Problematic logging of hours (scheduled shifts vs clocked hours)

[skafte]

Hi there,

Just a bit of feedback in the hope that Square will look into this and make some improvements.

I find it really confusing the way that scheduled shifts work vs clocked hours. Here's an example:

Sometimes Square seems to create a new row for clocked hours and sometimes it falls in line with the scheduled shift and it's very unclear why.

Also, it's not ideal that someone can clock into a shift with a different assigned job than what the shift is for. Hope that makes sense. It means that it's very hard for employees to work out which shift they are checking into if they have more than one shift in a day (sometimes it might be necessary to check into a later shift than the upcoming one if plans change), and if, on top of that, they can just pick which job they are checking in with, then that heavily increases the risk of them checking into the wrong shift with the wrong job. In return, this causes a real headache for business owners trying to work out how much each employee should be paid by the end of the month.

I really hope Square will look into this and try and make some improvements here. One thing could be to allow employees to check into any shift that is scheduled for them in a day and not just the next one coming up. This would help, but it would also still be helpful if it was possible to 'lock' certain jobs to certain shifts.

Let me know if you have any questions. I hope this is helpful!

Cheers!

[skafte]

PS. Forgot to mention that our employees have asked for the possibility to add notes to shifts via the dashboard after a shift has finished. It's currently possible to add notes to shifts, but only whilst it's still being clocked. Thanks!

[Breffni]

Hi @skafte, thanks for this post! 

The screenshot is super helpful, this definitely looks like some valuable insights that I can pass along to our Shifts team. 

Just taking a look at the first example Green Manager/Barista is scheduled to work from 6:30 - 12:00 

but they actually clocked in at 9:26 and this created a row below, rather than on top of (or adding to) the already present 6:30 - 12:00 line - is that what you mean?

If so, I do agree there should be a way to combine it into one line, just let me know if I got the right idea, thanks! 

[skafte]

Hi there @Breffni,

Many thanks for your quick response.

Yes, that is correctly understood. However, I don't think the second row has anything to do with how late that employee checked in. Here's an example of the same thing happening, on a different day, but where the employee checked in at almost the correct time:

The problem only seem to happen for employees that have more than one role/job.

There seems to also be a problem with employees checking into the wrong shifts with the wrong jobs. Here's an example where the employee has somehow clocked in early to what was meant to be a 'Roaster' shift and which was meant to start at 15pm, but with the 'Manager/Barista' job instead:

Here are the shifts as they were scheduled:

I don't know how he did that, but the whole 'scheduled shifts' and 'clocked hours' seems to be in need of some serious TLC. It's all a bit confusing both for our employees and for us as business owners.

Thanks again for taking the time to look into this! I really appreciate you help.

[Breffni]

Hmm, both of those do seem off @skafte, thanks so much for the context. 

I've shared this thread and the screenshots with the team who owns these features to see if they can give us any insight here, or maybe we'll be making them aware so something that needs attention. 

I'm not sure if I'll get a response over the next two days with the holidays, but if I do/when I do, I'll follow up here! 

[skafte]

Hi there @Breffni,

Hope you've enjoyed the holidays and that you've had a good start to the new year!

Any news on this by any chance?

Cheers!

[Breffni]

Thanks @skafte, same to you 🙂 

Yes, sorry I forgot to follow up here. 

So a couple of members of the shifts team took a look at this and here's what they came back with as some potential causes: 

Assuming the employee clocked in from POS or the Team app, the shifts should be associated with each other and show up as one combined bar. Some reasons that might not be happening in this case:

• The scheduled start time and the recorded start time were more than 1 hour apart (i.e., clocked in more than 1 hour before the shift started, or more than 1 hour afterwards)—though it sounds like this isn’t the case here since it’s happening two minutes apart, too
• The scheduled shift and recorded shift were at two different locations (i.e., scheduled for Location A, but clocked in at Location B)
• The recorded hours were added to the Dashboard rather than at the POS. In this case, if you add a shift by selecting “Add shift record”, it’ll create two separate bars. If you select “Add hours” after clicking on the scheduled shift bar, it’ll treat them as one combined bar

If none of these account for what you are seeing, then this may be a system error that we need to take a closer look into. 

[skafte]

Hi there @Breffni, many thanks for your quick response!

Thanks also for sharing the feedback you were given. Here are my responses:

---

• The scheduled start time and the recorded start time were more than 1 hour apart (i.e., clocked in more than 1 hour before the shift started, or more than 1 hour afterwards)—though it sounds like this isn’t the case here since it’s happening two minutes apart, too

– That makes sense, but you're right; I have several examples of where the employee checked in around the same time as the shift was due to start, but it still appears in a separate row.

• The scheduled shift and recorded shift were at two different locations (i.e., scheduled for Location A, but clocked in at Location B)

– We only use one location for all shifts. So I don't believe that could be what is causing this.

• The recorded hours were added to the Dashboard rather than at the POS. In this case, if you add a shift by selecting “Add shift record”, it’ll create two separate bars. If you select “Add hours” after clicking on the scheduled shift bar, it’ll treat them as one combined bar

---

– I'm afraid that that also isn't/wasn't the case.

[A while later...]

Having inspected the shifts that are wrongly placed as separate rows, it seems to happen to shifts that have been edited by the employee via their phone. Could that be the case? -if so, then it's not really ideal that an employee cannot edit their shift without the shift being moved to a different row and, therefore, being treated as a different shift. It's causing a whole lot of confusion.

I hope Square will look into improving this area and that my case can serve as a good example of why it's needed.

Many thanks and kind regards,

[Breffni]

Thanks for taking the time to check @skafte. 

I did share this thread and the team members helping me with it mentioned that they are actively working on improvements here which will also give them a better understanding of what may be the cause, but it is a work in progress at the moment. 

I don't have access to check if this came from the employee who made an edit on their phone, I'd suggest if possible doing a test with someone and checking if you can replicate the double entry. If so, it may be one to contact our support team so that they can file a ticket for investigation here and get this looked at sooner! Sorry as I know this is making a clunky experience for you!