Departments Overview
A department maps to a schedule with Workforce. They define your ability to see staff for a given schedule. Employees can then be assigned to their relevant department/s, and managers can also be allocated to departments.
A department, "Schedule", is set up by default when your Workforce account is first created. To view it, navigate to Departments under the Company option on the top bar.
If you have different people who schedule the shifts for Front of House (FOH) and Back of House (BOH), then you may want to have separate FOH and BOH departments so their schedules can be published independently of each other.
If you want to be able to see all employees at once, then you may choose to start off with just the default "Schedule" department and add everyone to that.
What is a department?
Departments are key to creating shifts and publishing schedules
Workforce supports a hierarchy:
Company: overarching entity within Workforce
Location: specific place where the work is performed - for example, a restaurant address. At the moment, Workforce only supports a single location per company
Department: Each location can then be broken down into departments. Think of a department as a group of people who would be on the same schedule and managed by the same manager. There is no limit to the amount of departments you can create. For example, a restaurant may have two departments:
Front of House
Back of House
Section: a breakdown of department if further granularity is needed.
Employees need to be added to their respective departments so they can be scheduled. Employees can be added to as many departments as applicable.
Each department will also need at least one manager. Departments managers are effectively those people who will create shifts, publish schedules, and make any changes that are applicable.
Each department's schedule can be viewed on the Scheduler.
Manage Departments
Add Departments
You can also create more departments by clicking on Add Department. There is no limit to how many departments you can create.
New departments can also be added by clicking on the Department field in the Scheduler, then clicking Create a new department.
There are several settings you can define for your department, including enabling off-site addresses, creating sections, and defining shift swaps and drops.
Rename Departments
Select a department from the list of departments.
Click pencil to edit Department Name
General Settings > Department Name > enter new name
Click Save
Delete Departments
Select the company name in the top navigation menu, then select Departments.
Next to the department you'd like to delete, select the trash icon on the right side of the screen.
On the pop-up confirmation screen, click Confirm.
Add employee to departments
From the Weekly or Daily View, click on the Manage Employees icon located on the top toolbar directly above the Employees column.
Click in the Add an employee to [department name] field to return a list of employees in the company network.
Start typing the employee’s name to filter the list.
Click on the employee’s name to add them to the department.
Apply Changes when done.
Remove employee from departments
From home page, click Manage Employees (blue + sign near the upper left of the screen).
Hover over one of the employees in the list of employees that appears.
Select Remove next to the selected employee's name.
Department Settings
General Settings
In addition to general settings, department settings are the go-to place for:
creating sections
enabling swap and drop shift permissions for employees
Note: You must be assigned as a manager to the selected department to access this feature.
From Lighthouse Business Manager, click on Workforce -> Scheduler.
Click cog
Enable Off-Site Addresses
If employees work at other physical locations, you can enable off-site addresses so that the geo-fenced time clock still works.
Select a department from the list of departments.
On the General Settings screen for Departments, click the Enable Off-site Addresses toggle.
When you are finished editing, click on the Save button to save your changes.
Department Managers
Navigate to the profile of the employee you wish to make a department manager via Employees > Employee Name > Access & Permissions.
Note: The employee must already be assigned a manager in Lighthouse Business Manager to have manager permissions.
Under Departments managed, select the department(s) you wish the employee to manage.
Click the SAVE
Shift Swaps / Drops
Enable the ability for your employees to swap and/or drop shifts unless they have been added to the ‘exclusion’ list (in which case they do not have permission to do either).
On the Settings menu on the left, select Shift Swaps/Drops.
Allow employees to swap shifts, toggle ON
Auto approve checkbox to allow shift swaps to occur without a manager's approval.
Allow employees to drop shifts, toggle ON
Click SAVE
Sections
Create and manage your company sections where appropriate. Sections are areas within your department.
Click pencil (Edit) for the department you wish to add a section to.
Settings> Sections.
Add Section button or the Add Section link at the bottom of the section list
Add Section> Name: Enter name
Click SAVE
Only those users who are specifically given access to manage a department can do so. ‘Managing a department’ (and the Manage Schedule permission) provides the ability to view, create, and edit shifts and schedules.