In Catermonkey, you can schedule staff using the built-in ‘Plan your team’ scheduling module. There are two ways to assign staff to a shift: your own colleagues (schedule them directly or send them an invitation) or external staff, for example via a temporary employment agency.
Your own colleagues
Step 1: Invite colleagues as users
Before you can schedule colleagues, they must be linked to your account as Staff.
Go to Settings and click on Manage your team.
Click on ‘Invite colleagues’.
Enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite.
These people will receive an email containing a link. They can use this to create a username (their email address) and password. Once this is done, refresh the ‘Manage your team’ page and you’ll find them listed in the overview. Click on the arrow to the right of their name to add staff roles, then click on the green tick to save the changes.
Step 2: Specify how many staff members you need
Go to the assignment for which you want to plan staff.
Scroll down to ‘Plan your team’ and click on it.
A window will appear:
On the left, under ‘Staff required’, enter how many staff members you need for the event.
On the right, under ‘Summary of schedule’, you can see how many staff members you still need to schedule.
Scroll down to select staff by ticking the white box to the left of their name.
Step 3: Choose your scheduling method
Option 1 — Schedule
immediately The staff member is immediately assigned to the task, with no option to decline. Only use this if you are certain the staff member is available.
The staff member is scheduled immediately and cannot refuse.
The status ‘Scheduled’ appears in the staff portal.
Here’s how it works: open the assignment → click on ‘Schedule your team’ → select the staff member → click on ‘Schedule immediately’ at the bottom.
Option 2 — Send
an invitation The staff member receives an invitation for the assignment and can accept it (✔) or decline it (✖). They can also leave a comment, for example, that they are available but at a later time.
You’ll receive an email as soon as someone responds.
Here’s how it works: open the shift → click on ‘Schedule your team’ → select the staff member → click on ‘Send invitation’ at the bottom.
Once you’ve invited or scheduled staff, you can see who you’ve added under ‘Staff scheduled/invited for this event’.
Tip: Show more detailed information
Go to ‘Plan your team’ in the assignment and click on the pencil icon to edit this field. Under ‘Staff required’, you can tick the box next to ‘Show more detailed information on the staff portal for this event’.
Staff will then only see additional details – such as customer details, location details, product details (excluding prices) and contact details of the rest of the scheduled team – for the events they are scheduled for.
Tip: Keep staff automatically informed
Under General settings (the cog icon), you’ll find two options for automatically notifying staff of changes:
Automatically email staff following a change to their shift.
Automatically email staff following a change to the assignment (status, date or time).
External staff
Do you often work with agency staff? If so, you can also schedule external staff. You do this manually for each assignment.
Do you work with one particular agency a lot? If so, add a supplier in the settings using the agency’s name. This helps you keep a clear overview of where your staff come from.
How to use external staff:
Specify in the bottom right-hand corner how many external staff you wish to schedule. Use option (1) for a temporary employment agency, and option (2) for staff roles.
Click on ‘Schedule external staff’.
At the bottom, under ‘Staff scheduled/invited for this event’, enter the names, telephone numbers and email addresses you have been provided with.
Overview and insight via the calendar
As well as scheduling by assignment, the calendar also offers overview functions.
Lists and overviews
An Owner/Administrator or Office account can download an overview here of selected assignments for the scheduled staff.
Tools — your team’s
availability View here, in a single overview, when your staff members are scheduled, invited or available. This is primarily intended to provide insight: the actual scheduling of staff takes place within the assignments themselves.
If you have any further questions about this, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! Chat with us or call +31 (0)88 266 6539.
Kind regards,
The Catermonkey Team 🍌