Using push notifications to communicate shift information with employees
Push notifications are an efficient and cost-effective way to communicate with employees! Push notifications are alerts (typically pop-ups or other messages) generated by the foundU App when the App is not in use. This means that your employees will have an instant visual reminder of any shift updates without opening their foundU App or email!
By using push notifications for shift updates, you can ensure your employees see the details they need on the home screen of their phones without the additional cost of using SMS.
Push notifications are:
- Convenient and easy to access for employees with smartphones.
- A way to reduce emails to employees if your business has many shifts changes and updates.
- More cost-effective and just as convenient as SMS.
In this article, we will cover:
- Configuring push notifications in your platform.
- Using push notifications to notify employees of various types of shift updates.
- Reporting on push notifications.
- FAQs on push notifications.
This article will assist you in configuring Push Notification for shift updates, offers, and changes. You'll want to ensure your Communication Settings for Email or SMS are configured for your other platform communications.
To be able to send push notifications from your foundU platform, you'll first need to enable Push in your platform via Communication Settings.
Before you Start
For Push Notifications to be sent to your employees, you'll need to make sure the following things are actioned in your platform:
Employees will also need to:
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Allow for Push Notifications on their device from the foundU Employee App.
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In cases where the above conditions are not met, your platform will fall back to SMS, or email, based on platform and message configurations.
Once you have an understanding of the above, it is time to configure your Communication settings for Push Notifications.
Configuring Push Notifications
If you would like employees to receive push notifications, it is important to understand the following:
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- Employees will receive Push for shift-based notifications only,
- and, whether or not you'd like employees to also receive the standard email notification as well.
To configure Push notifications:
- Navigate to the main menu and select Platform Settings > Communication Settings. On the left side, select Push Notifications to be taken directly to your Push Notifications configuration.
- Configure the next 2 settings:
- 'Enable push notifications for shift changes and offers?'- Push notifications are sent to employees who have allowed foundU App notifications on their devices.
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'Send the employee a copy of the push notification in an email?'
Tip: If you are just switching over to push notifications, you might like to enable this second setting for at least a short period until your employees get used to push notifications. It will send a duplicate email notification with every push to ensure notifications aren’t missed!
- Review your changes and select Save.
Your platform will now send push notifications for various shift updates, which are listed in the next section of this guide. On your platform's Dashboard, you can see that push notifications are enabled, along with any other configured communication options such as email or SMS.
Employees can log in to the Employee App to see their shifts at any time. They can also be notified via email or SMS when they have a new shift, shift offer, shift update or cancelled shift. Unlike SMS, Push notifications are free, and unlike email, Push doesn't require the constant monitoring of an email inbox to receive updates.
To improve efficiency in rostering, using Push will notify your employees about shift updates cheaply, and be right on the home screen of their phone so they can see updates almost immediately!
Included Communication types for Push Notifications
Once enabled, your platform will send Push notifications for changes made from your roster. This includes shifts created from the Bulk actions > Shifts feature on the roster overview page.
Once Push notifications are enabled on your platform they will send for all of the relevant Communication templates associated with the actions below. It is not possible to send only some templates via Push.
Push notifications will be sent for:
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- Shift updates - Publishing new shifts or changes to shifts.
- Shift offers - Offers from the roster (including the Bulk shifts feature) and the Unfilled shifts page.
- Shift cancellations - Cancelled Shifts are triggered when you delete a published shift set in the future on the roster. When you republish the roster, the republished changes send the cancellation notification to the employee.
Please Note: As there are set rules and character limits for the content of push notifications, you cannot modify the outgoing message descriptions of these messages.
If you would like to review push notifications sent from your platform, you can do so from:
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- The Communication Log - Be sure to adjust the Communication Type filter to 'Push' to find what you are after more quickly and easily!
Hot tip: In addition to push notifications, this comprehensive guide will also provide information on viewing your sent email and SMS history from your platform.
What do my employees need to have to receive push notifications from foundU?
Great question! From the employees' side:
- They will need to 'Allow Push notifications' for the foundU Employee App in the settings on their relevant devices.
Additionally, you'll need to check in your platform that Push Notifications are configured correctly and that the relevant employees have the 'Has Smart Phone' toggle enabled on their profiles.
Can I send push notifications for other actions in my platform, such as approved Leave applications, a new announcement being posted, and expiring documents?
At this point, we have only released push notifications for shift-based changes. We will let you know when we expand the scope of this project!
Can I change the content of a push notification?
As there are set rules and character limits for the content of push notifications, you cannot modify the outgoing message description.
I cannot see which message templates are configured for Push notifications from the Communication> Communication content page. How do I know which Communications are being sent via Push?
If you have enabled Push Notifications in your platform, it will send for all 3 of the shift-based change communications listed in the relevant section above.
You will not see a 'Send Push Notifications' column on the Message Template page.
What happens if my employees have not given permission on their devices for push notifications?
These employees will not receive push notifications and won't receive access to shift updates and offers as quickly as other employees would. The good news is, they can adjust these permissions whenever they like if they had initially chosen to decline push notifications.
Additionally, you may want to enable the setting to continue to send email notifications to employees as mentioned in the configuration section above.
We want to start using push notifications on our platform, but it's important to inform our employees about these changes so they know what to expect. What do you suggest?
That's a great idea, you could display a banner announcement across the top of the Employee App with the relevant information about push notifications. This would reach all of your employees who use the Employee App.
Another great option would be to send a bulk email or create an email template to send out to your employees who use shifts in the platform (non-salaried employees). The email option will allow for more characters than an announcement.
Depending on your chosen method, we have some sample text here that you can copy and paste to get across the key facts should you choose to use it!
"Please be aware that you will start receiving push notifications to your phone for all shift based changes! This means you'll get pop-ups on your phone's screen with messages about:
- New rostered shifts
- New shift offers
- Shift changes
- Shift cancellations
In order for you to get these timely notifications you will need to ALLOW NOTIFICATIONS for the foundU Employee App! This can be adjusted in the Settings in your phone. There will be zero cost to you to receive push notifications!
If you don't prefer this you will still get shift messages in the same manner that you used to via email.
Thanks
#operation"