🎯 For Admins. This feature, formally called Planning metrics, is included in the Pro Plan and up. Reach out to our support team if you'd like to try it out.
The Data Center formulas feature, along with the Data sets, is a smart scheduling tool that allows you to keep track of your planning needs.
In order to achieve that, you will need to start with the data aspect. Using Data sets, you can input what you want to keep track of and lay down the foundation for making smarter Schedule decisions.
How to create Data sets
From the Reports > Data Center page, click on the Data sets tab.
On the Data sets page, you'll find the Add data button in the top right corner.
This will open a window where you can enter an ID, a description, select a time unit, and how to handle the data in your set.
General:
ID
The Data set ID can be used to reference the set you are creating in a Formula, and it must be unique for your organization. This is how the Planday will know which of your metrics should use which data.
You can only write an ID with uppercase letters and use an underscore as a separator (e.g: THIS_IS_AN_ID). For your convenience, the formatting is preset for you, where required.
When writing IDs, you should only use letters. Any numbers or other symbols might cause errors when used in Formula.
Later, by typing #YOUR_ID, you will be able to reference your data set. For instance, if you want to use it in a Formula.
You can find more about Formulas here.
Description
The description of your data set can be used to briefly explain what data it contains and what the data means.
This will be visible on the Data sets overview list and can quickly communicate what it can be used for.
With the general settings in place, you need to decide how detailed the data needs to be when entering it in the weekly input table.
Time unit & grouping:
Here, you will configure the rows and columns of your Data set input table.
Please keep in mind that once your Data set is created it is not possible to modify its Schedule settings. If you need a different setup, you will need to create a new metric.
Time unit
Because your data sets can be shown in the Schedule as a formula, it's important to know what and how they are represented. That's what Time unit types can be used for.
Assigning a predefined unit type will ensure that you have all the necessary information, in your schedule overview.
Selecting a time unit will shape how much data needs to be entered, per day:
Input data for each day: there will be only 1 data entry for each day (1 row for each day column).
Input data for each hour: there will be a cell available for every hour of the day (in total, 24 rows for possible data entries, for each day column).
Input data for daily time blocks: you can define your time blocks and insert the values for each
(Optional) Input data for custom periods: you can with this option define a budget for custom periods (like a month for example) by position or section. If you want to use this feature, contact our Support team so we can enable this for you.
You can enter the data from the Data Center > Data sets page in the table created for your metric or import it through a CSV file.
There are more details about adding data, in the section below.
In the same view, you can set whether the data entered will apply to your entire Schedule, or whether they should be different per Department, Section or Position, by choosing to assign or apply your metric:
globally: the data is visible from every department, and is not influenced by the Department, Position, or Section selected for your Schedule view.
assign different values to individual departments: the data is visible from specific departments
For example, if you choose to enter data for each hour and you want to have different values for each department, your metric will have as many different tables as you have departments.
In the example below, there are only two departments: Back of House and Front of House, and as you can see from the two pictures, the tables for both departments can be found under the same metric.
The two options for assign/apply different values to individual sections within a department and assign/apply different values to individual positions within a department work in a similar way.
If you choose one of those two options, you also need to specify the Department.
Here's an example of how the table will look like for a Data set, for input data for each day, with different values to individual positions within a Department. In this example, the Kitchen Department has two different Positions: Lunch and Dinner.
Please note that It is not possible to create a data set that only applies to one Position or Section (if you have more than one, in a Department). However, you can enter values for only that one Position or Section in your Data set, and like that, the data will only be visible for that Position and Section.
Click "Create" to start entering values for your Data set.
Please note, that you can later edit the Description, but not the ID or Time unit & grouping for your Data set. More details about editing and deleting metrics can be found in this article.
Adding values to a Data set
On the Data sets page, you can see a list with all the metrics you have already created. Simply select the metric you need from this list. The input table for your metric will appear in the tab for Data set, displaying one week at a time.
Navigate to the week you need (from the arrows surrounding the date range).
Entering data
Here, you can type in your data directly, for as many weeks as you need. Remember to click Save (top right corner button) for your data to be registered in Planday.
If you input any data and then navigate somewhere else outside the metric without clicking on Save, the data will need to be entered again.
The data you enter needs to be numerical (with 2 decimals max.). Also, keep in mind that all the cells that have no number entered will not be used by your metric (for instance, either in your schedule or in the formula metrics they might be referenced in). This means that adding the value 0 to a cell in your row/column will not give the same results as leaving the cell empty.
Importing data (via CSV)
Also in the top right corner, you can find a CSV button, that gives you the option to Export and Import data from a CSV file (a file that contains Comma-Separated Values).
A CSV file is similar to a spreadsheet and can be opened and saved from both MS Excel and Google Sheets.
To make sure that your data is imported correctly, you can first Export a CSV file and use that as a template.
Using an extra file like this might also be useful if your metric data needs to be collected from different Departments or colleagues.
Similarly, if you want to keep a record of the previously entered data, you Export a CSV file from any date range (past, current, or future).
If your CSV file cannot be used to import data, you will notice a message explaining what went wrong. Read more about troubleshooting your Data sets in this article.
Now that you have set up your Data set and put in all the data you need, you're one step closer to displaying it in your schedule.
See related articles:
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