Author: John Cranston

Day 8: Run some reports and timesheets

Now that you have a few days of data, you already have some valuable information waiting for you inside SYNCrew! Running a few reports now will show you what you have collected and also show you

  1. Run a work block report. You can get there by clicking “Reports” in the left navigation and then selecting “Work Block Reports.” At first, just pick a date range of “Last 7 days” and click run so you can see what this report shows.

    Once you see that, click to “show filter” and then you can play around to find things by entering a worker and/or projects. What makes this report so powerful is that you can find the needle-in-the-haystack – things like, “I need to see all the work last July that George did at 123 Main St.” Like magic, the work block report will show you instantly!
Learn about work block reports

2. Run a Timesheet. Click “Manage” in the left navigation and then select “Timesheets.” The date should automatically show the current pay period so you can just click “run.” You can see more details about timesheets by clicking the button below.

Learn about Timesheets

Days 9-14: Get everybody started

Now that you and a few selected workers have tried the app and honed all the settings and details, the next step is to get the worker accounts created and get the word out that SYNCrew is how everybody will log their work going forward.

The two links below have useful information to achieve this but please contact your account manager or support@syncrew.com if you have any questions or just want to walk through your plan.

How to add workers
Tips for getting your team started with SYNCrew

Welcome to SYNCrew!

Tips for getting started with SYNCrew

While the SYNCrew app is easy to use, it is sometimes a trick to get the workers to start using the app. Below are some best practices to help make sure your rollout is successful. Please keep in mind that each company we serve is unique and if these tips don’t make sense for you, please reach out to your account manager or support@syncrew.com as we have likely helped somebody in a similar situation and will have ideas for how to change the script for your needs!

Best process for a smooth start

This list will take you 5 minutes to read and a few more to follow, but your start with SYNCrew will be seamless if you follow this. As always, we are here to help so please

  1. Use it yourself: Test the app yourself to make sure the projects and settings look familiar. Getting this right will make workers feel more comfortable with the app.
  2. Make sure your setup is perfect: Check in with your SYNCrew account manager with any questions about how to make the app perfect for your needs. If you don’t know who you account manager is, you can email support@syncrew.com and they can direct you to them.
  3. Set a start date: Pick a pay period to start using SYNCrew. If your pay week ends Sunday, have them start on the following Monday so you have a clean transition from the old system to the new one. We do NOT recommend running SYNCrew and your old system together for a few weeks as this makes it confusing for the workers. It may be scary to make a hard switch, but our experience is that you will be much happier for it! Don’t forget that we are here to help you and your workers with any issues that may arise.
  4. Talk to your team: In the week before your start date, meet with the employees in person (or on the phone if in-person is not feasible) to do the following:
    1. Explain the benefits to your workers: They may be nervous about “being tracked” (see below) and understanding the benefits to the company and to them will ease this.
    2. Send welcome text: When you add workers to SYNCrew, they automatically get a text message welcoming them. This text also has instrutions on how to download the app and log in. We recommend you send this around the meeting and make sure that everybody knows the text message will be coming or else they will ignore as SPAM.
    3. Make the start date clear: The more clear you are, the better.
  5. Log into SYNCrew each day in the first week to check for usage. Anybody not using the app should get a text or call from their manager. If they have trouble, encourage them to contact SYNCrew support by texting 415-968-1593.

Once you have the initial group up and running, new hires are easy since they see everybody else just doing it.

Benefits to workers

Understanding the benefits to them can be a really powerful tool to get employees engaged with SYNCrew.

  • No more errors on paychecks: Workers create their timesheets as they work so they never forget to fill in the timesheet. Further, the hours they enter and see on their phone are the hours that go directly into payroll so there are no chances for mistakes in their paychecks.
  • Company can back them up: For the kinds of work that SYNCrew clients do, it’s often the case that the employer does not actually know when their employee arrives, how long they stay, or what work was done. A client may not see an employee and tell the employer that they did not show up. Prior to SYNCrew, owners and managers had to trust clients in the spirit that, “the customer is always right.” But with SYNCrew, now you can look at the employee’s profile and know for sure when they arrived. You can share the arrival photo with the client and know your team did the good work you know they can!
  • Show their great work: SYNCrew photos and videos allow workers to show their great work even when the boss isn’t on site to see it. Faster opportunities for recognition and promotion for your best employees.
  • Nobody gets a free ride: A common concern of workers is that some of their colleague are getting away with arriving late or leaving early when the boss isn’t looking. With SYNCrew, everybody’s actions are seen clearly and fairly.

Common reasons workers don’t want to use the app and useful replies

  • Fear of tracking: the more tracking you enable, the more this comes up. Some clients allow employees to keep GPS off and don’t require photos and these employees are not very concerned since they can go to their phone’s settings and disable all the sensors (GPS, camera, etc). Most companies expect at least photos and usually GPS to be enabled. A few things help with these concerns:
    • SYNCrew only captures data when the app is open so they can hard-close the app when not at work
    • Except where constant GPS tracking is used, the only time the app sends data is when they take an action. In the case of companies using GPS tracking pings, it only sends those pings while they are clocked in, so there is no chance of being tracked outside working hours.
    • Share the benefits to them (some examples listed above) and also why you chose to start using SYNCrew. If they know the real reason, workers are less likely to fear the worst.
  • Cost of data: This is less a concern since most cell phone plans include unlimited data but it still comes up from time to time. The SYNCrew app is designed to use as little data as possible by compressing photos and videos where possible and minimizing all other data use. If employees are concerned, encourage them to use the app for a few days and then look at the apps data usage in their phones settings. If they don’t know how to do that, they can contact us by text at 415-968-1593 and we can advise them on how to see it. Once they see how little is used, the concern usually disappears.
  • Fear of change: Some workers may be nervous about trusting technology with something as important as their paycheck. For these folks, we recommend highlighting that SYNCrew allows them to see their hours in the app, just as they could when wrote them on a piece of paper. Additionally, our support team is available to help answer their questions in English or Spanish at 415-968-1593.
  • Time cheaters don’t want to get found out: This is tricky and unpleasant, but some employees cheat on their timecards. Those employees will push back on SYNCrew because they know their days of cheating are over. Their complaints are usually expressed in one of the other concerns above, but we have heard that most owners and managers know who these people are. These issues are somewhat unique but we have seen many examples are are happy to speak with you about specific concerns.

View GPS Status

Workers are able to disable GPS for the SYNCrew app in their phone settings. If they do this, the app will still work and the latest GPS location that was shared with the app will be used.

There is an easy way to see if GPS has been disabled. Click “teams” in the left navigation and you will see a circle next to each person’s name.

Green means GPS is on and updating:

Red means GPS has likely been disabled:

There are cases where GPS won’t work even if the employee has it enabled. The two most common reasons (among many) are that the phone’s GPS sensors are broken or the location settings are set in a way that prevents it from getting regular updates. You can read more about this here or contact us at support@syncrew.com with questions.

Project Labels (group projects together)

Project Labels are a way to group different projects together, sort of like a folder except that a project can have more than one group applied. These are visible to admin only, so workers are not aware of them from the app.

How to turn on Labels:

To enable Project Labels, go to Settings –> Configuration and then scroll down to the section labeled “Projects.” The configure your options as shown in the image below:

Where Project Labels show up in the app

  • On Project overview page (click “Projects” in left-navigation). You can filter for Project Labels at the top of this page.
  • On the Project profile page, this Project Label is visible in the info area at the top, left.
  • Filter for Project Label in Work Block Reports. There is a simple filter for Project Label in the filters.
  • Work Block report results. If you selected the option to “show in reporting,” you will also see an additional column in the Work Block report that shows the Project Label for that row’s work block.

Timesheets

Timesheets are a way for SYNCrew to create the trusted paper timesheets that many people still want as backup. To easily generate the timesheets, select “Manage” from the left navigation and then select “timesheets.” Then select the appropriate filters:

  1. Which workers: The default setting that loads is all workers. But if you only want a single team or single worker, you can select that (purple box below)
  2. Date range: The default date range is the current pay period but you can select any one you want.

Then click “Run.”

Once that runs, the a summary view will appear as shown below.

  • For each row, you can see the workers name, their regular and OT hours
  • At the far right of each row is the “approved” column where you can quickly see the status – green dot is approved, gray means nobody has approved it. If you put your mouse on top of a green dot, it will show you which admin approved the hours and when they were approved.
  • Click on a worker’s row to see on onscreen preview on the timesheet (purple arrow)
  • Click “export” at the top-right to export all the timesheets as PDFs (red arrow). This also includes a .csv file that will open in Excel or any other spreadsheet program. If you have a lot of workers, this will likely be emailed to you in a few minutes rather than downloaded.

Once you view the timesheets, you may want to see them formatted differently. To see available timesheet options, go to Settings –> Configuration and scroll down to “timesheets,” as shown below. As always, if you have any questions or trouble, please reach us at support@syncrew.com and we are happy to help!

Settings for each individual worker

This article talks about settings that can be set for a specific worker account. If you want to see about company-wide settings for ALL workers, see this article HERE.

The system is highly configurable so if you do not see how to do what you want here, please contact us at support@syncrew.com or in the chat box at the bottom-right.

All the individual settings can be accessed clicking on Settings –> manage users, then clicking the worker’s name.

  • Worker Type: Worker type impacts how the app functions and is not an indicator of the worker’s position or title. Details of these types have their own article HERE.
  • Work.syncrew.com options: There are three options related to work.syncrew.com. There is more information about the worker portal HERE available but here is a quick summary:
    • Allow to view time at work.syncrew.com – This will allow a worker to go to www.syncrew.com and click “worker login” and view their hours. Since Hourly Workers and Manager Workers can easily see this in their app, this is mostly used for Managed Workers (whose time is added by others)
    • Allow to add time at work.syncrew.com – This will allow a worker to add time in the Worker Portal. This is most commonly used by office employees. Be sure to enable the option above for this.
    • “Allow to edit time at work.syncrew.com” – this final option allows the worker to edit their time from the BOTH the Worker Portal and the app directly. If you select this check box alone, the worker will only be able to edit the time from their app
  • Allow to upload photos from the photo gallery – Check this box to allow workers to upload progress photos from their camera’s pictures. This does NOT allow uploading photos for clock in and clock out. This is convenient for workers but since the photos are taken from the phone’s memory, SYNCrew cannot guarantee when or where they were taken and a watermark is applied to note this. If this box is NOT checked, the only way a worker can get a picture into SYNCrew is to take it in real-time with the app.
  • Don’t require photos: There may be some workers who you don’t want to require to take a photo at their clock in and clock out. Checking this box will make it so the worker will skip the photo at clock in and out, but they can still take progress photos and the app works identically in all other ways.
  • Allow user to edit their own time: If you want your employee to be able to edit their own time from the app, click the box next to “allow to edit time at work.syncrew.com”. Note this is referenced above but it’s commonly asked about and we wanted to highlight it.
  • Name: This is how the worker’s name will show up in the admin portal. Typically it is just the workers proper name like, “John Smith” but it sometimes has additional information like nick-names. If you with to have this field not be the property name, but need a property name to connect to payroll, you can do that by enabling the “Employee ID” field or another custom field – learn more HERE.
  • Email: This is the worker’s email and it’s optional since worker’s log in primarily with their phone numbers. If you do put an email address in here, they worker can also use that to log in.
  • Phone: This should be the worker’s cell phone number. They will use this as their primary login and they can reset their password from the app if they can get text messages at this number.
  • Team: Each worker is assigned to a team and this is where you set that. Learn more about teams HERE.
  • Skills: Each employee has skills that are a subset of the skills that a company has. You can read more about company skills HERE.
    • Each worker has a list of skills and must have at least one skill enabled. To change the skills, edit the list in their employee profile settings by putting a check box next to the desired skills and then click save.
    • If the employee only has one skill, all their work will automatically get assigned to it. If more then one skill is set up for a given employee, they will be prompted to select the appropriate skill at each clock in.
  • Hourly Cost rate: This is typically the employees wage but some clients put the fully-burdened rate in. This rate is used in the budgets, labor cost in Work Block reports and anywhere else labor cost is referenced.
  • Hourly Billing rate: This rate is shown on the project and worker profile pages – anywhere labor billable values are referenced.
  • Regular Hours: Start and End time are the time that this employee typically starts work. Workers will be able to work different hours than these, but these times are what the system uses for reminders to start work. These default to the values that were set in Settings –> Configuration.

    To prevent workers from clocking in before their start time, go to Settings –> Configuration, scroll down to the “General” section, and then check the box next to “Enforce clock in time” (then scroll down to the bottom and click “save”).
  • Tolerance: This is how many minutes the system will wait before sending a notification. For example, if the worker’s start time is set to 8am and the tolerance is set to 15 minutes, the system will wait until 8:15am before sending the reminder the clock in.

Custom Data fields associated to each worker

SYNCrew is very flexible to allow many different kinds of companies to use the system with as much complexity as they need, but without adding un-needed information for those who do not need it. The items below can be turned on or off at the system level and will apply to all employees.

There are lots of other options that can be enabled at the employee level and you can read about them HERE.

Items that can be enabled

The following options are all configured by going to Settings –> Configuration and scrolling down to the section called “employee options.”

  • Employee ID: This simple field allows you to enter a value for the employee. It can have numbers or letters. If enabled for the company, it becomes a required field. The Employee ID will show up on the Teams page, on timesheets, and in many reports.
  • Category: This is a pick list that is used in connection with data integrations to other systems like Quickbooks. The purpose is that companies will often have different groups of people who need different things imported to the other system, like office vs. field work or salary vs. hourly. This category option is not visible in reports or anywhere else so if you want to use it to group certain workers, user the pick list described below.
  • Pick Lists: There are three identical fields that allow you to create lists to assign employees to. Each one allows a company to set up a list of options to be selected for each employee. If enabled, selecting an option is required when creating or editing a worker account. Data in these fields will be included in Work Block Reports only. Examples of use cases include:
    • worker classification (contractor vs. employee)
    • worker home location (Hayward branch, Oakland branch, san Jose branch, etc)
    • worker union classification (apprentice, master, foreman, etc.)
  • Employee Custom Fields: There are three identical fields that allow you put additional information into an employee record. Each one is a text field that can have any value (numbers, letters, etc) in it. If enabled, this field cannot be left blank when creating or editing a worker account. Data in these fields will be included in Work Block Reports only.
    Examples of use cases include:
    • Employee Address
    • Secondary employee ID (beyond the field described above)
    • Assigned equipment serial numbers (like truck ID for this worker)

Important note: DO NOT PUT HIGHLY SENSITIVE INFORMATION LIKE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS INTO THE FIELDS. SYNCrew is a secure system but it typically has a lot of users outside of HR and mis-configuing user credentials could result in this information being seen by many who should not see it! If you have questions about this, please contact us at support@syncrew.com.

What to do if a user says their app is not working

This guide has a few quick steps for how to diagnose a user who cannot use the app. These steps will help you resolve issues for over 95% of cases where the worker reports “my app is not working”

1. Are they logged in? If the user sees the login screen shown below, then they need to log in. If they see any other screen skip to step 2 below.

  • Confirm that their phone number is right. This causes 90% of all issues so please check with the employee even though it seems obvious. If the phone number is wrong, correct it.
  • Once you have confirmed that the password is correct, then reset the password as shown here. We recommend setting a simple password that will be easy to type in on a phone (4 numbers usually works well).
    • If the worker does not get a text message, please double check the phone number. If it was not correct, update it and then reset the password again.
  • They should get a text message and be able to log in directly. Here are a few tips that can help on login:
    • The phone number and password must be typed exactly. Even one character off will make the login fail and it is hard to type on the small screens.
    • For the phone number, just enter the numbers. The app will put the dashes in the numbers automatically.
    • An Internet connection is required for login.

2. User is logged in, but app is not working: In this case, the worker has logged in but cannot use the app for some reason. Please check the following:

  • Go to the phone’s settings app and scroll down to SYNCrew. Make sure that all the requested permissions are allowed. The app requires camera (iPhone and Android) and storage (Android only). We recommend GPS and notifications for optimal usage, but they are not strictly required.
  • On the admin dashboard, check that the user is clocked out. If not, clock them out LIKE THIS. This clears an occasional issue on older phones.
  • Open the app again and see if it will work now.

If everything in the points above checked out, please have the employee text SYNCrew support at 415-968-1593 and we will work with them to get things sorted. SYNCrew support can text in any language.

Manager approval of hours

SYNCrew allows limited and full admin to approve work hours. Approvals can be made in Worker Time Review and the the approval status is shown in both Worker Time Review and Timesheets

How to approve time

To approve time, run Worker Time Review for the period and teams you want to approve. You will see two ways to approve:

  1. Approve all: This button will approve all time for the period for all workers on the selected teams.
  2. Approve worker-by-worker: Along the right side of the screen are “approve” buttons. These allow you do approve a single worker at a time.

Once approved, the buttons will turn gray and you cannot press them again. See below for how to undo an approval. Additionally, please note that approvals can be made by any admin even when the period is locked.

How to undo approval of time

Once time is approved, it can be unapproved by making an edit. Once any time in the period is changed, the whole period for that worker will be unapproved. Additionally, if new time comes in from the Worker’s phone or an admin adds time, the period will become unapproved again. To approve, simply click the approve button again.

Reviewing approvals in Timesheets

The Timesheets page allows the admin to see the approvals along side the hours. In the area shown in red below, a green circle indicates that the time has been approved. Placing your mouse on the green circle will open a small pop up (highlighted in purple below) that shows the details of who approved the hours and when.