WhosOff.com Premium Edition Updates

Staff Notes Update - Leave Request Activity

28.Mar.2012

The first in a set of updates coming soon, after speaking with some of our users we have included in the staff notes when a leave request has been approved/declined.

From today, 28th March 2012, when an Approver/Super User approves or declines a leave request, a record of this is now put in the Staff notes making it easier for you to track activity in leave requests.

Yearly Breakdown Report - Update

13.Feb.2012

The Yearly Breakdown Report (Summary) has been updated to include any carried over days for the selected staff members.

Whether you view your report online, or choose to download to .CSV format, this new field is now available.

New features - Dashboard and Approvers

16.Jan.2012

At WhosOff we continue to use customer feedback to improve the WhosOff service and the last few weeks have seen some further updates to the system to give users even more visibility and functionality on Staff leave and absence.

On the Dashboard

In the 'Who's Off Today' area we have added the option to select any day and quickly see who's off on that day.

There is also a new tab here which list those people for whom it is a 'Non' working day.

Approvers

You can now set approvers to be able to Add/Edit leave for their own staff. Adminsitrators can set Approvers to be able to Add leave in the future ( but not the past) or Add/Edit/Delete leave in the past and future. (The default setting is not being able to add leave for anyone)

Integrate WhosOff into your existing HR or Personnel Systems with the WhosOff API

29.Nov.2011

Today sees the launch of our beta API (Application Programming Interface)

What's it for and what can it do ?

If your are a developer/programmer you'll know all about API's and how to use them to integrate with your existing systems.

The current beta release of the API only has 'Read' functions, although we expect to add additional 'write' functions in future.

This beta release of the API has functions to retrieve data:

Who's Off by date range, by Department, by Leave type

Staff Details

Department List

Leave Type List

If you are interested in having access to the API , just let us know at support@whosoff.com

Bulk enter Staff leave and improved Who's Off

15.Nov.2011

We've added a new feature to let administrators add leave to users in bulk by department or multiple departments.

So if you need to enter leave for all staff on the 25th December - you can now do it all in one go without the need to enter it individually.

The Who's Off screen has also been improved - with faster loading and enhanced usability.

Sign in with Your Google or Yahoo Account

29.Sep.2011

Logging in to WhosOff.com has just got a whole lot easier.

If you have an account with Google or Yahoo, you can easily link these accounts to your WhosOff account and, if you are already logged in to either Google or Yahoo, you can log directly into Whosoff.

Please read our knowledge Base article for full details

Bulk Import Tool

27.Sep.2011

Adding staff to the system could not be easier. Using an excel based template (downloaded form the site) enter your staff details offline and when you are ready, upload them into the WhosOff system also if you wish, sending each staff a welcome message to the system.

Please read our knowledge base article for full details

Scheduled maintenance service complete

19.Sep.2011

We just wanted to let you all know that our scheduled maintenance of the WhosOff service has now been completed and the service is now fully available again. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Scheduled Maintenance, Security Policy Update and other News

18.Sep.2011

Scheduled Maintenance

On Monday 19th September from approx 2100hrs GMT , we will be implementing routine maintenance on WhosOff.com .We anticipate that the service will be unavailable for no more than 1 hour.

Security Policy Update

On the 1st of November 2011 we will be changing our security policy in respect of all users Usernames/emails and Passwords. We are making this change in the light of the recently publicised security breaches of some well know online services.

Username Change

Username/email will need to be valid email address (i.e. containing a .(dot) and @ symbol) *
* If you have users that do not have a 'real' email address you could change them to:
Johnsmith123@yourcompany.com (i.e. their first name and their last name followed by 123)

For non real email addresses don't forget to uncheck the tick box marked 'Receive Emails' on the Staff details in Administration.

Password Change

Passwords will need to be at least 4 characters long.
Over the next few days, we will be sending you the name of any of your users whose Username or Password does not conform to the new policy so that you will have plenty of time to update these records, or advise those users accordingly, so they may update themselves.

Other News

We are aware many of our existing users refer new companies to us, and for this we are very grateful. So much so, that we have set up an 'Agents' area where you can, if you wish, register yourself as an 'Agent' so that we can reward you for sending new clients to us. For full details, please email as at support@whosoff.com

Calendar Feeds - Now Available By Tag!

7.Sep.2011

If your company makes use of tags to group individuals, and you have a number of calendar feeds, Super Users can now setup and make available calendar feeds by tags.

If you are a Super User you can follow these steps to manage your companies' calendar feeds:

Login to your WhosOff account
Click on "Administration" (top right)
Under "Setup / Alerts / Feeds", click on "Manage Calendar Feeds"
Within this section you can create & manage your calendar feeds, and are now able to select a tag to create a calendar for.

WhosOff for iPhone and Android Released

5.May.2011

We are pleased to announce that our mobile apps for iPhone and Android are available to download from the Apple App Store and Android Market

Both Apps are Free to download and make managing your staff leave and out-of-office times on the move very simple and easy.

Looks like BlackBerry app and mobile web version is not far behind !

Auto Report Scheduling

14.Apr.2011

Some great new features in WhosOff (currently in BETA) to help you manage your staff leave effectively:

On the 'My Staff' link you can see an overview of the your staff members' leave balances. You can also see some useful statistic analysis including a breakdown by leave type and the number of occurences by leave type.

Click on 'Report Scheduling' and you can schedule WhosOff to automatically send you reports for yesterday,today, this week or this month.

Overtime, ability to switch off!

21.Mar.2011

If you manage your staff overtime outside of WhosOff, you now have the ability to switch off this area from your account. Simply follow these instructions to do this:

Login to your WhosOff account
Click on "Adminsitration", "Company Details"
Under the heading WhosOff Setup, you can now specify whether the Overtime area/tools are available to the users on your account.
Don't forget to save any changes you make

Fancy half an hour off?

13.Oct.2010

You may have seen the update yesterday on our blog that hours is coming soon, another quick update to tell you about: Staff members will be able to book the odd half hour off.

* - only if you are in the system as an "HOURS" staff member.

Reporting by Tag - Now Active

30.Jul.2010

If your company makes use of the tagging feature introduced to WhosOff earlier this year, then your approvers and super users are now able to run reports based on tags as well as the previous options available on the reporting screen.

Grouping Tags Introduced

12.Apr.2010

We have now introduced 'Grouping Tags'. This function is available for 'super users' and to users with the 'cross department views' set to 'all staff' .

If however , the cross browser is restricted then only 'super users' will be able to filter.

What Are Grouping Tags

The 'tags' option gives extra flexibility to 'Who's Off' . The facility allows 'super users' to view staff in different departments but who have a common relationship which can be applied by using the 'tag'.

To 'add' a tag

Go to the 'Administration' area - in 'Customs Tags / Groups' click - 'Manage Tags / Groups' - click 'Add New Tag' - Type the name of your new tag i.e accounts .

Add Tags To Staff Members

Go back to the 'Administration' area - click 'Manage Staff Members' or 'Quick Staff Edit' , you will now see the 'New' tags section in the bottom right hand corner . Simply click the group or groups this staff member is associated with .

Please remember to 'Save' every time you change the details .

Show only who is off in WhosOff view

5.Mar.2010

If you're looking through the WhosOff view to find key members of staff that are off in a given timeframe, instead of seeing all staff irrespective of leave, now you have the option to see only those staff members that are off in the selected period.

After clicking on the WhosOff tab, check out the new option on the right hand side of the title bar, titled "Show only WhosOff", by toggling this option the list will be filtered to show only those staff member that have leave records in the selected month.

New Interface, new features, faster development!

23.Feb.2010

Over the last couple of months not a lot of changes have been made to the WhosOff platform that users have been using. This is all because a new release to WhosOff has been in testing, building on the success that is already in place for users a number of new features including: text/html email preferences, default departments upon login a highly requested "save my login details" feature among the latest additions.

Add the above features to a new user friendly interface and experience and you have the all new WhosOff! - Take a sneak peak at https://staff.whosoff.com prior to its live launch.

Some popular updates (My Details / Settings):

Text/HTML email preference
Whether you prefer HTML or Text Only emails you can now specify this within your account.
New Rich Interface
Why not login to your account on the above address, visit the My Details area and change your interface to the new "Rounded Blue", when you next login your experience will change (for the better!)
Default Departments
Prefer to see the design department when you login, or all departments, now you can set the default department saving you time when you login.

Other useful updates:

Enhanced Support
The help section within the application is now linked to the Knowledgebase that the team at WhosOff have been and will continue to build over the forthcoming months.
Faster Development
The ability to react to our users' requirements is now a high priority and very achievable with the new release of WhosOff. Go on, ask for something.....

Don't forget: Visit https://staff.whosoff.com to check out the new interface prior to its public release.

Leave types increased to 15

26.Oct.2009

As a result of user requests we have increased the maximum number of leave types any company can have from ten to fifteen.

User Yearly Calendar is back!

19.Oct.2009

The report "User Year Calendar" from the previous edition of WhosOff is now available in the Premium Edition of WhosOff. Visit the Reports area for the new style calendar report.

Free / Restricted Days Update - Bulk Add

7.Oct.2009

Instead of having to enter all your Free/Restricted days by individual departments, an update to this area now means you can select multiple departments to add a new Free/Restricted day for.

This doesn't mean that one request covers multiple departments, the system will generate one day per the departments you have selected, just a minor update to help those with departments located around the world.

WhosOff adds calendar feeds

27.Sep.2009

You can now create a calendar feed from your WhosOff account and subscribe to that feed from other calendar programs such as MS Outlook and Google Calendar.

This is a great way to see whats going on in Whosoff without you having to log in each time.

You can create calendar feeds for individuals, departments or the whole company, to find out how to manage calendar feeds check out Knowledgebase Article W02569_N1436.

Maximum consecutive days, now at leave type level

20.May.2009

Want to allow staff to take a maximum of 14 days holiday in one go, but only a maximum of 2 days sick, now you can.

From a number of requests over the past few months we have implemented a change whereby the maximum consecutive days a request can span for is now managed/set at leave type level meaning you can set larger or smaller amount of consecutive days depending on the leave type in question.

All departments..all the time

18.Feb.2009

When using the system, whenever you change the department which you would like to view (e.g. WhosOff today on the dashboard), the system remembers your preference and this stays with you until you logout, also very helpful when admistering your staff

Thank you to those super users who have requested this, hope this helps.

WhosOff Today?, Tomorrow?, Yesterday?

18.Feb.2009

Quickly find out which members of staff are off today, tomorrow or remind yourself about yesterday. Check out the new options on the WhosOff today area on the dashboard once you have logged in.

Super users - approve expired requests

6.Feb.2009

Super users are now able to approve leave requests that have expired using the "Pending Leave Reqests" area.

Leave request Notes - Visible to ?

15.Jan.2009

Super Users - you can now set which levels of staff member can see which leave type notes. If you want to hide sick notes, you can. If you want to show course details to only approvers and super users you can.