Work management¶
Entering work into the application¶
The work ordered by the customer must first be entered into the system. This can be done in several ways.
If you receive an order specification by email or otherwise outside of Sinch, you can enter it into the system in the New job dialog in which you can specify necessary information about the planned job:
- For which customer is the job planned? (see Companies).
- Within which order will the job be invoiced? (see Orders).
- Which price list will the work be calculated by? (see Price lists).
Add new job
Setting up shifts¶
It is also necessary to plan individual shifts of the job.
Each job must have at least one shift, but there can be as many shifts as needed. That way it is possible to plan both simple jobs, with one shift in one location, and complex jobs that needs to be conducted by many people, various professions and in multiple locations, such as staffing of music festivals.
Each shift contains detailed information about planned work activities:
- What profession is supposed to perform the work within the shift (see Professions).
- Shift date.
- Start and duration of the shift.
- Shift location (see Locations).
- A necessary description of the shift.
- Number of staff members and job requirements (see Rating, Attributes and Badges) for the given shift.
Add new job - specify shifts
Builder¶
Jobs requiring more complex settings can be modified in the Builder. The Builder is an advanced schedule editing environment that includes advanced features, the ability to select and edit multiple jobs at once, and more (see Builder).
Price quote¶
Any job can first be created in the Price quote mode. This means that the entered job serves as a calculation quote for the customer. Only after the customer’s approval is the job confirmed and opened for staff member registration.
Registered customer interface¶
Registered customers can also place orders themselves via a dedicated application interface, thus saving you time and back-to-back communication with the client. Such an order must then be confirmed or rejected by your company's administrator and, if confirmed, must be accompanied by additional information, such as staff member requirements.
Management of upcoming work¶
After confirmation, the job is published. Shifts that are yet to take place can be found and managed in the Upcoming shifts section. This page lists all of the scheduled jobs with basic details, sorted by the nearest upcoming shift.
Upcoming shifts
By clicking on a shift, you can open a view with detailed information, an overview of the staff members signed up for that shift, all with editing possibilities.
Shift detail
Staff member assignment¶
In order to carry out a job, it is necessary to ensure the necessary number of staff members.
The timely occupation of planned jobs can be monitored on the “Upcoming shifts” page or on the “Empty positions” page specifically designed for this purpose.
There are two ways to ensure that a shift has a sufficient number of staff members:
Staff member self-registration¶
With Sinch, there is no need to allocate specific staff members to jobs. Job offers can be published for self-registration. Staff members will find such a job in their own application interface (see Worker profile) and if they are interested, have time and meet the job requirements, they can sign up for the job themselves. In their portal they will see all of the necessary information about the job that you entered into the system when you created it.
Staff member requirements¶
It is up to you how strict you set the job requirements to ensure that an unskilled staff member does not sign up for the job (see Rating, Attributes, Badges). The Sinch application draws all of the necessary information about the qualification of individual staff members from their profiles (see Worker profile).
It is also possible to set the latest time before the job starts, after which the staff member can no longer sign himself off and the earliest time after a finished shift, at which they can sign up for another job.
Let the staff members sign themselves up and only monitor if there are enough people for the job.
Note
Despite the possibility of staff member self-registration, you still have complete control over the occupation of each shift. If you have a reason for a particular staff members not to perform a specific job for which they have applied, you can remove them from that job. Likewise, you can lock positions so they are not available for self-registration or hide them so staff members do not even see them in their self-service system.
Assigning specific staff members to specific positions¶
If it is necessary to secure a job position by a particular staff members, it is possible to do so on the shift’s detail page. Here you can check the occupation of positions by specific people and allocate specific people to vacant positions.
Monitoring of running jobs¶
Jobs in progress can be monitored in the Running shifts list, with the same display options as in the Upcoming shifts section.
Closing of finished jobs¶
Shift closing by the lead worker¶
After the job is finished, it will move to the “Finished shifts” list.
A completed shift must first be closed by the lead worker who coordinated the work on the spot (see Roles). This staff member takes and confirms the attendance of all other staff members and reports any changes or other important information to the person who will close the job as an administrator of your company.
Shift closing and confirmation by administrator¶
Shifts closed by lead workers are displayed on the page as To close by admin.
From this page, it is possible to open the details of shifts awaiting final confirmation by the responsible administrator of your company. On this page, you can also check and correct working times of the staff members who provided the job and make other adjustments, including the amount of salaries, bonuses and the cost of work done.
Shift closing
The review at this stage must be done very carefully - completed and confirmed data about the job directly affect how much money the customer will be invoiced for job as part of their order (see Billing orders), as well as what the amount of staff member's wages will be (see Wage lists).
Transportation management¶
Info
Only available when Transportation module is present.
If your company arranges and reimburses transportation for staff members, Sinch offers an optional extension module for handling travel times and costs.
The main benefit of this module is that it helps you to keep track of your transportation expenses. In all job details, on price quotations and in billings, you will clearly see how much time the staff members spent en route, how much it cost in salaries and how much the customer paid for it. Furthermore, it will help with the organization of transportation. Staff members will have clear information about transportation directly in the application, so they know if they have to travel for work, where to meet and when.
When entering a new shift into the application (see Setting up shifts) it is possible to set whether it has organised transportation to the place of work, from the place of work, or both.
For shifts with organised transportation, it is possible to set departure and arrival locations, travel duration, travel distance, description for staff members, and number of drivers.
Transport setup
There is a special transportation price list and wage list, where you can set what the cost will be for clients and how much the staff members will be paid.
After the work is completed, the lead worker has to enter real travel times of attending staff members and whether they traveled as drivers, or passengers (see Closing of finished jobs).
Transport closing
In the order and job details, you can then see which jobs and shifts had organized transportation, and an expenses breakdown for each shift and attending worker.
Transport detail