🎯 For admins new to Planday.
Understand the structure of Planday.
Getting started with Planday is easy, but before scheduling, you must set up some basics and invite your employees into the system.
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In this guide, we’ll use a small restaurant as an example, but the steps are the same for businesses in all industries. Follow the steps below to get started.
Create Departments
In Planday, the Schedule is organized into Departments, meaning you’ll need one Department for each of your current schedules. For a restaurant, this typically means you’ll have one Department for Front of House and one for Back of House.
You’ll later assign your employees to a department based on where in the business they can work. Read the structure of Planday article to know more about how your business fits into Planday.
Go to People > Employees and press the (+) button in front of All departments. Alternatively, you can also create or rename existing departments by going to People > Departments > Create Department
Give the Department a name, and if you've already created Employees, you can add them to the Department.
Press Done when you have finished entering details about your department.
Create Employee groups
Employee groups help organize your staff based on skills and their roles in the business. Departments control where employees can work, while Employee groups control what roles/shifts an employee can cover. Go to People > Employees > Create employee group.
Departments and Employee groups are the two main building blocks of Planday. For flexibility, each employee can be assigned to multiple Departments and Employee groups.
When you later create shifts in Planday, only employees assigned to the Department and Employee group set to the shift can pick it up.
To create an Employee group:
Go to People > Employees > and press the (+) button in front of Employee group. Alternatively, you can also create or rename existing groups by going to People > Employee groups > Create employee group
Give the Employee group a name; if you've already created employees, you can add them to the Employee group.
Press Done when you have finished entering details about your employee group.
Create employees
You are now ready to create employees and assign them to Departments and Employee groups based on their roles in the business.
Go to People > Employees > and press the Create employee button.
When creating Employees, we recommend adding their contact information so you can invite them to Planday. In addition, you can assign your employees to Departments and Employee groups, which will determine which shifts they can cover in the Schedule.
Go to People > Employees and select Create employee.
Fill out their name and contact information.
Add the employee to one or more Departments.
Add the employee to one or more Employee groups, and set their hourly wage per Employee group.
After you've added the information, press Save.
Send login information to your new staff member, which will be delivered to the email address associated with their account.
If you want to send login information later, you can bulk invite when you finish the setup.
Start scheduling
With Departments, Employee groups, and Employees created, you're ready to start scheduling. Go to Schedule > Schedule in the top menu, and choose wherever you want to create a shift. It's as easy as that.
In the Schedule, you can work in three views: Employees, Groups, and Positions. For now, you should get what you need from the Employees and Groups views. Please have a look at this article for more on how to schedule using the Positions view.
Create shifts
To create a shift, click on the Schedule where you want to create the shift. Shifts can be created from any of the three views: Groups, Employees, and Positions.
Move shifts with drag and drop
To move a shift, drag and drop it to wherever you want. This feature is especially useful if you assign Open shifts from the Employees view. Just drag an Open shift and drop it to assign it to an employee.
Copy shifts
If you have the same shift on multiple days, copy the shift by holding down Alt/Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows), then drag and drop a copy of the shift wherever you need it.
Delete shifts
Shifts can be deleted individually, or bulk delete all shifts in a week.
Delete a single shift: Click the shift, then click Delete at the bottom of the dialogue box.
Delete all shifts in a week: Go to Tools in the top right corner and select Delete this week.
Create and use schedule templates
When you’ve familiarized yourself with the schedule and want to bring down the time you spend scheduling, it’s time to dive into schedule templates. Read more in this article on Schedule templates.
Set up Punch Clock and approve timesheets
Do you want to track your employees’ hours in Planday? With Punch Clock employees can start and end their shifts using the app, and you can approve time sheets for payroll from within Planday. In addition, you can always compare the scheduled shifts to what the employees actually worked. This is an excellent tool for continuously improving your schedule and controlling your staffing costs.
Read more on how to Setup Punch Clock.
Invite your employees
When your schedule is ready, and Punch Clock is set up, you can invite your employees in one go.
Go to People > Employees > press the Tools menu > and click Send invitations. You can also filter by Department and invite staff per department.
Read more on How to create, edit, and invite Employees.
Need more help?
Please search for answers in the 🔍 Help Center or watch our ▶️ video tutorials.
Contact our support team via the blue icon at the bottom if you have more questions.
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