October 2024 - Platform updates

We're always striving to improve the WhosOff platform; by listening to our customers and aligning your requirements alongside our plans for the service. And this month is no exception, it's probably our biggest set of updates since the launch of the new service.

Check out the latest round of updates released in October 2024. If you have any questions, or suggestions, drop our support team an email.

Overview of platform updates

• New iOS and Android apps
• Document storage
• Records feature updated within Staff hub
• Compensation history
• Employment history
• New reports
• My staff area now includes overtime
• Updated help
• Small functional and UI tweaks
  • WhosOff page - Quick links and Free/Restricted days
  • Carryover
  • Staff data download
  • Overtime - Clearer definition for hours durations
  • Bulk book leave
  • Welcome messages in bulk
  • Clearer pricing to super users
  • Staff Admin - Notes
• Advanced notification, pricing for 2025

New iOS and Android apps

This is a big deal for us and we're so excited to tell you! For the first time we feel we now have mobile apps aligned with our online application. We've been working hard behind the scenes to updatethe mobile apps that users have in addition to their online accounts, and believe we are now ready for you, our customers, to start seeing the results.

As with WhosOff in general, the work continues behind the scenes to keep developing the apps and we're already working on the next release, but we couldn't hold it back any longer!

We hope to increase the availability of features within staff hub on the mobile devices in the near future and we're very excited about the possibilities the mobile applications will now provide.

For a detailed list of the features of the new iOS and Android apps, see our mobile features page.

• Request leave
• Overtime submission
• Reporting staff absence
• Leave and overtime approvals
• SSO integration (Google)
• Identity provider integrations (Azure/Okta/OneLogin/Google/JumpCloud)
• Multi Factor Authentication (MFA)
• Emergency contacts Coming soon!

Our mobile apps are FREE to download from the iOS App Store, or Google Play, just click on the following links:

Document storage

Want to share a document with the entire company, such as a company handbook? Do you require a read receipt and acceptance receipt? Or, do you want to upload contracts for each individual members of staff that only they have access to?

All of this is now possible with our new Document storage option, available within our Staff hub.

What's great about this new feature is, just like with your users, you only pay for what you use! Our storage pricing is transparent and is calculated at the end of each month. You can even see what your current storage utilisation is, and what it will cost you on your next billing cycle, all within your WhosOff account.

Choose whether to notify who the document is for upon publishing, which is sent out via email notifications.

When a document is published, you have access to run a report detailing which actions are pending, and which actions have been completed by staff members.

• Notifications: Choose whether to notify all those staff members which are associated with the document of it's release
• Read receipt: Specify a requirement for the document to be read by staff
• Acceptance receipt: Specify a requirement for the document to be accepted by staff
• Acceptance date: Specify a date for which the document has to be accepted by staff members

Records feature updated within Staff hub

Following customer feedback, we have made some updates to the records area within the Staff hub.

• Handlers: Within the Staff hub settings you are now able to specify which users (or user levels) on your account are able to become handlers on records. Once set you will then be able to choose from this list when managing records on your account. Records can also be filtered by handlers.
• Reminders: You can now choose to send a reminder (on a date based on the company settings) to either the Handler, the Staff member, both, or none.
• Documents: If you have document storage enabled on your WhosOff account, you are now able to upload a document to be associated with a record
• Reference: You are no longer required to supply a reference on a record.

Compensation history

One of our most requested features was the ability to track staff compensation, well, now you can! Compensation history allows companies to track the pay rate, type, schedule, and contractual hours throughout a staff members employment.

Historical records entered through the Compensation history feature are available within new reports released at the same time. See our New reports section below for more.

Employment history

Much like the compensation history update above, we have re-structured the employment area within personnel. Instead of just being able to store the Employment Start and End dates for an employee, you now have the ability to record and track Job Type, Title, Team/Division, Role/Description and who a staff member reports to.

Historical records entered through the Employment history feature are available within new reports released at the same time. See our New reports section below for more.

New reports

We have introduced a number of new reports to accompany the new feature releases above, these include a documents report, employment history tracking report, and compensation history tracking report.

Documents: View by document, or by staff member a report detailing all outstanding actions required, according to the settings made when you upload a document. You can choose to report on a particular document, all documents, particular staff member, or all staff members.

Employment history: View either all changes made to staff members' employment history within a specified time frame, or the last entry made on each staff member, quickly allowing you to ensure all employment updates have been applied to your staff. Each option can be run for the company, a department, tag, your staff members (as an approver), or a selected staff member.

Compensation history: View either all changes made to staff members' compensation history within a specified time frame, or the last entry made on each staff member, quickly allowing you to ensure all compensation updates have been applied to your staff. Each option can be run for the company, a department, tag, your staff members (as an approver), or a selected staff member.

My staff area now includes overtime

For approvers in particular, we know the My Staff area within WhosOff has been a favoured part of the system for a number of years, allowing you to manage your staff members leave, as well as gaining insights into leave and absences for selected periods.

We have now extended this area to include Overtime (if your company has overtime enabled), in order for you to view and process any outstanding overtime for your staff members.

Updated help

As there are quite a few updates, tweaks and new releases, we have introduced more knowledgebase articles, a list of these can be found below:

• Staff hub - Settings
• Staff hub - Personnel information
• Staff hub - Records
• Staff hub - Documents
• Yearly carryover
• Setting up Next Year
• Dashboard Widgets

As always though, our support team are on hand for any questions you may have, feel free to get in touch.

Small functional and UI tweaks

Super users now have direct access to user records from the WhosOff page. We have also included the Free/Restricted days as quick tips (the same when leave is displayed) so users can see the detail of the events quickly.

Improved messaging when preparing and running carryover process.

When download staff data for back up purposes, the following is now included:

• Employment history
• Compensation history
• Records

Previously when requesting 12 or 24 hours within WhosOff this would of been displayed as 1/2 or 1 day. This has been updated to reflect the actual hours booked so will display as 12h or 24h from now on.

When bulk booking leave for a department, or the whole company, you now have the option to specify the bulk booking across multiple days instead of a single day at a time. Very useful when entering multiple days at once such as Christmas shutdown, or training periods.

One of the items of feedback we received was from new companies rolling out WhosOff across their company. Previously you could only roll out to the whole company when you either a) first import your staff members, or b) on a department by department basis. Using this tool now allows you to bulk roll out the system across the company in a few simple clicks.

Within the Billing & payments area we have included an indicative* monthly cost of your account, including both user and storage costs. If you are invoiced separately for your WhosOff account this will be reflected on your invoice, not within the system.

* Costs are indicative and are based on your user numbers and storage amount at the time of checking. Changes in user numbers and storage used will result in monthly pricing fluctuating to reflect the changes.

Previously, any notes entered within the staff administration area were locked. As a result of feedback we have introduced an option to delete a note, if, you are the user that entered the note, and, the note was entered within the last 7 days.

Advanced notification, pricing for 2025

We'll cut to the chase, we're having to increase our prices. We know this is not news that companies want to receive but, we've not increased our pricing for a couple of years, and, with increased costs to our business we don't really have a choice. We've discussed this long and hard, and, in order to provide the best service that we believe we have provided since 2005 we're making this change from the 1st January 2025. Monthly charges will increase by £0.10 GBP (+VAT) per person per month for UK customers, $0.13 USD or €0.12 EUR per person per month for international customers.

Customers charged monthly for their WhosOff accounts will see this price increase reflected in their invoices from the end of January 2025. Customers charged in advance will see this their invoice to cover their next payable period.

To see how much WhosOff will cost your company from the 1st January 2025 use our simple pricing tool.

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Posted by Tony Bushell
on Wednesday, 9th October 2024