Release version 1908.2 | December 2019
New
- We added new Messages and Notifications icons to all pages for easier access to TimeForge alerts.
TimeForge can reference breaks rules, exception rules, and pay rules to automatically add 1 hour of regular pay to an employee's time card when they fail to take a scheduled meal period, or if their attended meal period is less than the allowed duration (ie 30 minutes). This hour will be coded with a meal penalty pay code (not straight time). Similar logic can be applied for rest periods as configured. This functionality does not reference waivers. This functionality is configurable by location or company-wide.
We added new functionality to our Shift Differentials feature to allow for tailored time frames with fixed amount increases (like paying anyone who works from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am an extra $3.00 per hour).
Improvements and Fixes
We fixed an issue that would cause slow sync times for integrations using web services.
We fixed on issue that would sometimes prevent the employee list page from sorting. We also improved the load and sort time of the employee list page.
We added a date filter to the Labor Target Widget in the Today Page Dashboard and made enhancements to several widgets on the Today Page Dashboard.
We fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent a shift from being added or edited for an employee with an apostrophe in their name.
We fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent saving information on the Sales Category page.
We improved the handling of availability requests with empty fields when submitted through the mobile app.
We fixed an issue on the Process Requests page that would sometimes prevent all employee requests from showing.
We fixed a security settings issue on the Availability and Requests Page.
We made performance improvements to the Position list page.
We fixed an issue with the "Test Text" feature on the My Profile page.
We added a feature to help prevent inadvertent bulk changes on pages with many check boxes.
We resolved a behind-the-scenes issue where a setting was saving itself twice whenever it was adjusted.
We improved the way our SPLH (Sales Per Labor Hour) grids can be updated, including a new upload function and a new copy function.
Past Releases
Improvements and Fixes
- We fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent sales projections from appearing on the schedule list page.
- We updated the logic for some automated employee emails to avoid sending password and password reset related messages for companies that are using single sign-on.
- We fixed a problem with the progress indicator on several pages.
- We fixed a problem with schedule templates that would sometimes save the incorrect date for overnight shifts.
- We fixed a UI issue that was preventing some breaks from appearing on the schedule page weekly view.
- We fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent a company logo or profile image from being successfully uploaded into TimeForge.
- We made an improvement to the blended labor metrics initiative adjusted some incongruous wording on the Daily and Weekly views of the schedule.
- We improved the way the clock in/out options work with one another.
- We fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent the My Schedule page from loading.
- We improved the way our FMS payroll export handles holiday pay.
- We improved the back end of the new dashboards so that their widgets can be better maneuvered to fit more flexibly.
- We added a new option for how attendance is allocated in relation to a store's open and close times.
- We added the ability to include Events in the schedule import. This will assist customers using the TimeForge Events module with integration of employee schedules with their in-house event planning suites.
- We resolved an issue in the AutoScheduler where, in some accounts, with some specific configurations, the AutoScheduler was not giving appropriate priority to some employee min/max fields.
Improvements and Fixes
- We implemented a CSV report that shows TimeForge forecasted and Manager scheduled hours and sales figures, by day, by department.
- Labor threshold values can now be associated with date ranges.
- We implemented the ability to forecast based on SPLH/CPLH at department level.
- We added a new dashboard widget for managers to quickly update the current labor threshold value.
- We wrapped up a project to allow blended labor-to-sales metrics for automated labor generation or for budget communication (or both). You no longer have to choose between productivity metrics (like sales-per-labor-hour) and budget metrics (like labor-to-sales percentage); with this new feature, you can blend the two metrics together into a unified labor hours number for managers to adhere to while scheduling.
- We fixed an issue that was preventing breaks from being regenerated on templates.
- We fixed a page load issue on the schedule templates list page. The issue occurred in Internet Explorer only.
Improvements and Fixes
- We fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent schedule templates from loading.
- We fixed an issue that would prevent the clock out button from working on Clocked-in Employees page.
- We refactored labor forecasting to improve performance.
- We made improvements to the new password reset functionality.
- We improved the Copy Templates dialog to prevent the accidental copying of too many templates.
- We improved the drag/drop functionality on the schedule Weekly View.
- We improved the load time of the templates page.
- We fixed an issue where splitting breaks was causing some unexpected behavior in some instances.
- We resolved an issue where special characters (!,$#\*, etc.) were causing some reports to throw errors sometimes.
- We fixed an issue with the Status Report by Employee report that would prevent the report from running with certain criteria selected.
- We fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent payroll approval.
New
- We added a new feature to the employee Transfers tool, so that after an employee has been temporarily transferred to a new store from the schedule, they will automatically be removed from the temporary store assignment after they are no longer needed at the borrowing store.
Improvements and Fixes
- We resolved an issue where some users who were locked out of particular features due to their security permissions could still see those restricted features in the navigation. No security concern amounted, as they were unable to interact with these items or see restricted data, but it's best that restricted access just hide the feature entirely - as it now does.
- We resolved an intermittent issue where attendance records were duplicating.
- We improved the way that HR documents are saved when downloaded from an employee profile. Instead of changing the filename, we now preserve the original filename the document had during upload.
- We added a widget to the (beta) manager dashboard that displays the number of employees per day who were in overtime.
- We made the new manager dashboards able to be turned on or off at the user level, so that customers can play with them at select stores before opting on for the whole company. This feature can be enabled by visiting the My Profile page of the user. Note, this user level setting will only appear if Angular pages have been enabled for the company in the Company Settings at the corporate level. Currently, both settings are only visible to a TF admin.
- We resolved an issue that prevented customers paying more than $999/month from updating their payment method.
- We resolved an issue with the FMS with Holiday payroll export that would sometimes prevent the department payroll id from exporting.
- We improved the way holiday hours calculate when an employee works multiple positions and a custom pay rule configuration is in place.
- We resolved an issue with holiday, overtime, and regular hours sometimes interacting strangely when configured a particular way with custom pay rules applied.
- We made a few improvements to the new settings page, which now uses Angular.
- We resolved an issue that prevented automatic redirects to new Angular pages.
- We resolved an issue where adjusting the width of the employee list page would sometimes hide the "Show Terminated Employees" option.
- We improved some facets of our new blended labor metrics tool, like how quickly the targets load. This tool will allow you to use both a productivity metric (like sales per labor hour) and a labor cost metric (like sales to labor percentage) when generating a schedule. Once this project is finished, you will no longer have to choose between productivity and budget numbers when communicating goals to your managers or building your schedules.
- We are now tracking adjustments to an employee's "Employee Type", and these changes can be seen from the Audit Log. This should help identify any changes in employee permissions and where those changes originate.
- We resolved an issue where the dates for "posted" and "last edit" were not displaying accurately when reviewing schedules in the Schedules page. Now the Posted and Last Edit dates display accurately.
- The import utility now supports importing sales category threshold values.
New Mobile Release
- TimeForge Manager App for iOS
- TimeForge Manager App for Android
- TimeForge Employee App for iOS
- TimeForge Employee App for Android
- The apps have new branding/styling applied, and the Employee App now has built-in requests for availability and time off.
Improvements and Fixes
- We fixed an issue where a custom OT pay rule wasn't calculating precisely.
- We built a new option when users need to reset their password, allowing a link to reset.
- We added a new widget to our new manager dashboard (beta) to allow weekly budget management.
- We improved our photo and image upload tools to allow reduced image reformatting to fixed our pre-defined dimensions; allowing upload and then adjustment.
- We updated the wording of a previously very confusing message that some users received after an error.
- We added some more easy to manage options to allow us to better support forecasting configuration for advanced forecasting customers.
- We improved the sorting, organization, look, and feel of our location, attendance, and break settings.
- We resolved an issue where terminated administrators were displaying on attendance reports.
- We helped a customer with an overtime calculation specific to their account configuration.
- We improved the employee PTO payout process and interface.
- We revisited some logic in our pay rules engine to ensure appropriate reasoning when multiple conflicting rules exist.
- We made a new FMS report.
- We fixed a report that wasn't deducting breaks from scheduled shifts.
- We resolved an issue where security settings were being ignored on a page that was rarely used.
- We resolved an issue with the links inside the gantt chart on the Today page.
- We resolved a long-standing issue where scheduled CSV reports from the corporate level were nonfunctional.
- We fixed an issue where splitting breaks was causing some unexpected behavior.
- We fixed an issue where no data was showing in the Weekly Budget widget if the Default Sales Category was set to Choose from the angular Sales Option page.
Improvements and Fixes
- We fixed an issue where sometimes, in some accounts, the dashboard that shows real-time sales wouldn't display.
- We finished up the time clock widget for employees to clock in/out with, so that once the Widgets are live, this can be used to replace the old Employee Today Page clock UI.
- We resolved an issue occurring in the mobile browser where the user would be clocked out if switching from desktop to mobile view.
- We finished up the Calendar widget for the Beta Dashboard feature.
- We fixed an issue where the scrollbar wasn't displaying when using mobile view in a browser.
- We improved the performance of a task that was taking a long time to run.
- We fixed an issue where the employee list page randomly wasn't loading.
- We fixed an intermittent issue where an employee's PTO hours weren't being decremented from their accrual record.
- We fixed an issue where the accounts using HR only were unable to add employee profiles.
- We finished up the Today's Schedule widget for the Beta Manager Dashboard.
- We helped a customer migrate to a new HRIS.
- After receiving customer feedback that many customers preferred to schedule only 1 week in advance, we added an option to our "no schedule is posted for the next 2 weeks" notification to allow a "no schedule is posted next week" option.
- We fixed an issue where adding a second location to an account caused the new Angular settings page to fail to display.
Improvements and Fixes
- We added some tracking for analytics so that we can use the data for prioritizing initiatives.
- We updated the way that the pay frequency field updates between TimeForge and Ready Pay Online.
- We resolved two issues that were introduced to the employee today page.
- We improved the way our new datepickers work, so that the previous and next month's dates are selectable without navigating.
- We updated one of the last pieces of our migration from Spring2 to Spring4, where the scheduled reports were being run based on triggers that were on old architecture.
- To ensure our implementation of Angular continues to go smoothly, we built out some functionality from our old (non-Angular) department page to the Angular version.
- As part of a labor automation project, we updated our threshold import tool to resolve an outstanding issue in how much data you were allowed to import.
- We fixed an issue with how forecasts were copied to projections.
- We improved how we notify managers when someone's pay rate gets updated. We were sending some false positives.
- We updated the wording of the settings in the Company Settings page to be more user-friendly and straightforward.
- We updated the wording of the settings in the Attendance Options pages to be more user-friendly and straightforward.
- We updated the wording of the settings in the Sales Options pages to be more user-friendly and straightforward.
- We investigated an attendance trigger that had not been migrated to Spring4 when we migrated the other triggers.
- We fixed an issue in the new Angular version of the department view.
Improvements and Fixes
- Improvements to new employee dashboard (currently in beta):
- We added a widget to allow employees to see who else is scheduled.
- We added a widget to allow employees to see other employees' availabilities.
- We added a widget to allow employees to see available shifts for swap / pick up.
- Improvements to new manager dashboard (currently in beta):
- We added a widget to allow managers to see a labor overview.
- We allow add/remove widgets more cleanly now.
- We helped resolve an hourly costing of salaried managers issue that was specific to a single customer's preferences.
- We improved some SAML logic for customers using TimeForge SSO (single sign on).
- We resolved an intermittent issue where an employee's vacation hours were not exported on a particular pay file if they had vacation hours during the pay cycle but no hours worked.
- We made structural improvements to the TimeForge-Workday integration.
- We finished the first version of the ReadyPay Online integration of employee data.
- We improved a task that runs in the software which sends mail, like notifications, etc.
- We resolved a display issue where we were showing some "corporate-level" settings when users were adding new locations (and should only see "location-level" settings).
- We fixed a display issue where we were showing a comma where one wasn't necessary.
- We added a "week after next" to scheduled report date options, allowing customers who schedule 2 weeks in advance to schedule reports for their upcoming schedules.
Improvements and Fixes
- Fixed an issue that prevented users from saving ShiftBuilder rules.
- Attachments downloaded from employee and job applicant profiles should now use their original file names. No more multiples of viewApplicantDocument.pdf and viewEmployeeCertificationDocument.pdf!
- We removed the Mobile Carrier dropdown menu under the employee profile, as it is no longer needed to send test text messages to users.
- The location list on the corporate level Today Page should now consistently show all locations.
- Fixed UI/responsiveness issues on the Corporate Hierarchy page. Widening the page should now also widen the tables.
- Fixed an issue where PTO requests would fail to appear on the PTO approval screen for certain types of employees that have worked at multiple locations.
- Fixed an issue with partial day PTO duration calculations that would sometimes occur when approving a request.
- Fixed an issue where the Sales Report page would fail to load completely.
- Fixed an issue with TimeClock mode that would allow users to click the clock in/out button multiple times, which could cause attendance calculation errors.
Improvements and Fixes
- We pushed out the Colorado Overtime feature to support Colorado's daily 12 hour = 1.5x rule.
- We updated the pay rules engine to work more nicely with holiday calendars.
- As part of our larger initiative to start supporting automated California meal and rest penalties, we added the meal penalty field to the Manage Attendance page. It had previously only been in Edit Attendance. This is our third baby step toward automated California meal penalty calculations! The rest of the features will be delivered before EOY.
- As part of our larger initiative of simplifying pay calculations, we added our standard OT rules to be available options within our pay rules options.
- We helped a customer update their sales per labor hour grids for automated labor generation based on budget goals.
- We improved the way selecting groups of recipients by position works. Now, managers can send messages to any position groups that are in their departments, instead of only selecting other "Managers" from the position list.
- We resolved a security flaw where if two users were conspiring, they could work together to enhance one another's permissions.
- We improved the tool that allows grouped user selection when choosing the data for running a report. A customer pointed out that it was hard to see that you could filter by position, so we made it more discoverable.
- We did some custom development to update a compliance report we previously built for a customer.
- Part of our larger front end update, we migrated our department page to use Angular.
- We fixed an issue where the "All Staff Members" checkbox wasn't working properly.
- When an invoice got updated, the PDF with the invoice details wasn't regenerating, so it was still displaying old data. The PDF now gets updated.
- We improved an issue in report calculations where breaks were not being deducted from total durations.
- We improved a security restriction that was too restrictive, so that now users with "Edit" permission to "Employees" can resend email verification for employee access.
- We fixed an issue with how hour totals were calculated and displayed, as Weekly and Daily views were off.
- We fixed an issue where the sales interval report wasn't working.
- We fixed a calculation oversight.
- We got rid of a setting option that was obsolete because of our new navigation.
- We improved several spelling and grammar mistakes throughout the application.
- We added the employees averages report to the corporate level.
- We added a filter page in our sign-up process to reduce the number of employees who create their own accounts instead of having their manager add them to the business.
New
- New CBS integration allows TimeForge to sync sales data from CBS.
Improvements and Fixes
- Some payment plans have been updated. Affected customers were personally notified and will see the change reflected on their next invoice. Details can be found on the Payment Options page under the Set Up tab.
- Invoice format is now more transparent about how we bill and what dates are included.
- We fixed an issue that was causing the Availability and Requests page to show incorrect date ranges.
- Edit Attendance page now allows easy adjustments without having to worry about attendance with no department assigned.
- Improved performance when loading schedule messages.
- We removed the limit on the number of employees that could be exported from the Employee list.
- The Employee list should now correctly sort by date, whether hire date, birthday date, date applied, etc.
- Supervisors who have access to view employees' wages should now be able to view their own scheduled costs in the daily/weekly/monthly schedule views.
- Fixed an issue with the employee mobile clock-in and switch position feature that was causing duplicate clock-ins.
- Employees removed from a position should no longer lose attendance hours associated with that position.
- Files attached to Messages should now show filenames.
- Changes to the department threshold grid should now save correctly.
- Minor improvements to edit shift dialogue box from weekly/monthly view.
- Ongoing fixes and improvements to TimeForge UI.