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Staff Schedules and Approving Time Off/PTO

Assign & modify schedules for staff

Molly Farber avatar
Written by Molly Farber
Updated over a week ago

Playground Staff schedules can be used to schedule your staff and ensure that you have appropriate coverage for all your classrooms. Staff can view their schedules to plan their week. You, as an Admin, can also view any Time off requests, and approve or deny then, via the same Schedules tab.


Viewing staff schedules

  1. Navigate to the Scheduling tab on your Admin Dashboard and then select Schedules.

  2. Click the Staff tab at the top of your screen to view all staff schedules.

  3. Use the options at the top of the table to adjust the week you want to view. You can also choose to sort the table by name or classroom.

  4. Click Filters to show the schedule for a specific classroom.

  5. Click the blue Print button to print your weekly schedule.


Add a one-time schedule

One-time schedules can be added for multiple staff and multiple days at a time. Alternatively, you can schedule one day at a time from the staff schedule table.
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Add one-time schedules for multiple staff/days

  1. From the Staff Schedule screen, click the blue Manage Schedules button in the top right corner of your screen, then click Add One-time Schedule.

  2. A scheduling window will appear. Here, you can select the staff to whom the schedule applies, assign staff to a classroom, and select the days and times.

  3. Once you are done making selections, click the blue Save button.

Add one-time schedules for single-staff/day

  1. From the Staff Schedule screen, click the day you would like to add a schedule.

  2. Click this week only.

  3. Adjust the start and end times as needed and choose a classroom.

  4. Then click the blue Save button.

๐Ÿ’ก You can add two schedules for a staff on a single day by repeating the add schedule process twice for the same day. This can be helpful for scheduling breaks and lunches.


Add a recurring schedule

  1. From the Staff Schedule screen, click the blue Manage Schedules button in the top right corner of your screen. Then click Add Recurring Schedule.

  2. Select the staff the recurring schedule should apply to and assign the staff to a classroom.

  3. If the schedule has an end date, toggle on End date. If you do not select an end date, the schedule will repeat weekly indefinitely.

  4. Specify the times and days of the schedule.

  5. Click the blue Save button when you are done.

๐Ÿ’ก Recurring schedules will be marked with a double arrow icon ๐Ÿ”„ on the scheduling table.

๐Ÿšจ Adding a recurring schedule will override existing schedules for the staff selected.


Create a template schedule

Create a template schedule to add schedules for staff quickly. You can see an overview of all templates from the Template tab on the Scheduling screen. When adding schedules, you can select a template schedule from the Add Schedule Window.

๐Ÿ’ก Template schedules can be used for both staff and student schedules.

  1. From the Staff Schedule screen, click the blue Manage Schedules button in the top right corner of your screen. Then click Create New Template.

  2. The template window will open. Name your template and select the days/times of the schedule.

  3. Click the blue Save template button.


Schedule staff absences

Staff can be marked absent with various absence types, including vacation, sick, bereavement, holiday, personal, and other.

๐Ÿ’ก Any staff absence can be marked as a paid absence. If you are using Playground Payroll, paid absences will automatically flow to payroll. Click here to learn more about Playground Payroll.

  1. From the Staff Schedule screen, click on the day/staff you would like to add an absence for and then click Mark Absence for Day.

  2. The Record Absence Window will pop up. Confirm the date and add an absence type.

  3. If the absence should be paid, click the check box next to Paid Time Off and then enter the number of hours that the employee should be paid for.

  4. Click the blue Record Absence button to save.

  5. The absence will now appear as an orange box on the scheduling table.


Edit or Delete a Schedule

To adjust a schedule, click on the schedule box and then select edit recurring schedule, edit this day, delete this time slot, or delete recurring schedule.


Staff schedule settings

Adjust your schedule settings to customize the schedule table. Click the white Settings button in the top right corner of the screen. Choose from the options below as desired:

Settings

Definition

Hide weekends on calendar

Select this to only show Monday - Friday on your screen

Show classroom colors for scheduled times

If you have colors assigned to your classrooms, select this option to change the color of the schedule box based on the classroom assigned

Hide classroom names

Select this to remove the classroom name from the schedule box


Resource View

The Resource View is utilized to see the overlap of student and staff schedules per classroom, over the entirety of the day. It easily pinpoints times throughout a specific day where there may not be enough staff scheduled or too many staff scheduled.

๐Ÿ’ก Green time slots are staff schedules. Blue time slots are student schedules.

  1. From the Admin Dashboard, navigate to the Scheduling > Schedules tab

  2. Click on the Resource view tab at the top

  3. Use the buttons at the top right of the table to navigate to a specific date

  4. View the total scheduled time per classroom on the table

  5. Click the plus sign symbol to the left of any classroom name to open that classroom's specific schedules


Time off requests

Your staff can request time off, for example either Sick or Vacation time, via their mobile applications. Admins will be able to see all historical and upcoming, pending requests in one location to easily keep track of staff time off.

Approving and denying staff PTO requests

  1. From the Admin Dashboard, navigate to the Scheduling > Schedules tab

  2. Click on the Time off requests tab at the top of the page

  3. Click on any Pending approval requests

    1. On the modal that populates, you can select if the absence Paid time off or not

  4. You can either select Approve or Deny at the bottom of the request

  5. Approved requests add an absence to that staff member's schedule for the times that listed in their request.


Viewing approved and denied PTO requests

Declining a PTO request will send an email to both parties, and the Time off requests tab within Scheduling > Schedules will have a filter for you to view specific statuses(approved, denied), start dates for the PTO, or requests from specific staff members.

Filter options

What is filtered

Status

  • All - all PTO requests, both accepted and denied

  • Pending Approval - only requests pending approval

  • Approved - all approved requests

  • Denied - all denied requests

Start date

  • None - any dates or date ranges

  • is equal to - filter for a specific day

  • is between - enter a date range to filter requests by

Staff

  • All - all staff

  • Individual staff selection

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