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How to onboard or offboard agents
How to onboard or offboard agents

How to use start and end dates to streamline team changes

Updated over 2 months ago

Remove the hassle of attrition and hiring with our onboarding and offboarding tools. Simply add a start or end date for any surfer and Surfboard will ensure that your schedules and coverage is accurate, while also taking care of system access for you.

These capabilities allow you to plan further ahead of time, without disrupting the continuity of your schedules, while also providing better visibility to the rest of the team.


📹 Watch our 3min tutorial

Start and end dates explained

Surfboard automates onboarding and offboarding for you using start and end dates.

When a start or end date is added to a surfer’s profile, any days outside of these dates will be disabled. This means:

  • You cannot manually add any shifts or activities to these dates.

  • If you apply a shift plan, then shifts won’t be applied to these dates.

    • This also means that if the surfer is part of a round robin and their turn falls in their inactive period, then the shift will not be added.

  • If you apply an activity plan, then activities won’t be applied to these dates.

  • Surfers cannot access or login to Surfboard outside of these dates.

This control allows you to plan ahead and add surfer’s to shift or activity plans at a time that suits you, rather than having to rush and make edits on their first or last day.

Adding a start date

Start dates are added to a surfer's profile on the Surfer page. You can add a start date when you add a new surfer or by editing an existing surfer.

  • For new surfer: When you save you will be asked if you’d like to schedule the Surfboard invitation for this surfer.

    • If you say yes, Surfboard will automatically send their invite at 0am on their start date.

    • If you say no, then the surfer will not be automatically invited and you will need to manually click ‘send invite’ from the surfer table. You can only invite a surfer on or after their start date.

  • For an existing surfer: When you save you will be asked if you’d like to remove any shifts in their schedule added before their start date

    • If you say yes, any shifts (draft or publish) added to the schedule before this start date will be removed.

    • If you say no, any shifts (draft or publish) added to the schedule before this start date will remain. They will not count towards coverage. You can choose to manually remove these at any time.

Adding an end date

End dates are added to a surfer's profile on the Surfer page. You can add an end date when you add a new surfer or by editing an existing surfer.

When you save you will be informed that the surfer will lose access and be removed from Surfboard after this date. This will happen at 23:59 (11:59pm) in the specified timezone.

  • For an existing surfer: You will also be asked if you would like to remove any shifts in their schedule after their end date.

    • If you say yes, any shifts (draft or publish) added to the schedule after their end date will be removed.

    • If you say no, any shifts (draft or publish) added to the schedule after their end date will remain. They will not count towards coverage. When the surfer is removed on their last day, all these additional shifts will be removed. You can choose to manually remove these at any time.


Keeping track of start and end dates

To help with visibility, a small tag will show next to surfer’s names in the schedule to keep your team informed on their start or end date:

  • For start dates, a tag will show counting down to their start date, e.g. ‘Starts 7d’. On their first day the tag will show ‘1st day 🎉’.

  • For end dates, a tag will show counting down to their start date within 30 days, e.g. ‘Ends 14d’. On their last day the tag will show ‘Last day’.


Export timesheets for offboarded surfers after their end date

Surfboard stores data for deleted surfers, so you can accurately report on their time, even after they have left.

  • Go to reporting > timesheets and select the range of time you wish to download.

  • Select 'include deleted surfers' from the additional options list.

  • Download your CSV timesheet.

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