Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

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Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Security
Scheduling
Getting Started Guide for
Administrators

pg. 1

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Welcome! .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Security Scheduling Core .......................................................................................................................... 3
Officers .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Locations ............................................................................................................................................... 3
Positions ................................................................................................................................................ 3
Adding Company Data .................................................................................................................................. 4
Creating Officers ....................................................................................................................................... 5
Creating Locations..................................................................................................................................... 5
Creating Positions ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Generating Schedules ................................................................................................................................... 7
Create a new schedule .............................................................................................................................. 7
Scheduling Officers ................................................................................................................................... 7
Printing Your Schedule .............................................................................................................................. 9
Publishing Your Schedule ........................................................................................................................ 10
Updating Schedules ................................................................................................................................ 11
Publishing Updated Schedules ................................................................................................................ 11
Managing Timesheets ................................................................................................................................. 13
Timesheet Fundamentals........................................................................................................................ 13
Working with Timesheets ....................................................................................................................... 13
Reporting .................................................................................................................................................... 15
Print Payroll Report ................................................................................................................................. 15
Process Approved Timesheets for Payroll .............................................................................................. 16
Invoicing Report ...................................................................................................................................... 16

pg. 2

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Introduction
Welcome!
Let me start off by saying thank you for signing up for Security Scheduling! Security Scheduling was
developed by security officers with over 22 years of combined security experience. We currently own
and run a large security company in Texas. After years of fighting with scheduling our officers and trying
many different ways we finally decided to develop Security Scheduling.
We later expanded Security Scheduling to include timesheet tracking online. This allows your officers to
fill out timesheets online and submit them for review. With this functionality came the ability to
generate payroll and invoicing reports.

Security Scheduling Core
At the core of Security Scheduling is the idea that we can track scheduling with three types of objects:




Officers
Locations
Positions

Each of these objects are defined below:

Officers
This represents your officers that you will use to fill in schedules.

Locations
This represents the sites that you schedule officers at.

Positions
These are the slots at each location that you can schedule an officer at.
Let’s better illustrate this by an example.
Small Guard Services is a small security guard company that only has one contract at a bar called The
Drunken Horse. They need officers at this bar on Fridays and Saturdays. On Fridays they need two
officers and on Saturdays they need three officers. They have a supervisor that is on patrol on both
Fridays and Saturdays. Small Guard Services currently employs four officers including the sergeant who
is the supervisor.
From this information we can begin creating four officers. Then we create the location for The Drunken
Horse. Next we create the positions:
Since we need two officers on Friday at The Drunken Horse we create the two Friday positions and
another position for the supervisor that will be on patrol from 9:00 pm to 4:00 am:
Position
1
2

pg. 3

Location
The Drunken Horse
The Drunken Horse

Day
Friday
Friday

Start
10:00 pm
10:00 pm

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

End
3:00 am
3:00 am

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

3

The Drunken Horse

Friday

9:00 pm

4:00 am

Next we know we need three officers scheduled at The Drunken Horse and another for the supervisor
on patrol so we can create these positions for Saturday:
Position
4
5
6
7

Location
The Drunken Horse
The Drunken Horse
The Drunken Horse
The Drunken Horse

Day
Saturday
Saturday
Saturday
Saturday

Start
10:00 pm
10:00 pm
10:00 pm
9:00 pm

End
3:00 am
3:00 am
3:30 am
4:00 am

Now we have a total of 7 positions, 4 officers, and 1 location.
Using the Officers, Locations, Positions (OLP) Model will make creating schedules on a regular basis
incredibly easy. Depending on the size of your security company you may have to spend a little time
creating the data that Security Scheduling will be using to create schedules. The good news is that you
will be saving money by making creating schedules a snap time after time. This gives your supervisors
more time to be out in the field and not stuck in the office.
Now that we know what we have to create we will begin to add this information into Security
Scheduling.

Adding Company Data
This section will walk you through adding all the Officers, Locations, and Positions that you will need in
order to create schedules. The first step is to login to Security Scheduling.
Open your favorite browser and go to https://sos.securityscheduling.com

This is the login screen where you enter your username and password. Click on the Login button and
you will be signed in to Security Scheduling.

pg. 4

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Creating Officers
To create an officer click on Officers on the navigation bar.

You will now see the Officers screen where you can fill out the officer’s information. The required fields
are:







Last Name
First Name
Email
Username
Password
Verify

Make sure that the officer’s email address is a valid email address. Security Scheduling can send
schedules and schedule updates to your officers via email. If the email address is not a good email
address for the officer they will not receive their schedules by email. They can always check their
schedules online by logging into Security Scheduling using their username and password that you assign
on this screen. For more information about how officers use Security Scheduling see the Officer’s User
Guide. Passwords must be greater than 8 characters in length.
Click on Add Officer to add the officer’s information.
Repeat this process to add all your officers.

NOTE: There is a Delete link for each officer that will delete the officer’s account. DO NOT do this if you
have the officer on any schedules in the past. This will mess up your schedules. We are currently
working on fixing this bug. For now just mark the officer as inactive by unchecking the Active checkbox
when editing the officer.

Creating Locations
To create a location entry for your sites click on Locations on the navigation bar.

You now see the Locations screen where you can fill out the location’s information. The required fields
are:

pg. 5

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators





Company Name
Address
Email

Click on Add Location to add the location’s information.
Repeat this process to add all your locations.

NOTE: There is a Delete link for each location that will delete the location’s information. DO NOT do this
if you have the location on any schedules in the past. This will mess up your schedules. We are
currently working on fixing this bug.

Creating Positions
To create positions click on Positions on the navigation bar.

You now see the Positions screen where you can fill out the positions for your schedule. The required
fields are:





Location
Day
Start Time
End Time

Click on Add Position to add the position information.
Repeat this process to add all your positions.

pg. 6

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Generating Schedules
Now that we have all the information entered for our Officers, Locations, and Positions we are finally
ready to start creating schedules. One of the features of Security Scheduling is the ability to create
schedules for any length of time you need. You can create weekly schedules, bi-weekly schedules or
schedules for just one day. It’s up to you and how you run your company.
To begin creating your first schedule click on Schedules in the navigation bar.

Create a new schedule
In the Add New Schedule section fill out the Start Date and End Date for your new schedule. This
example shows us creating a schedule for one week that starts on a Monday.

Click on the Add Schedule button to create the new schedule. The software creates a schedule using all
the positions you created earlier. Next we need to edit the schedule in order to assign officers to
positions and thereby filling out our newly created schedule.

Scheduling Officers
You will see your newly created schedule in the Schedules list.

To begin scheduling your officers you will need to click on the Edit link for your schedule. This will take
you to the Schedule Editing view.

pg. 7

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

This view has a few sections that make creating the schedules easier. The first section is the calendar in
the upper left. This shows the days for this schedule highlighted in white. You can click each day to see
the positions for that day. The section in the upper right is for listing the positions for the currently
selected day which is shown at the top. In the lower right corner is a small form to add an adhoc
position.
Adhoc positions are one time spots where you might need to schedule an extra officer for a special
event or similar. Adhoc positions only appear for this particular schedule and you will not see them
listed in the Positions screen.
Click on a day where you would need an officer scheduled. In the introductory example we only have
officers on Fridays and Saturdays so on this case we would click on a Friday. We now see the positions
for this date.

pg. 8

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Notice that for the officer column all positions have unscheduled because we have not scheduled an
officer in these positions yet. Click the drop box and select the officer you would like to be scheduled in
each position.

Click on Save Schedule to save your changes.
Note: You must do this for each day. If you click on another day before clicking Save Schedule you will
lose any changes. Of course if you didn’t make any changes this doesn’t matter.
Continue going through each day to schedule your officers. After you have each day completed you are
done and can print or publish your schedule for distribution to your officers.

Printing Your Schedule
After your schedule is complete you can print it out to verify that it looks correct or for posting in your
office.
To print your schedule click on the print link for your schedule in the schedules screen.
This will generate a PDF file named schedule-(startdate)-(enddate).pdf. You will need a PDF reader in
order to view the schedule.

pg. 9

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

As you can see from the example above I forgot to schedule the officers for Saturday November 29th,
2014. This is an important step in making sure your schedule is right before publishing to your officers.
After you have the schedule correct Security Scheduling gives you the ability to email the schedule to
your officers all at once!

Publishing Your Schedule
Note: Not all plans will have this feature. Check your plan details for more information.
Now you have your schedule created and want to send it out to your officers. Security Scheduling does
this through the publish link on the schedules screen. When you click the link the screen might freeze
for a second. DO NOT CLICK PUBLISH AGAIN until you see SCHEDULE PUBLISHED SUCCESSFULLY!
Doing so will cause your officers to receive duplicates and count against the max amount of emails your
company can send from Security Scheduling.
When Security Scheduling publishes your schedule it sends an email to each officer you have listed as
active. In addition, it only emails them their own schedule. They don’t see any locations that they are
not scheduled at and they don’t see any other officer’s schedule.
Here is the email CPT Sparrow received for his schedule.

pg. 10

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Updating Schedules
As often happens in security you will need to update your schedule. Usually this happens when an
officer calls in sick, no call no show, or any of infinite reasons. Luckily with Security Scheduling this is
made easy.
To edit a schedule after it has been created you perform the same steps as when you created your
schedule. Simply change the scheduled officer to the new officer.

Publishing Updated Schedules
Now you need to update your officers that the schedule has changed. The problem is that we don’t
want to send out the schedule to each and every officer every time we make a change to the schedule.
The last section of the Schedules page allows us to only send updates to certain officers. In this case we
would send out updated schedules to the officers affected by our schedule change.

pg. 11

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

The latest created schedule will be listed by default. If you want a different schedule then select it here.
Next select the officers you want the Updated Schedule to be sent to. Make sure you hold down the
CTRL key to select multiple officers. Finally, click on Email Update to send the updated schedule only to
the selected officers.

pg. 12

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Managing Timesheets
Timesheet Fundamentals
Security Scheduling lets you manage timesheets for your officers. This will help you to generate reports
for your payroll and invoicing your customers. Timesheets in Security Scheduling follow a certain
workflow.
The Officer creates a new timesheet for a set time period, typically for a pay period. They add entries to
their time sheet that shows where they worked on what days and what time they clocked in and out at.
After they complete their timesheet they submit the timesheet for approval. At this point the officer
can no longer make changes to the timesheet. If they made a mistake and they already submitted their
timesheet for approval they must delete the timesheet and start over.
After they submit their timesheet for approval the timesheet goes into Submitted status and becomes
viewable by administrators. Administrators go to their timesheets screen and see all the submitted
timesheets from the officers. The administrator then goes through each timesheet and reviews it. If
there are any questions or concerns the administrator can reject the timesheet which puts the
timesheet into rejected status. The officer will be able to edit their timesheet at this point and resubmit
for approval.
Once the administrator likes the timesheet they approve it which puts the timesheet into an approved
status. The timesheet will no longer be visible from the administrator timesheet screen. We use the
approved timesheets in the Reports section later.

Working with Timesheets
For the purposes of this guide we will assume that the officer has already created their timesheet and
submitted it for approval. For instructions on how to accomplish this please see the Officer’s User
Guide.
To view submitted timesheets click on Timesheets on the navigation bar.

You will see a list of all the submitted timesheets. For this example CPT Sparrow submitted his
timesheet for approval.

Click the review link to review the timesheet.

pg. 13

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

This shows us all the information for the timesheet submitted. The first things to check are the start and
end dates of the timesheet. Typically all the officers should have the same start and end dates for the
current time period.
After the start and end dates the timesheet entries are listed for this timesheet. You can cross reference
these with your schedules to see if they have made a mistake. One thing to verify here is that the officer
was indeed scheduled on the date(s) that they created timesheet entries for. Also verify that they have
the correct locations entered.
If the timesheet looks correct and no changes are required make sure that status is set to Approve and
click on the Submit Review button. This will email the officer informing them that their timesheet was
approved and the timesheet’s status will change to approved.
If the timesheet has errors and needs to be corrected change the status to reject. Fill in the reason with
specifics on why the timesheet was rejected. For example:
“You did not work on Saturday the 27th. Please remove that timesheet entry.”
Click on Submit Review to send the officer an email informing them that their timesheet was rejected
and giving them your reason for rejecting it. This will also put the timesheet in rejected status and will
make it editable by the officer.
If you wish to neither approve nor reject the timesheet you can click on the Cancel Review link to go
back to the timesheets screen.

pg. 14

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Reporting
Security Scheduling has several reports that you can run to make payroll and invoicing a little easier. To
access reports click on reports in the navigation bar.

Print Payroll Report
This report is used to look at all the currently approved timesheets. This gives you a summary of how
many hours each officer worked on their timesheet. It calculates the hours for each timesheet entry
and at the bottom gives a total number of hours worked for this timesheet/payroll period. Here is a
sample of this report. Since only CPT Sparrow has submitted a timesheet and had it approved, his is the
only one we see in this report.

This shows that for this pay period beginning on 11-24-2014 to 11-30-2014 CPT Sparrow worked a total
of 39 hours. You can then use this information to input all the hours worked for all your officers into
your payroll application such as Quickbooks or ADP.
This report only shows you the approved timesheets. After you run the report the timesheets stay in
approved status. This is so you can check wait till all timesheets are in. The next section covers how to
actually process the approved timesheets so they won’t come up again for the next pay period.

pg. 15

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Process Approved Timesheets for Payroll
This report shows the exact same report as above but behind the scenes it marks the timesheets as
closed. This prevents them from coming up in the next pay periods reports.

This report will only give data once so use it with caution. Make sure that all the timesheets are in and
approved for this payroll before running the report.

Invoicing Report
This report is used to get hours that were worked at each location. Since billing cycles vary greatly from
company to company and typically between customers within your company you can run the report
from specific start and end dates.
Let’s say that Small Guard Services invoices The Drunken Horse on a monthly basis and we want to know
how many hours to bill for November. Select the start and end dates as shown below and click on View
Report.

pg. 16

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

This will print the report and show the hours entered by location for the time period.

For this example, you would invoice The Drunken Horse for 39 hours for the month of November 2014.

pg. 17

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

Security Scheduling Getting Started Guide for Administrators

Getting Support
We have tried very hard to make Security Scheduling as easy as possible but if you have any questions or
need help please email us at the link below. We try to give same day turn around on questions.
[email protected]

If there is a feature you would like to see added to Security Scheduling please don’t hesitate to drop us
an email. We believe in making life easier for security officers and any input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again for using Security Scheduling.

pg. 18

© 2014 Ashlar Software – All Rights Reserved

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