Live Q&A: Ask us anything about Team Management & Scheduling!

[Tom]

On January 28th, we hosted a Square Team Management & Scheduling Live Q&A!

@seiderman is the product manager on Square Team Management, focused specifically on scheduling, timecards, and the Square Team app. Having worked at Square for 6+ years, he’s experienced in working directly with sellers on how they can use Square to improve their team operations. While passionate about all things Square and Team Management, he still finds time to indulge in other hobbies including video games, working out, and playing with his 7yr old cocker spaniel / lab mix dog.

A few example questions:

• How can I use shift scheduling to improve my labor cost margins?
• How can I share the schedule out with my team?
• Is there a way to test out the paid scheduling features?

[SustainLA]

1. Is it possible for Team Members to "Offer Up" their shift and another Team Member to "Claim" it?
2. Can Team Members claim the "Open Shift?"
3. Can we schedule multiple "Open Shifts" on the same day?

Thank you!

[seiderman]

Hi @SustainLA,

Thanks for the questions. While it's not currently possible for a team member to offer up a scheduled shift, you can create open shifts for your team to claim in Team app. As long as you’re subscribed to Team Plus, you should be able to select ‘Open Shift’ when adding a shift to your schedule. There’s also no limit on the number of open shifts for a given day. 

Let me know if you have any follow up questions!

[TriciaW]

Is there a way to have separate departments, such as FOH & BOH, so I can see my FOH schedules grouped together & BOH schedules grouped together?

Can a feature be added where we can indicate if an EE is on Vacation, Sick, Unavailable, etc instead of just having that specific day(s) just remain blank?

An option to have EE's approve the schedule when they receive it through the Square Team App.  Most times, they dont add their availability and we add shifts or change shifts depending on business needs.  

It would be great to be able to print the weekly schedule for all departments together.

A monthly view would be great, with alerts if an EE is close to 40 hours in that week, and no more than 6 days straight. 

Thank you, 
Tricia

[seiderman]

Believe these threads (department reporting, time off requests) answer your questions, but let me know if you're interested in participating in a future beta. 

[Andrew6]

How can my employees make requests for certain dates they need off?

[seiderman]

Hey @Andrew6, believe this thread answers this question, but let me know if you'd be interested in participating in a future beta!

[drwheel]

I would love to have a shared calendar for my fleet of mobile technicians so that they can see who is working "in the office" now that we're all working from home. In appointments currently, the only option is to access only their own calendar or everyones, there's no in between. If I could make a separate calendar just for office staff that all of the employees can view along with their own that would be AMAZING.

[seiderman]

Hi @drwheel,

Based on your question, it sounds like you're talking about the Appointments Booking product. @Tom should be able to help get your question over to that team for an answer.

Thanks!

[Tom]

Hi @drwheel — thank you for bringing this up. I shared your post with our Appointments team. To be sure we're on the same page, are you looking for an internal calendar (e.g. within the dashboard), or two separate booking sites for your business? Appreciate your patience as we look into this for you!

[drwheel]

Not a separate booking site. Basically I’d like the ability to share more than one calendar with an employee without granting access to everyone else’s calendar. Currently the only option is to grant access to all calendars. The “all or nothing” is the issue I have. 

We’d like the ability to create an “office calendar” that all mobile technicians can see along with their personal calendar so they know who is working in the office since were all working remotely from home now. 

[Tom]

Got it — I'll see what else we can find out. Thanks for that information and for your patience!

[analog440]

Would love to be able to schedule an employee in two different locations during the same day. 

[seiderman]

Hi, @analog440. Thanks for your question. You are currently able to schedule a team member in two different locations on the same day. In fact, you’ll even be able to see if they have a shift conflict from another location when building the schedule! You’ll just want to keep in mind our three shifts per day limit. To schedule between the two locations, simply switch the location filter at the top of the scheduling view.

Hope this helps, but let me know if you run into any issues.

[knieuwoudt]

Is this free to use and how limited is it as opposed to the paid version? How much is the paid version? Thx!

[seiderman]

Thanks for your interest, @knieuwoudt! For more details on pricing and what's included with each version, have a look at my reply to this question. Hope that helps clarify!

[desireess2]

How about scheduling an employee in multiple locations? would love to be able to see their full schedule on one page rather than switching back and forth between locations.

Also, can an employee submit time off requests for a specific date or only set their availability? 

[seiderman]

Hi @desireess2,

Appreciate the feedback on scheduling between multiple locations. We definitely want to make scheduling as quick and easy as possible.

As for time off requests: Have a look at my answers here and here for more details. If you're interested, in participating in our future beta, let me know!

[BellaBistro]

Hello, will this have messaging capabilities to communicate with our staff members?  We currently use HomeBase but would love to use square since we use square point of sale and square payroll. 

[seiderman]

Hi @BellaBistro,

Appreciate the feedback. Messaging is something we hear requested quite often. While I don’t currently have any specifics to share, it is something we hope to support in the future.

[beautymtl]

I don't currently use this feature but couldn't find this information. I own a beauty salon and was wondering if there was a way to set up rules for when client's book their appointments so there's less gaps in the schedule.

For example, employee is available 10am-4pm

A client books from 10-11am - is there a way to make sure the next booking or availability doesn't show at 3pm? 

Because most work on commission it sucks to have a shift of 10-11am and then 3-4pm 

[seiderman]

Hi @beautymtl,

Based on your question, it sounds like you're talking about the Appointments Booking product. @Tom should be able to help get your question over to that team for an answer.

Thanks!