ShiftForce Blog

New Features for Employees - Calendar, Messaging, and Setting Availability

Written by Matt Thompson | Jul 25, 2013 7:59:40 PM

We've got some big updates for you this week! Employees can now see specific events on the ShiftNote calendar, they can send and receive messages from management, and they can set their own availability (if management allows it). These features are available if you have either the Bulletin Board or Schedule feature turned on.

Employee Calendar

Employees that use ShiftNote will now be able to see certain events on the ShiftNote calendar tool that management opts to share. Managers can choose to add important events to the calendar that might be useful for employees to see because they will impact the business for that day. These events might include large parties, area events like concerts, sporting events, and festivals, holidays, and other busy time periods.

Employee Messages

Employees now have access to the same messaging tools that management has. Managers can send messages to all employees at once, individual employees, or send messages based on position. Employees can respond to messages from managers and also use the tool to send messages to managers. To activate this feature, you must have Company Admin access. Go to Admin > Locations > Edit link > Features tab and scroll to the bottom and turn on the messaging feature.

Employee Availability

Employees can now set their own availability if management chooses to let them. Managers can change availability to be open or closed at any time by going to Schedules > Settings > Availability and checking the box that allows for open availability. They can also elect to approve/deny availability changes before they become active.

Other New Features

There are a few other new features available this week. Managers can now approve or deny shift trades and time off requests via email instead of having to log into ShiftNote first. A notes field has been added to the add shift box on the schedule so that you can leave a small note when assigning a shift. You can now mark a shift as volume when adding via the add shift box.

Hope you enjoy all these new features! Our development team has been working hard around the clock to get these out for you. Please do let us know what other things we can add to ShiftNote to make it more useful for your business.