Overview
Use annotations to send your staff important information about a particular day. You can send a general announcement, let your staff know that time off isn’t allowed, or let your staff know that your business will be closed that day.
You can also use annotations from your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone.
Considerations
- You must have supervisor, manager, or admin access privileges to add annotations. If you’re a supervisor, you can add annotations for your schedules only.
- Only one annotation can appear at a time in the “Important Upcoming Date” section of My Schedule. The exception is if there are annotations on the same day within different schedules.
- Only announcement annotations appear on the Dashboard and schedule in the iOS and Android mobile apps.
- Users cannot click URLs that you enter in the annotation message. However, they can manually type the URL into a web browser.
Types of annotations
Each annotation has one or more types that determine how the annotation is displayed to your employees. An annotation can have one, two, or all three types.
| Type | Business Closed |
| Description |
Posts a message to the Schedule view that indicates your business is closed on the selected days. NOTE: If a ‘Business Closed’ annotation is added to a date with published shifts, you have the option to:
|
| Type | Don’t Allow Time Off |
| Description |
Posts a message to the Schedule view that indicates time time off isn’t allowed on the selected days, and prevents staff from submitting time off requests. supervisors and managers can still submit time off requests for those days for themselves and on behalf of employees. |
| Type | Announcement |
| Description | Posts a message to the Schedule view and dashboard¹ that applies to the selected days. |
| Type | Description |
| Business Closed |
Posts a message to the Schedule view that indicates your business is closed on the selected days. NOTE: If a ‘Business Closed’ annotation is added to a date with published shifts, you have the option to:
|
| Don’t Allow Time Off |
Posts a message to the Schedule view that indicates time time off isn’t allowed on the selected days, and prevents staff from submitting time off requests. supervisors and managers can still submit time off requests for those days for themselves and on behalf of employees. |
| Announcement | Posts a message to the Schedule view and dashboard¹ that applies to the selected days. |
¹ Mobile apps only; iOS displays annotations that occur in the next eight days (including today), Android displays annotations that occur in the next seven days (including today).
Create an annotation
Click Scheduler.
- Make sure you’re in week view. The time picker drop-down menu should display Week.
- Next to the date in the column header of the schedule, click .
- Set up the annotation.
Callout Name Description a Dates (Required) Select the Start Date and End Date. b Pencil button (Optional) Select the color you want the annotation to be highlighted in. c Schedules (Required) Select which schedules the annotation applies to. d Title Enter a title for the annotation. e Message (Optional) Enter a message for employees to go along with the annotation. f Type (Required) Select which type of annotation you want to add. Callout Name Description a Dates (Required) Select the Start Date and End Date. b Pencil button (Optional) Select the color you want the annotation to be highlighted in. c Schedules (Required) Select which schedules the annotation applies to. d Title Enter a title for the annotation. e Message (Optional) Enter a message for employees to go along with the annotation. f Type (Required) Select which type of annotation you want to add. - Click Save. After you save, the annotation appears in the When I Work app. Annotations appear in different areas of the app depending on which type you add.
Examples
Each type of annotation displays on the My Schedule page under Important Upcoming Date. Dates in the schedule are also highlighted if an annotation has been added. Hover over the icon to view the annotation’s details.
Don’t Allow Time Off annotations also display when a user is selecting dates while requesting time off. Days are highlighted in red if time off is prevented.