Frequently Asked Questions – Page 4

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:

Approve all: This button will approve all time for the period for all workers on the selected teams.
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.

Error mode

On occasion, SYNCrew will put a user into “error mode.” This happens for a variety of reasons and does NOT mean the employee did anything wrong!

Error mode happens anytime the system receives information that does not make sense. For example, if a Worker is clocked out and another clock out comes through, the system does not know what to do – how can you clock out if you are already clocked out?

The red box will appear on Worker Profile pages when that user is in error more

When error mode is triggered, SYNCrew administrators are alerted and will resolve the issue within an hour during standard business hours and within approximately 8 hours during non-business hours. NO DATA IS LOST WHILE IN ERROR MODE. The system saves everything that comes in and it is added as the SYNCrew administrator clears the error.

Often times, error mode is caused by issues outside of anybody’s control. A common issue is when a Worker has a bad connection to the Internet. The phone will send the photo but get disconnected before receving confirmation from the server. If this happens, the phone will send again (as it should) but the server will get confused by it and put the user into error mode.

Error mode can also be triggered by actions taken by company administrators. Here are a few common examples:

Editing the project or skill of a work block before the worker changes task or clocks out. Waiting until after the Worker clocks out or changing task to make your edit will avoid.
Adding hours from the admin portal while the employee has unsent activity on their phone. In this case, the time entered by the administrator will over-ride the hours entered by the Worker on the app.
Locking the time period before all hours have come in from user’s phones. If a Worker has unsent activity on their phone and the period is locked, the time entered by the administrator will over-ride the hours entered by the Worker on the app. Activity that comes in for an already locked period will be discarded.

Reports: Drive Time Reports

Drive time report is a way to quickly see what portion of the time your employees are engaged on a job during their clocked in hours.
We have had clients use this report to increase productivity greatly (over 10%).

If all employees are lower then you expect, it can be a sign that things could be more efficient across the board. Likewise, it may show a specific employee or group of employees being lower than expected. In all cases, we recommend emailing support@syncrew.com if you see something you do not expect because this report is sensitive to using the app exactly as designed. Some companies use the app differently, which is completely fine of course, but it can cause this report to be inacurate.

To run a Drive Time Report, do the following:

Go to Reports in the left navigation and click Drive time reports. You will see the screen below where you enter the parameters to report on.
Select time: Select the time period you want – please note that you can choose a week or a month and just click the drop down under your choice to pick the specific period you want.
Select Team(s): Select the team(s) you wish to review.
Non-productive projects: Optionally, you may add projects that are non-productive. Examples might be the office, supply house, or anywhere else the employees spend time but is not revenue generating. The report will show what percent of time is spent at these separately so owners and managers may gauge if there is an issue with too much time spent at these places.
Click “Run”

Below is an example of what you will see when the results come back. In this case, we asked for November data for the San Francisco Team and noted that “800 Douglass, rwc” was a non-productive location.

As always, please contact us at support@syncrew.com if you have any questions.

Quickbooks Online Integration

SYNCrew can export data to Quickbooks Online! This flexible integration will let you get hours your team enters in SYNCrew directly into Quickbooks.

Initial Setup: The initial setup is a bit complicated due to the flexibility SYNCrew has built to make sure the hours get in how you need them. Unfortunately, due to the complex nature of the interactions between QBO and SYNCrew., we cannot help troubleshoot issues on the QBO side.

How to pull data: When you want to pull data from SYNCrew to Quickbooks, just follow these steps. Note that most people run these at the end of each pay period but you can run at other times or use the custom dates. Regardless, we recommend not running while workers are still clocked in for that period.

START IN SYNCREW: Open SYNCrew and do the following:

Open SYNCrew and click on Settings in the navigation section at the left (circled in yellow below)
Select QuickBooks underneath Settings (circled in green)
Select the pay period you want (circled in purple)
Click Save (circled in red)

5. Once the page reloads, pick “QBO” from the options under Quickbooks
6. Click “authorize quick books” to log into your QBO account

Now we need to set up the categories. Again, under settings, but this time click on “Configuration” and scroll down the page to find the “Employee Options” section.

You need to create at least one Category. If you create only one, it should be a simpler setup. Type a category name (Can be whatever you want) and click “Add”.

Then go back to the Quickbook settings, and into the “Time Sync Settings” and select the category.

If you added only one category, all the employees will be added to that category. Any employee of the selected category will have the hours imported into QB.

Finally, you have to make sure ALL EMPLOYEE AND PROJECT NAMES ARE THE SAME ACROSS SYNCREW AND QBO.

When you are ready to sync the hours, click on Update Quickbooks.

After you complete the steps above, check your email for a status update. If there were any issues with matching projects or workers to your data in Quickbooks, it will noted. Once you fix those issues, click “update quickbooks” again to send those hours over.

Teams

“Teams” are a way to group Workers together in SYNCrew and are viewed on the “teams” tab and are also filters that can be used in reports, worker time review and timesheets. Each worker MUST be on a team and all companies have a “default” team created when their SYNCrew account is created.

Different companies use teams for different reasons but here are some common reasons:

Manager name: Group workers by manager, where the managers name is the team name
Work location: For companies with different branch locations or large customer sites, the name of the brach or customer site can be set as the name
Work type: Some companies have different groups and they name the teams for the work type.

How to create and edit team

Creating a team is simple. Go to Settings –> Manage Teams. The following screenshot shows how to add a new team and how to edit the name of an existing team

Assigning workers to teams

Workers can be assigned to teams in two main ways:

When editing a workers settings or creating a new worker, there is a place to select the team and it will update when the settings are saved.
When you create or edit a team’s name as described above, you can check the box next to a name to put that person on the team. When you click “save,” all users who have a check box will be added to that team.

Assigning a manager to a team

Each team can have a manager assigned. The Manager is used to route certain alerts like time change request and in-app help request. A manager must have an admin account (limited or full admin) and then you can select them in the green box below when creating or editing the team.

Scheduling in the app

This article explains how your employees see schedules in the Android and iPhone app.

Alert for newly scheduled event: When you create an event in the admin portal, the employee(s) who had the new event scheduled will get a simple alert like the one shown below. This alert shows on the phone regardless of whether the app is open or closed (but the user does need to have alerts enabled for the SYNCrew app):

Home Screen if events are scheduled for current day: If the employee has an event scheduled for that day, their home screen (what they see when they open the app) will show the next scheduled event as you see below on the left. They can see their full schedule for the day by clicking “jobs today” as shown at the right:

To see future days: The user can select “My Time” from the menu and then click the “scheduled” button (circled in red below). That will show today by default but the user can click the arrows (circled in green) to see different days.

If you do not use scheduling for a given user, or they just don’t have any events scheduled in the near future, they just see the project selection screen shown here:

Worker Time Review

Worker Time review is the fastest way to check hours for your pay period. We recommend using Worker Time Review to quickly check how many hours your employees had each day, including overtime. Required edits can be made here, meal breaks added, missing days of job locations added and most other common changes as well.

This video is the easiest way to see how worker time review works:

Video is the easiest way to see how Worker Time Review works

How to run the Worker Time Review

Select Worker Time Review from under the Manage in the left navigation panel
On the page that loads, select your options:
1. Team: select the teams you want [red underline below]. You can pick one team, a few teams, or all teams. The system will remember the teams you selected last time.
2. Period ending: This is end date of the the pay period you want to review [green underline below]. Once you select the date, you may see a box pop up to indicate that the period is locked (more info on period lock). If you don’t see the right pay periods for your company, please email support@syncrew.com with details on your pay period cycle.
Click “Run”

After you click Run, the hours will load you can easily see each worker’s activity. There are two views and the system will remember which you used last. Neither option is better and both show mostly the same information, so have a look at both and use the one you prefer.

Hours and Break Summary View

This is the more common view since it does the math of calculating hours for you! To enter this view, make sure you click on “hours and break summary” [circled in red below].

You can see each worker’s name, total hours for the pay period and then a break down of hours on each day, with breaks taken below. There are a few tricks as well:

View Photo and edit time: By clicking on the hours worked on a given day [examples are circled in purple above], you will see all the events in that day, as shown below.

If you click on an event, you can see the photo. For example, if we click on the 5:52pm clock out above, we will see the box below. In the box below, you can see any notes the employee may have left and also make any needed edits by clicking on the arrows [circled in green below]. You can also click on the numbers [circled in blue below] to open a number pick box and prevent clicking 30 times to edit 30 minutes!

Add a break: From the hours and breaks summary view, you can also add a break on days where there is no break. To do this, click the box that says “no break” and follow the onscreen instructions.

Note that if there is already a break, but it’s not the correct duration, you can edit the start or end time of the existing break as shown above to correct the time.

View Clocked In Hours View

This view is used by people who want to see the time of the clock ins and outs. To enter this view, click on “View clocked in hours” [circled in red below].

View Photo and edit time: By clicking on any of times shown [examples are circled in purple above], it will open a box to show any notes the employee may have left and also make any needed edits by clicking on the arrows [circled in green below]. You can also click on the numbers [circled in blue below] to open a number pick box and prevent clicking 30 times to edit 30 minutes!

Meal breaks cannot be added from this view.