline might be harder.
    • Timeline Rounding
      When using the shift timeline page it can be difficult to select the exact minutes you want to use for this. This setting will automatically round shift times so that you prevent shifts starting at 10:01am for example.
• Handover Period
  This option allows your staff to be assigned or pick up shifts that overlap slightly. It’s designed to allow a staff member who normally hands over to another staff member during an overlap to actually work both shifts. The system will automatically adjust the second shift so that it’s start time matches the finish time of the previous shift.Only shifts taking place at the same venue are eligible for the handover period.
• Splitting Shifts
  This option allows your staff to split their shifts into two parts with the primary purpose of putting one of the halves up for cover. You can set the rules around this by stating how long a shift must be to allow it to be split, the minimum length of each of the resulting shifts and the time period they can choose between the two halves.For example, I can set it to allow shifts of 6 hours or more to be split. Each half must be 2 hours or more and the staff member can choose which 30mins after 2 hours that the shift can be split. This will allow the shift to be split at 2 hours, 2 hours 30mins, 3 hours, 3 30mins or 4 hours. This will always leave the second part of the shift as at least 2 hours.
• Rota Generation Split Shifts
  These settings are used with the Rota Management tool and sets the rules on how the Split option will work.When enable, the split option will take the full requirement and break it down into the max shift length set here.If any resulting shift will be less than the minimum length then the max length will not apply.If there are no staff available to fill the max length of shift then the length of the shift will be reduced by the Segment length and staff available will be checked again. If staff are available for the shorter shift then they will be assigned and the remainder time will assigned out. If there are still no staff available then the system will repeat the process of reducing the shift length by the segment amount until the shift is filled or the minimum length of shift is reached.If no staff are available then unassigned/extra shifts will be created.

• Shift Events

  • Shift Event Titles
    This option allows for shift titles or notes to be added to a certain day within the site. All shifts for that 24-hour period at this venue will contain this title for staff and managers to see.
  • One event per day?
    This option allows you to either set a event title for a set of shifts based on times during the venue. E.g. “the event today is X” or “the event from 6pm is X”.
    Or you can manually add the event title to each individual staff member’s shift. This allows you to provide bespoke information to the staff member.
  • Default Event
    You can also set a default title to be shown if there is no title set. This might be “(normal service)” or “(event TBC)”. You can also leave this blank.

Budgets

• Shift Wages
  This dictates where the staff costs should be calculated from; either actual staff rates or the set budgeting cost defined in the skills/roles.
• Target Origin
  Where should the budget target come from:
  • Fixed costsYou set an actual staff cost you wish to hit in £.
  • Sales PercentageYou provide a sales estimate and the staff cost is a percentage of the expected sales
• Budget Percentage
  Only used with the Sales Percentage Target, this is the percentage of the sales that should be spent on staff costs. 15% for example
• Acceptable Deviation
  Percentage up or down from the target that is acceptable and considered “on budget”. When set to 5%, any value between 95% of the budget and 105% will be marked as on budget.
• Actual Figure Display
  Only used with the Sales Percentage Target, this decides if the budget should show a percentage to the budget the actual staff cost percentage. For example, if my staff costs are exactly 15% of the sales target then this will either show 100% (exact target) or 15% (the actual staff cost percentage).

Skills/Roles

This tab allows you to set which skills/roles you want to use within this venue. This simply allows you to keep the list of available skills/roles more relevant to your venue.

Actions/Tasks

This tab allows you to set which shift actions you want to use within this venue. This simply allows you to keep the list of available actions more relevant to your venue.

You can also choose to hide all actions/tasks from your staff when they access their shifts via the system. This means they will not see the task for their shift. This will also affect all calendar feeds and emails about these shifts.

Right to Work

This field allows you to override the default message set under Global Settings. This means you can bespoke where the staff members based at this venue should take their documents to be checked.