A Practical Overview of How Deputy Works

by Ashik Ahmed, 6 minutes read
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Deputy in Action
Over here, in the Deputy offices, we live, we breathe, we eat Deputy. We know it inside out, know what it is capable of, and what it will be soon capable of doing. We just love Deputy.

However, we realized, that perhaps we could share some of this knowledge with you and help you understand just why Deputy is so far ahead of what others in the time clock/tasking/employee management market offer. We want to do this by showing you how Deputy can streamline your operations from both a managerial/administrative point of view and how it also helps employees.

We set our scene at a fictitious business (it could be a day care centre, a café, a bar, a mechanics workshop or many, many other businesses, with one or multiple locations) over the course of a day or two in one working week.

Business Overview
Elmo’s Flowers Pty Limited is a pioneering business that has achieved speedy growth through the provision of same-day service. It currently operates in 3 locations, with stores in North Sydney, Parramatta and a 3rd in Northbridge, Western Australia.

Sarah, the manager has been with the company for 4 years and is in charge of the smooth running of the business; from staffing through to procurement. Today, the company employees 16 staff who are a mix of wage paid, part time (casual and permanent) and full time salaried employees.

Deputy enables everybody in the business to connect, communicate and run daily business operations. Align everybody to the right tasks and make your business efficient.

Sarah – The Manager
Sarah has been with Elmo Flowers for 4 years and has risen through the ranks from being a part time employee to the position she holds today. She knows the business inside and out and knows what it is like on the front line, racing to get bouquets made in time for orders, whilst at the same time providing high-level service to walk-in customers.

Sarah is at home finishing breakfast looking at her laptop as she prepares for the week ahead. This week there are 4 weddings to prepare for – on top of the usual workload – out of one store in Sydney, making it busier than usual. Realising that the staff roster she set last week will not cope with the demand, she logs onto Deputy to redo the roster.

Sarah selects Ben and Samantha as she wants to reassign them to the North Sydney store on Thursday and Friday, however, is notified by Deputy that Ben is not available on Friday as he has put leave in.

Instead she selects Regina and changes hers and Samantha’s work location for the 2 days and proceeds to publish the new roster. Because Regina and Samantha will be stop-gaps for the few days they are in North Sydney, she assigns a few key tasks to each to make sure their time in the store is productive and they know what to do as soon as they get in.

As she finishes her coffee, Sarah posts an announcement to everyone in the team, advising them that she has reassigned shifts due to this week being busier than usual, asking everyone to dig deep and be on time and asking everyone to keep her informed if there are any large orders which come in or anything requiring her attention.

Fortunately for her given her impending workload, all this is accomplished in minutes.

Samantha
Samantha is on her way to work when a push notification comes in on her iPhone. Checking her Deputy App she sees a notification that this week is a big one, and that her shifts for Thursday and Friday have been moved to the North Sydney store.

She has no issue with this, except for the fact she cannot remember the names of the others in the North Sydney store. Fortunately, using her app, she can check out the others working in that store and can see a picture of each of them, to remind herself who is who.

Closing the app, Samantha texts her boyfriend to ask for the car on Thursday and Friday so she can get to work faster.

Sarah – The Manager
A couple of days have passed and Sarah is sitting in her office when a Deputy announcement comes in from Ethan in the Northbridge store. He wanted to let her know that the morning delivery of yellow roses has aphids and ask her advice on what he should do. A link to a picture of one particular rose full of spots is included, allowing Sarah to see the evidence for herself. Unhappy with the stock quality, Sarah picks up the phone and calls the supplier.

Regina
Earlier that week, Regina received the notification that her shift had been moved to the North Sydney store. However, Regina underestimated the traffic and is running late for her shift. Not wanting to get caught, she opens Deputy on her phone and checks her tasks to see what she has been allocated for the day, so that as soon as she arrives at work she can just run in and get to it.

Sarah – The Manager
It’s 8.30am and as she waits for her coffee in the café, Sarah logs onto Deputy to see if everyone has started his or her shift. Opening the Team tab, Sarah can see that unsurprisingly the Northbridge store is not on yet given the time difference. However she also notices that Regina is not yet checked in for her shift. Disappointed given the work ahead, Sarah makes a quick journal entry on Regina’s profile, with a note that she was late on a day she had been asked to be punctual.

Samantha
Meanwhile at the Store, Samantha has got stuck in to her shift. She arrived a bit early so she could catch up with Dane whom she realized was working, checked into her shift (on her phone of course, gone are the days of Time clocks) and and is now working away.

However, half way through building her third table arrangement, Samantha runs out of purple ribbon, essential in the creation of the piece. Without a second thought, she opens a new task, titles it “Purple Ribbon Required” and allocates it to Sarah to complete.

Sarah – The Manager
Armed with her coffee, and about to head back to the store, Sarah gets a notification advising her she has a task. She opens it and sees that Samantha has asked for more purple ribbon as she has run out.

As she sips her coffee walking back to the office, Sarah calls and orders an urgent delivery of purple ribbon. She then closes out the task

Dane
As the Friday Shift comes to an end, Dane thinks it would be good to go for drinks to unwind and ease into the weekend. He jumps on his phone and sends out an announcement to everyone. He lets them know that the North Sydney store workers are thinking of going for drinks and that anyone keen should join him at the local. Just to rub it into the Northbridge store (where one of his mates now works), he attaches a link to the pub’s website.

Sarah – The Manager
At the end of the day, Sarah, sits down in her office to approve the timesheets tab. Clicking on the timesheet tab, she is presented with a neat easy to read summary of the days worked and the hours. No timesheet calculator is needed though, as everything is neatly summarized for her. Skimming over the shifts she see’s that everything looks in order – including Regina turning up late – and approves all timesheets in one fell swoop.

Before moving on, she sets herself a task to talk to Regina next shift about punctuality on big days like this and then allocates a task for payroll to go in and export the timesheets to payroll.

Graham – Accounts administrator
On his way home, Graham receives a notification that the time sheets have been approved and that Sarah has tasked him with doing payroll. Knowing there are a number of accounts to do urgently, he knows this should be done before it gets pushed back. So after dinner, Graham logs onto Deputy and decides to create an export of all approved timesheets, ready for it to be integrated into the payroll package. Within seconds of logging on, he is on the Export Timesheet tab, creating a file that can be uploaded to the company payroll platform.

As he is about to log off, Graham remembers that Deputy integrates with a number of payroll platforms such as Xero, MYOB, KeyPay/Sassu and Clubline (he can’t remember the rest, though there are others) and sets himself a task to investigate these options as he is sure there is away he can save even more time.

Deputy, in a Nutshell
So there you go, that’s Deputy in a nutshell. Of course, there are plenty of other permutations and ways which Deputy can add value to your business and to your employees. However, hopefully this gives you a pretty good overview and allows you to see just how you can use Deputy in your business. Should you want anymore information on Deputy browse through our website, or get in touch with us, we’d love to help you. Alternatively, sign up or download the iPhone app and get started today!