Adding a collaborator from A to Z

Adding someone to Shyfter is not just about typing a name. For a collaborator to be truly operational (schedulable, able to clock in, exportable to payroll), several settings need to be in place. This article follows a new arrival from start to finish, in the order you should tackle it.

Everything happens in Team → Users, then inside the collaborator's profile.

Step 0: prepare the ground before your first arrival

A few account settings shape everything that follows. Doing them once saves you from revisiting every profile.

• User statuses (Settings ⚙️ → General → Users status) represent worker profiles: Employee, Student, Flexi, Extra. The status drives the cost, the way performance is calculated, the counters available and the inclusion in payroll exports. It is the only one of the three that is essential.
• Sections (Settings ⚙️ → Sections → Manage sections) split your business into work areas: bar, kitchen, dining room, aisles, departments. They are used to assign shifts and to limit a manager's scope.
• Skills (Settings ⚙️ → Skills) describe what each person is able to do and help you put the right profile on the right position.

Sections and skills are optional and depend on your subscription plan. Many companies work perfectly well without them, especially smaller teams with versatile roles. If they are not included in your plan, not enabled, or if you have not created any, the corresponding fields simply do not appear in the screens described below. You can set them up later without breaking anything.

You can also decide, in the account settings, which fields are mandatory when creating a collaborator. Those fields, and only those, will appear in the Manual tab described below.

A collaborator without a status is not included in performance exports. It is the most common oversight when someone joins.

Step 1: create the profile

From Team → Users, click Create user in the top right corner. The Add a collaborator panel opens on the right with three tabs.

Manual tab

You enter the information yourself. The panel displays the fields set as mandatory on your account (typically Last name, First name, Phone and Email), then:

• Sections: one or more sections. This field only appears if sections are included in your subscription and at least one section exists.
• Status: the person's user status. Always present.
• Skills: one or more skills. This field only appears if skills are included in your subscription.

Click Save. The profile is created and can be scheduled straight away.

E-mails tab

You only know the e-mail address? Paste the addresses in the text area, one per line, then click Send. Each person receives an individual registration form to fill in themselves. Until they reply, the invitation stays visible in Team → Pending registrations, where you can send a reminder.

Upload tab

For a bulk arrival, drop a CSV or Excel file in the upload area (a Download XLS example button gives you the template). The file must contain one e-mail address per line, the first line being the column header. Shyfter then asks you to point out the Column name holding the e-mails, and sends a registration form to each address.

The fourth route: the public registration form

Beyond the creation panel, you can share a unique registration link, available in Settings ⚙️ → General → Registration form. People who fill it in land in Team → Users in validation, where you check their data and click Validate (or Invalidate). You can validate several registrations at once.

Step 2: complete the profile data

Open the collaborator's profile from the list, then the Profile tab, Profile details sub-tab. It is made of four blocks.

The minimum, and what is worth adding

For a profile to work, four pieces of data are enough: last name, first name, e-mail (it doubles as the login and receives the connection details) and phone (essential if you send SMS notifications). With that, the person can be scheduled today.

Everything else is optional right now, but every completed field saves you time later:

• The national number (NISS) is required for Dimona declarations in Belgium. Without it, no Dimona will go out.
• The full address, date of birth, place and country of birth, nationality, civil status and gender are requested by contracts and by payroll providers.
• The IBAN and BIC are used for payroll exports.
• The language determines the one used in the app and in the messages the person receives.

In short: start with the minimum if you are in a hurry, but aim for a complete profile. An incomplete file always catches up with you when it is time to issue a contract, send a Dimona or run an export to the payroll provider. If you would rather not type all of this yourself, the E-mails tab or the registration form lets the collaborator fill in their own data.

Basic information: First name, Last name, Nickname (the name shown in the schedule if you set one), Language of the interface and messages, Email and Phone.

Additional profile information: National number, Date and place of birth, Civil status, Gender, Country of birth, Nationality, IBAN and BIC.

Address: street, number, box, postal code, city, country.

Additional information: the custom fields you created in the account settings.

An orange dot next to a piece of data flags a mandatory item that is missing or unverified. This is often the case for the national number until it has been validated.

The collaborator's picture

At the top right of the profile, a circle shows the collaborator's initials as long as no picture has been added. Click on it to upload an image from your computer: Shyfter offers a circular crop before saving, so you do not have to prepare the file beforehand. All common image formats are accepted.

The picture is not mandatory, but it makes the schedule far easier to read, especially in large teams or with many seasonal workers. To remove it, hover over the thumbnail and use the delete icon: the collaborator goes back to their initials.

Two small arrows sit on either side of the picture. They jump straight to the previous or next profile in your list, without going back to the table. Handy when you are completing several arrivals in a row.

The action column

Below the picture, a column gathers the quick actions for this collaborator: Schedule (open their roster), Send info (send their connection details), Change password, Disable or Reactivate the profile, and the Rating given to the collaborator. For a profile coming from the registration form, the Validate and Invalidate buttons also appear here.

The Pin code is displayed in plain text just below the name, with a green pencil icon to change it. These three items (connection details, password, PIN code) are covered in step 9.

Step 3: fill in the HR data

Still in the Profile tab, open the HR sub-tab. It is only visible to the administrator, HR manager and planning manager roles. This is where everything related to hours calculation and payroll is decided.

The first block sets the contract framework:

• Start (mandatory) and End of the employment.
• User status: confirm or correct the status, with the option to create one on the fly via Add new status.
• General Worktime calculation method: Planned hours or Clocking hours.
• Overtime calculation basis: the source used to feed the counters (difference between planning and clocking, planning only, or clocking only, compared to the contract).

The HR settings block then covers the hourly Gross cost, the Employer cost (calculated from the status coefficient), the Days worked per week, the Total hours per week, optionally the yearly and quarterly hour limits, the Wage type and the Working time plan.

Depending on your country and your options, you also get Leave and recovery settings (statutory leave, RTT, previous year recovery, extra-statutory days) and the Flexibility and allowances block. On accounts using the full HR file, further blocks detail the worker, the contract, the occupation, the reductions, the meal vouchers and the company car, mainly for Belgian payroll providers.

Step 4: set the access rights

Open the Settings sub-tab. The first block, Access level, holds the Access type field with four roles:

• User: access to the Shyfter Staff app only, no access to the management platform. This is the employees' role.
• Planning Manager: access to the platform, focused on day to day schedule operations.
• HR-Manager: access to the platform, geared towards contracts, documents, reports and payroll.
• Account administrator: full access, settings included. The only role allowed to grant access to others.

Picking a role automatically ticks a default set of rights in the User access rights block just below. You can then untick them one by one: shift management and creation, clocking management, Dimona management, change request management, report management, timesheet export management, document management, display of financial information, productivity management. Each box only appears if the matching module is active on your account.

Below the access type, the Manager field designates the person who will approve this collaborator's leave requests. Leave it on None if you do not want to delegate that approval.

Only an administrator can change an access type, and nobody can change their own: the field is greyed out on your own profile.

Step 5: sections and skills (if your subscription includes them)

These two notions are optional and depend on your subscription plan. If they are not included, or if you have chosen not to use them, go straight to the next step: the blocks below do not appear on the profile and you are not missing anything to build a schedule.

If you do have them, two side by side blocks in the Settings sub-tab let you adjust what you may already have filled in at creation.

Sections: select the sections the person belongs to. For an employee, it says where they work. For a manager, it limits their scope: they only see and manage the collaborators and schedules of those sections. An Add a new section link saves you a trip to the settings.

Skills: select the positions the person can cover. Here too, an Add a new skill link is available. For a manager, the skills assigned define the ones they will see in the schedule, while an administrator always sees them all.

Step 6: the individual settings

The Additional information block gathers the switches specific to this collaborator. They only appear if the matching module is active on your account. The main ones:

• Show coworkers and Display the schedules of all employees: what the person sees of other people's schedules.
• Allow the free shifts booking: the person can book themselves on free shifts.
• Can send unavailability and Authorize leave request via the app.
• Can send change requests about their shifts.
• Allow shift swap requests: swapping shifts between colleagues.
• Can clock on the mobile app and Can clock on the POS: the clocking channels allowed.
• Allow modification of own clockings.
• Flat-rate employee, Allow home-working, Show overtime counter in the app.
• Contact person for the account.
• Can manage payslips.
• On the Belgian side: Eligible for Dimona, with a Dimona Status (worker type), Modify dimona based on planned clocking data, Create a dimona for free clockings and Automatic dimona for free clockings.

Two display settings complete the block: the Shift display delay (from no delay up to two days, to reveal a shift only as it approaches) and Hide the shifts after (day), expressed in days.

Depending on your modules, further blocks follow: Appears in the following PDF (which schedule documents this person receives), Automation and default data (automatic generation of the Dimona and the contract, with the Default contract template), Integrations (for instance the Restomax identifier) and, on the relevant accounts, a Check In & Out at Work block with the Subcontractor VAT.

Do not forget to save at the bottom of the page.

Step 7: automate the schedule with a schedule model

This is the step people forget most often, and yet the one that saves the most time. If your collaborator works to a regular pattern (say every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 9am to 5pm), there is no need to rebuild their roster every week: create a schedule model once, apply it, and Shyfter generates the shifts for you.

Go to Profile → Schedule models.

Create the model

Click Add a schedule model, give it a Name (for example "Basic schedule") and confirm with Create.

The model then appears as a typical week. You place the shifts day by day, exactly as in the schedule. The Add an extra week button lets you build a cycle over several weeks: two alternating weeks, a four week rotation, and so on. Each week can be edited or deleted independently.

Apply the model

Once the typical week is filled in, click Apply this schedule model. A short form asks you for:

• From: the date on which the model starts producing shifts.
• To: the end date, to be left empty if the pattern has no planned end.
• Mode: Manual or Automatic. In automatic mode, Shyfter generates the shifts for you over time, without you having to come back to it.
• Automatically approve shifts: Yes or No. On Yes, the generated shifts are approved directly.

When you switch to automatic mode, Shyfter offers to Start now or to Wait until tomorrow for the first generation. The Deactivate this schedule model button stops the generation at any time.

Deleting a model or a week erases the shifts of the model, never the shifts already planned in your schedules, approved or not. So you can tidy up without fear.

If several models overlap on the same date, Shyfter warns you and merges them on validation. To avoid any conflict, keep only one active model per period.

Step 8: notifications

The Notifications sub-tab of the Profile tab defines, for this collaborator, which alerts they receive and through which channel: e-mail notifications, SMS, in-app alerts, plus the detail by type (shift booking, clocking, change requests, contracts, Dimona, shift swap).

SMS sent from the platform are charged per message and added to your monthly invoice. Shyfter reminds you with a confirmation before enabling the option.

Step 9: password, PIN code and access to the app

All that remains is to let the person log in. Two credentials coexist and do not serve the same purpose:

• The password is used to log into the Shyfter Staff app, on a smartphone or in a browser.
• The PIN code, four digits, is used to clock in on the Shyfter POS tablet.

Send the connection details

From Profile → Profile details, click Send info in the right hand column. Shyfter asks for confirmation, then sends the collaborator an e-mail with their connection details for Shyfter Staff. This is the action that actually opens up access to their schedule.

For several arrivals at once, the toolbar of Team → Users offers Send connection information to multiple users: you select the people concerned and everything goes out in one go.

Set or reset the password

In principle, your collaborators can manage on their own thanks to the Forgot password link on the login screen. If that is not possible, do it for them: click Change password, enter the new password and its confirmation, and confirm. Shyfter confirms the change and automatically e-mails the new password to the collaborator. So you do not have to pass it on yourself.

View or change the PIN code

The PIN code is visible in plain text below the collaborator's name, at the top of the profile. That is where you find it again when someone has forgotten it and calls you from the tablet.

To change it, click the pencil icon next to the code: a window opens, you type four digits (no more, no less, digits only) and confirm.

Unlike the password, the PIN code cannot be changed by the collaborator. Only a manager can view it and change it.

Finally, check in Profile → Settings that the Can clock on the mobile app and Can clock on the POS switches match the way this person is supposed to clock in.

Check before you schedule

Before placing the first shift, run through this list:

1. The profile is active and not waiting for validation.
2. The four minimum items are there: last name, first name, e-mail, phone.
3. A user status is set, otherwise the performances will not reach payroll.
4. The HR data has a start date and a consistent number of hours per week.
5. The access type and the rights match the person's real role.
6. If your subscription includes sections and skills and you use them, they are filled in, so the person shows up in the right place in the schedule. Otherwise there is nothing to do.
7. If the roster is regular, a schedule model is created and applied, ideally in automatic mode.
8. The connection details have been sent and the PIN code is known if the person clocks in on the POS.
9. In Belgium, the national number is validated if you file Dimona declarations.

Track arrivals in progress

The Team menu keeps track of unfinished files: Users in validation lists the people whose profile is waiting for your approval, and Pending registrations lists the forms sent but not yet completed, with the option to resend the invitation, correct an e-mail address or link the registration to an existing collaborator.