Overview of emailable alerts in SYNCrew

SYNCrew has many ways to automatically email information outside the system. These are summarized here. If you do not see the options where they are mentioned, it is likely that your current plan does not include them. Please contact us at support@syncrew.com for any help.

Event Alerts with Photos: SYNCrew can automatically send you an email when certain actions are taken. These are easy to set up and powerful alerts to help managers keep track of certain real-time actions without needing to look in the portal since alerts can be filtered by project, worker, skill, type of event (clock in, clock out, flagged photo, etc). These are set up in Settings –> Alert Settings –> Email Alerts.

Report Alerts: You can have a work block report or budget report emailed overnight. These can be sent daily or weekly on a specific day. These are set up in Settings –> Alert Settings –> Report Alerts.

Lunch and Overtime email alerts: These alerts are designed to help managers enforce lunch break laws and overtime policies in realtime, without needing to log into the system. The admin picks a time range where these emails will be delivered every 30 minutes in that window. Each email will show the workers currently clocked in, how long they have been working today, whether they have taken lunch, and their contact information. Managers can quickly review the email and call/text any worker who is about to enter a meal break violation or unauthorized overtime. These are set up in Settings –> Alert Settings –> Lunch and OT Alerts.

Change Request: This is a simple way for workers to request edits to their time and other things they may commonly talk to the office about. These requests generate an email with the worker’s note. Learn more by clicking HERE.

Requests for help: Workers can request help in the app. Often times the help requested is a question best answered by their manager and the email has a link to easily open that workers profile page. In the event it is a technical issue that our technical support team at SYNCrew can best address, just forward this email to support@syncrew.com. Learn more about the request for help email by clicking HERE.

Photo Flags

Photo flags are a way to categorize photos. When a worker takes a progress photo, they will have the option to add a flag from the list you enter here. These are used for many things but common examples are for receipts, pre-existing damage, serving notices, and things like that. Importantly, each SYNCrew client sets their own photo flags so they can be whatever YOU need!

How to enable and configure photo flags

  1. Turn on photo flags for your account
    1. Go to Settings –> Configuration in the left navigation
    2. Scroll down to “App configuration options” and look for “photo flags”
    3. click the box next to “enable”
    4. Scroll down and click “save”
  2. Set up your flags
    1. Go to Settings –> Configuration in the left navigation
    2. Scroll down to “App configuration options” and look for “photo flags”
    3. To view your current flag list: Click “click to view and search current list” and the list will pop up
    4. To add a flag: Type your flag name in the “add new flag name” field and click “add.” Repeat for each flag you wish to add. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click “save”
    5. To remove a flag: Click “click to view and search current list” and the list will pop up. Click the flag you wish to remove adn click “remove.” Repeat for each flag you wish to remove and then scroll to the bottom of the page and click “save”

What it looks like in the app

In the app, the worker will take a progress photo as normal. When they are at the screen where they put notes in, your list of options will be available and the worker can select whichever they wish.

How to find flags on the admin dashboard

  • Dashboard: Photos with flags will have a red box around them on the dashboard. You can also click “flagged” in the row of check boxes above the photos to view ONLY flagged photos.
  • Photos: In the photos search, there is a filter for flags and you can search whichever flag you are looking for. This filter is in addition to other filters so you can search for flagged photos by a particular worker, for example.
  • Reports –> Activity: In the Activity Report, there is a filter for Photo Flags and you can search whichever flag you are looking for. This filter is in addition to other filters so you can search for flagged photos as a particular project, for example.
  • Email alerts: Email alerts can be set up to automatically send an email anytime a photo is flagged. Depending on your service plan, you can have multiple email alerts so different photo flags can be sent to different people (internal to your company or outside clients and vendors, as appropriate). To configure email alerts, go to Settings –> Alerts –> email alerts.

Sharing data between companies

Option 1: Share projects: This option is for when BOTH companies are clients of SYNCrew and lets one company see everything from the other company at shared projects only (work at non-shared projects remain private). This is often more information then either party wants, but it can be very useful depending on the project. 

To set this up, we connect two companies and then one company (usually the “General Contractor”) would “share” the project with the other (we’ll call it the “sub-contractor” here). Everything looks the same in the sub-contractor’s portal except that the projects will be “owned” by the other. The magic here is that all the info shows up in General Contractors portal just as it does in Sub-Contractors’. Specifically, the General Contractor would see:

  • When a Sub-Contractor employee clocks in, out, or takes a progress picture
  • General Contractor can run reports as they would with their regular employees
  • General Contractor can search photos and notes
  • Again, the General Contractor CANNOT see work that Sub-Contractor employees do at other projects that are not shared. The Sub-Contractor employees will basically disappear from General Contractor’s view if they do work for other clients

Option 2: Set up limited admin accounts: This requires no real setup and is typically used when a SYNCrew client wants to provide access to a client of theirs for just one or a few of their projects. To set this up, just create a Limited Admin account for the person you want to be able to see and configure that admin with the appropriate access. Limited admin accounts can be set up in many ways and you can consult this article or contact SYNCrew support for help.

Option 3: Email progress pictures taken by managers: This requires no real setup either. SYNCrew has many ways to share photos which may assist in sharing data:

  • Photos can be manually sent from the app at Change Task or Clock Out. The app user can just enter the email address then and all photos taken at the time will send
  • Rules can be set up so photos that meet certain criteria can be sent automatically to pre-specificied email addresses
  • Reports: Some reports including Work Block reports and Daily Site reports can be emailed automatically or manually (varies by report)

SYNCrew Forms Overview

This article has some overview information and a video of how the forms look on the app. To jump in to how to create a form, jump over to SYNCrew Forms: How to set up.

SYNCrew Forms are a powerful way to capture information from the field. Like everything with SYNCrew, the information and photos are organized and saved forever so you can always find the form when you need it most. As always, please contact us with your needs so we can help you set up exactly the forms that will eliminate your paper-chasing!

How does it work:

  • Set up forms: Forms are configured by an admin user (email your forms to support@syncrew.com and we’ll help set them up). You may have many different types of forms
  • Employees complete forms: Employees select which form they need to fill in and complete it on their phone
  • When a form is submitted: Once the employee submits a form, the following happens automatically:
    • Emails will be sent to contacts for the projects, emails set up for that form type
    • Forms become searchable in Reports –> Custom forms report
    • Forms and data are saved forever and can be exported to spreadsheets, pdfs, or viewed on screen

What kind of data can a form capture? Below are the types of information that can be collected and each type can be used many times in the same form

  • Signatures: Collect employee, customer, or other signatures directly in the app
  • Dates: Pick any calendar day
  • Time of Day: Pick any time of day
  • Check Boxes: The user check put a check-mark in a box (usually to mark completion of a task)
  • Text: Text or numbers can be entered
  • Pick Lists: a pre-set list of options. For short lists, all options are displayed while long lists allow you to search (2 to thousands of options supported). You may allow user to select multiple options or only one option
  • Worker List: This is like the pick list but pre-populates the list of workers in your system
  • Headings: There are two kinds of headings that can be used to group things together within the form
  • Photos: Photos can be added to any of the above data types. Photos for each item can be optional, required, or not available to take

Since the forms are 100% customizable, clients are using them for many different things and you can use it for anything you traditionally used a paper form for. Here are a few examples:

  • Customer acknowledgement of work
  • Employee vacation or sick time request
  • Material request
  • Tenant chargeback form
  • Walk-through inspection report form
  • Customer and employee signed daily work log report
  • Security company incident report form
  • Pool cleaning and chemical reading log
  • Expense reimbursement
  • Mileage reimbursement forms
  • Company phone use acknowledgement

Email your current paper form to support@syncrew.com so we can help get rid of the paper!