This help guide will discuss how to access and configure your organisational settings, allowing you to customise your experience and get the most out of Tanda.

To access and edit your settings, log in to Tanda in a web browser, then navigate to the settings wheel in the top right corner of the page and click on 'All Settings.'

You should then see a page titled Settings & Configuration, as below:

We will explain what each of these settings means and how to configure them throughout the rest of this article. You can use the 'Search settings' feature to find each of the settings we discuss.

To access General Settings, navigate to Settings > General.

Public Holiday Region

Select your desired public holiday region based on your business location. This setting will pre-fill your account with all your region's state and federal public holidays.

If you need clarification on which dates will apply, click 'Show Pre-Built Holidays' to see a list of which dates will apply if you select that region.

​Public Holiday Dates

In addition to pre-filling public holidays, you can also manually configure the dates of any local public holidays (e.g. your local show day). Use this setting only if the pre-fill above doesn't capture the public holiday.

For more details, see our public holiday help guide.

Next, you can enable our shift feedback feature. To do so, tick this setting to turn it on or uncheck it to turn it off.

If enabled, staff will receive a short weekly feedback survey via the Tanda Mobile App, allowing them to provide feedback on topics like communication, management, morale, and more.

You can easily edit the categories employees can provide feedback on by clicking 'Edit Shift Feedback Categories.' Then, select either 'Edit' or '+ Add New Category' as desired.

You can access this feedback via the Shift Feedback Report under the Reports tab. For more details, see our shift feedback help guide.

This setting controls how you calculate the per-shift costs of salaried staff.

There are three options:

If enabled, weekends will be shown on your timesheets and rosters. If disabled, Saturdays and Sundays will not show up when viewing timesheets or rosters (unless someone has clocked in on that day). This makes it easier to navigate Tanda if your business only operates on weekdays.

This setting specifics the time (in days) before users are logged out after being inactive. For example, if set to 30 days, a user would be logged out of their account after 30 continuous days of inactivity in Tanda.

If you enable this setting, all employees with admin or manager-level permissions must use two-factor authentication when logging in to Tanda. This setting does not apply to users with employee-level permissions.

For more details, see our help guide on managing two-factor authentication.

To access permission settings, navigate to Settings > Permissions.

Allow team managers to see costs: This setting controls whether team managers can see staff costs on rosters, timesheets, and staff profiles. If enabled, managers can only see costs for the staff they manage. No matter what, they can never see costs for staff they don't manage.

You can also allow only certain managers to see staff costs. To do so, leave this setting disabled. Instead, navigate directly to each manager's profile and check or uncheck the 'can see staff costs' setting as appropriate.

Protect manager data (salaries, hourly rates & performance reviews): When enabled, this setting hides managers' wages from other managers even if they can view them on the roster. Managers can still view employee wages, and general managers can still see team managers' salaries.

Keep manager costs visible in total roster costs: If ticked, team manager wages are included in total roster costs. Please be aware that with this setting enabled, managers can theoretically determine other managers' salaries by adding and removing shifts to a roster and subtracting the total cost change.

Allow team managers to edit/approve their own timesheets: If enabled, managers can edit and approve their timesheets. When this setting is unticked, managers can still view their timesheets but cannot edit any times or approve their timesheets.

Receive qualification update alerts: Use this setting to determine who receives an alert if a qualification is due to expire. If enabled, Team Managers and General Managers will only receive alerts for teams they manage, while Admins and Payroll Officers will receive alerts for all expiring qualifications.

Allow staff to add times to their own timesheets: When ticked, this setting allows employees to fill in blank timesheet entries. Employees won't be able to edit existing times; they can only fill in blank ones. As such, you can use this setting to ensure employees enter times if they forget to clock in/out.

Allow staff to make changes to all timesheet fields: This setting lets employees add allowances and edit award tags on their timesheets. A manager must still approve any changes. This feature is useful if you require further information from employees, such as allowing them to enter their travel allowance so they can enter the kilometres travelled.

Allow staff to view their Timesheet Export Summary: This setting allows staff to see their Timesheet Export Summary. The Timesheet Export Summary shows a visual breakdown of how their gross pay was calculated for a timesheet. The main benefit of displaying this summary is that employees can see when specific pay rates were applied and why.

Allow staff to clock breaks: When ticked, this setting enables a break button on the time clock or Mobile App, allowing employees to record break times during their shifts.

Allow staff to see their own estimated wages: When this is ticked, staff will see estimated gross wages for their rostered shifts in the Mobile App. These wages are clearly marked as estimated to ensure staff understand they might not accurately reflect what they will earn, particularly if they work different hours than initially rostered.

Allow staff to view the full roster: This setting allows staff to view the entire roster, not just their shifts. That way, they know who is working each day and who their manager is. You can nominate whether staff can see the full roster for only the teams they work in or their entire location.

Allow staff to enter leave requests: When ticked, employees can enter their own leave requests via the Mobile App or web browser. Otherwise, staff won't see the leave option and will need a manager to create a leave request on their behalf manually. To learn more about submitting leave requests, visit our help guide.

Allow staff to view the full leave calendar: If enabled, this setting allows staff to view the full leave calendar for either the teams they work in or their entire location. That way, they can see who else is taking leave and plan accordingly.

Employees can enter unavailability: This setting allows employees to enter their own unavailability requests. To learn more about unavailability, see our help guide.

Allow staff to update qualifications: If enabled, employees can update any qualifications that apply to them. Changes will still require manager approval. Learn more about qualifications via our help guide.

This setting defines the default passcode length used when clocking in via a Tanda time clock. By default, this is set to 4 digits. This setting is useful for large organisations that quickly exhaust all possible 4-digit combinations or if your organisation already has a numerical code of a different length that employees need to remember.

Use this setting to customise access and role permissions. On this page, you can edit the access and permission settings for each default role type in granular detail. You can also create and configure a new role type by selecting + New.

You will then be prompted to name your new role, enter a description, and define the role type (either admin, manager, or employee). Employees can only see their own information, while managers can see the information of staff they manage, and admins can see all information, provided the access hasn't been disabled below.

From here, expand each drop-down menu to customise the permission settings for that role. For example, in the image below, you can choose whether team managers can create a location. Toggle this setting on/off as desired.

If you're ever unable to access something in Tanda and you're unsure why (or you want to restrict someone else's access), we'd recommend navigating to this page (Settings > Permissions > Show Advanced Settings > Customise Access & Roles Here) and cross-referencing the permission settings with the action you were trying to perform.

On this page, you can nominate whether to enable the break rules setting. Additionally, you can configure whether paid meal breaks count as time worked, whether to enforce minimum break durations, and whether to require staff to nominate which break they're taking.

When the 'Enable Break Rules' setting is ticked, this setting allows you to configure break rules to help with scheduling and compliance.

Additionally, you can nominate whether each break is paid and whether a clock-in is required.

For more details on configuring this setting, see our dedicated help guide along with the common use cases below.

Use Case 1: Clock Lunch Break & Show Unpaid Breaks

Many customers want their employees to clock into their lunch breaks but merely show records on their timesheets for shorter paid rest breaks.

In this example, the system is configured for one un-clocked paid break after 4 hours, a clocked unpaid break after 5 hours, and a second un-clocked paid break after 7 hours.

Employees can still clock in and out of the paid break if they want to. The system will match the rule if they do.

Use Case 2: Clock All Breaks (Paid and Unpaid)

Compliance-focused customers sometimes prefer to have employees clock all paid and unpaid breaks. This configuration provides strong evidence that the break was taken if there is ever a dispute.

To set this up, select 'clock in required' on each break rule. This will prevent the break from appearing on the timesheet unless it's physically clocked.

Use Case 3: Employees Don't Clock Any Breaks

Finally, some organisations don't require employees to clock in or out for breaks. In this case, ensure you have not selected the 'clock in required' box. Tanda will automatically apply the break rule to the timesheet.

If everyone at your company follows the same break rules, you can adjust the default break rules to suit your requirements.

Award rules and regulations typically define how long employees can work before they're entitled to a break. Consult your award for the appropriate break times and lengths for your employees. You can add each break your employees are entitled to by creating or editing a break rule.

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As well as the pre-set default rules, you can click + New to create a custom rule set. You can use this custom rule set for staff who follow particular break rules that are different to the default. To do so, select who the rule applies to based on award templates or staff tags—you will be shown a list of which staff match your filter.

Then, enter the shift duration and break length, and specify whether this is a paid break or a clock-in is required.

You can also create multiple rules within a single rule set if different break lengths apply to different shifts.

See the below example, where the break lengths increase as the shift length increases. For an 8-hour shift, the employee will receive one unpaid 30-minute break and two paid 10-minute breaks:

These settings control the following features:

To learn more about shift replacements, see our help guide.

When ticked, the Enable Shift Acknowledgement feature helps manage staff attendance by asking employees to acknowledge their shifts once a roster is published. This allows managers to more easily identify rostering errors or clashes. It also ensures employees can't use an excuse such as "I didn't realise I had been rostered" if they unexpectedly miss a shift.

To learn more, see our help guide.

Use the following settings to customise the vacant shift claiming feature:

To learn more about the vacant shift claiming feature, see our help guide.

When the 'automatically build optimal rosters based on your staffing requirements' feature is enabled, users can automatically build and fill rosters with the "Build Empty Schedule" and "Assign Staff to Shifts" buttons on rosters.

To learn more, see our predictive scheduling help guide.

When ticked, the Enable Labour Budgets feature lets you view labour cost budgets by team or location.

For a more detailed breakdown, see our help guide.

Roster validations are coloured warnings that appear on rostered shifts to alert managers that a rule or limit has been broken. For example:

You must enable roster validations by ticking the 'Enable roster validations' setting.

From here, you can configure each of our roster validations by toggling each setting on or off.

You can set each roster validation as 'enabled' or 'blocking'. If you tick 'enabled', you will receive a warning whenever you violate that roster validation rule. If you tick 'blocking', you will receive a warning and be blocked from publishing that roster until you resolve the error.

Additionally, you can create custom roster validation rules that apply to all staff or custom rules for specific employees or groups of staff (filtered by tags, locations, ages, etc.). To do so, click + New under Additional Validation, then select who the rule applies to, when it applies, and what validations they should receive.

To learn more about roster validations, see our help guide.

The 'Rosters start on' setting changes the start day of your roster. Changing this setting takes some time to process. We recommend doing so at the end of your day if you ever need to update this setting.

Similarly, the setting 'Use a consistent roster cycle start date for all users' means that all users in your organisation will have the same roster cycle start day. This setting affects the order in which regular hours of work are displayed on employee profiles but will not change existing regular hours of work patterns.

Finally, the 'Assisting Teams' feature allows staff from one team to be counted towards another team in your Predictive Workforce requirements.

Firstly, you will need to configure general timesheet settings.

Allow staff to approve their own timesheets (in addition to manager approval) via the mobile app: Some awards require staff to sign off on their timesheets to allow the staff to verify they're being paid correctly. When this setting is enabled, staff may approve their timesheet, which confirms the timesheet is correct, or request an amendment. Amendment requests will not block timesheet exports. Manager approval is still required.

Enable Custom Export Dates: When enabled, this setting adds a date picker to the 'timesheet export to payroll' page. That way, you can export timesheets over a custom date range.

When enabled, this setting means that shifts will be automatically approved when they meet specific criteria. Managers will not have to approve these shifts when your nominated criteria are met. You can specify the following auto-approval criteria:

You can select more than one of these criteria for auto-approval.

Below this, you can also enable Shift Variance Approval. When selected, this setting will require employees to leave a comment via the Mobile App if there is a variance between their actual and scheduled shift times.

You can also enable Shift Ratings, which prompts managers to give each shift a star rating when approving shifts. Team managers will see this rating on employee profiles and when scheduling, to help choose the best employee for each shift. To learn more, see our shift ratings help guide.

Tick this setting to enable and configure our shift checks feature. Tanda's Payroll Checks and Shift Checks allow you to configure validations that check important payroll information is accurate and valid. These checks can be configured to either block you from performing an action entirely or warn you that certain conditions aren't being met.

To learn more, see our pay checks help guide.

This setting determines whether staff can clock in remotely via the Mobile App. You can enable this for all teams or select only specific teams that can.

To learn more, see our help guide.

Time Clock rounding is used to automatically round the times recorded on the Time Clock or Mobile App.

You can use this setting to specify the rounding time for clock-ins/clock-outs. For example, if you set this to 5 minutes, a clock-in time of 8:57 am will be rounded up to 9:00 am. Similarly, a clock-out time of 5:02 pm will be rounded down to 5:00 pm.

You can also specify whether you want clock-in and clock-out times to use smart rounding. Smart rounding sets the direction of rounding to be one-way, rounding the clock-in/clock-out time towards the shift.

For example, let's say an employee is rostered to start at 9 am. If they clock in at 8:56 am, their time will be rounded up to 9:00 am. However, if they clock in at 9:02, this will not round back to 9:00 am—unless you have ticked 'round clock-ins to rostered times'. If so, clock-ins/outs will round back to the rostered time in both directions as long as it is within your specified rounding margin.

Timesheet rounding is optional. To apply no rounding to timesheets, leave these fields blank.

In this section, you can also set up clock-out rounding for any automatic breaks you have configured that specify "clock-in required."

Click 'Show Advanced Settings' to configure the following features:

These settings control your leave and unavailability behaviours in Tanda.

An unavailability request is when an employee nominates that they're unavailable to work. An unavailability request can be recurring (i.e. you're unavailable every Thursday) or one-off. Managers can use this information when rostering. Unavailability is distinct from leave, which is a request for time off work.
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Use these settings to define the minimum number of days' notice required for an unavailability request.

If a staff member attempts to submit an unavailability request without sufficient notice, they will be blocked from doing so, along with a notification explaining why, as below.

Additionally, you can define whether unavailability requests require manager approval. If this setting is disabled, unavailability requests will be automatically approved but managers will still be notified.
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The following settings control what happens when an employee submits a leave request in Tanda.

Display Predicted Leave Accruals: When this setting is enabled, employees will see their predicted future leave balances when requesting leave. For example, if an employee requested annual leave three months in advance, they would see both their current balance and their predicted balance three months into the future. Learn more about this setting here.

Cost leave on weekends: By default, Tanda assumes that staff generally only take leave on weekdays. If your business operates 7 days a week, you’ll need to enable this option so that leave requests are calculated and exported if they fall on a weekend.

Default leave hours per full day of leave: When a leave application is entered into Tanda, the 'Total Hours' field auto-populates. That information is pulled from this setting by multiplying the number of days in your leave request by the default leave hours per full day. By default, this is set to 7.6 hours, the figure most businesses use for a standard business day. To update this, enter a new number in the field.

No default leave hours: If this setting is enabled, the above setting will be disabled. When ticked, the 'Total Hours' leave field will not auto-populate. Instead, employees must manually enter how many hours of leave they're requesting.

When an employee requests leave, notify: Use this setting to manage who is notified when an employee submits a leave request. Select between 'Nobody', 'Admins', 'Employee's Team Managers', and 'Admins & Employee's Team Managers.'

Use this setting to create strategies that dictate how a leave cost breakdown is auto-filled (i.e. where are the hours for a leave request drawn from?).

To create a new leave autofill rule, click + New.

Then, select who the rule will apply to via tags. Finally, select how leave requests are auto-filled (and in which order) between published rosters, unpublished rosters, and regular hours of work.

For example, let's say a part-time employee requests leave for a day when they usually work a 5-10pm shift, as defined by their regular hours of work. Instead of auto-filling a 7.6-hour day of leave, you can configure a leave rule to first check part-time employees' regular hours of work for leave requests. In that case, the leave request would auto-fill to be 5 hours. You can configure as many of these rules as required.

For a more detailed breakdown of this setting, please see our help guide.

Many organisations like to track employee attendance—especially punctuality—and take appropriate action for non-punctual employees. You can control your attendance tracking via these settings. You can easily report on this information via our Attendance Report and Attendance Points Report.

Use these fields to define your punctuality leeway for clock-ins and clock-outs, includinf outliers that should be excluded.

For example, if set to 5 minutes, a clock-in at 4:58 pm for a 5:00 pm start time would be considered on time.

You can also set punctuality outliers. For example, if an employee shows up at 10:09 am for a 9:00 am start time, their clock-in will not be counted, as they are so far outside their rostered start time that it is considered an outlier.

With the above rules set, you can also implement a points-based attendance system. Tanda's points-based attendance feature makes it easy for admins/managers to track these statistics and enforce the appropriate levels of discipline.

You can create a new rule set by selecting + New Rule Set. Then, enter the rule type, points, and expiry date.

For a detailed breakdown of this feature, please see our points-based attendance help guide.

The shift questions feature asks staff questions via either the Time Clock or Mobile App when specific criteria are met, such as clocking in too early.
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To configure this feature, navigate to Settings > All Settings > Shift Questions and click + New Question to configure your first question.

From here, you will need to enter the following information:

To learn more, see our shift questions help guide.

To view on-costs, such as payroll tax and superannuation, in your roster costs, you can configure the setting through Settings > All Settings > On-cost Config.

When your account is created, three on-costs are set up automatically: Workcover, Cost of Leave Accrued, and Superannuation.

These on-costs are calculated as percentages of the wage cost independent of one another. So, these on-costs are calculated using the following formulae:

Example:

An employee's wages for the week total $100, excluding on-costs.

The Workcover on-cost is set to 10%.

The Leave on-cost is set to 19%.

The Super on-cost is set to 10.5%.

Total wages including on-cost = ($100 x 0.1) + ($100 x 0.19) + ($100 x 0.105) + $100.

Therefore, including on-costs, the total for this employee is $139.50.

You cannot directly edit pre-configured on-costs. To make changes to these pre-set fields:

To create a new on-cost field:

Viewing On-Costs on the Roster

To view the total cost of your roster, including on-costs, navigate to the Rosters page. Then, click the arrow as shown above to expand the view of your roster stats.

From here, select 'Total Cost with On-Costs' from one of the drop-down menus.

Viewing On-Costs in Cost Reports

To view on-costs within our Reports, navigate to Reports > Cost Reports and select the relevant report.

From here, use the toggles shown below to include or exclude on-costs.

You can find a more specific breakdown of your on-costs in the Real Wage Cost report. Learn more about cost reports in our help guide.

Use the notifications & tasks page to configure your organisational notification settings. On this page, you can choose who receives notifications and under which criteria. For example, you can select who receives notifications if an employee is late or has an overtime risk. For each notification type, you can choose whether the employee, manager, or account admin is notified—or all of the above.

You can also schedule tasks on this page, such as emailing an employee if their timesheet needs to be completed. Use the side menu to navigate between Key Alerts and Scheduled Tasks.

To manage your personal notification settings, navigate to your notification preferences, as shown below.

The SMS log provides a log of all SMS' sent from your account, including the recipient and delivered status. This record can be useful to prove an SMS was delivered.

Use this page to configure Tanda's communication and live chat settings.

Tick the 'Enable Live Chat' box to enable this feature. When enabled, this allows direct chats between employees as well as group chats. If this setting is disabled, you can still share announcements.

You can also configure who employees and managers can start chats with. Select between:

Finally, you can configure your push notification settings for communications. Choose whether people receive notifications if chats or announcements are posted and if they receive push notifications while on leave.

To learn more, see our communications help guide.