Frequently asked questions

Go to Extra shifts and choose "Post an extra shift". Pick the store, role, times and the rate you are offering. The further ahead you post, the more people will have it in their availability; a week or more is comfortable, and anything inside a couple of days is worth marking urgent.

A normal shift appears on matched staff’s dashboards, and they get a daily summary of new matches. Urgent and emergency shifts also send an alert to matched staff straight away. Emergency adds a one-hour deadline for responses. You can bring a shift back down from urgent or emergency, and the people who were alerted are told it has been stood down.

Everyone in the network is checked against the shift. People are left out if they do not hold the role or required skills, are outside their travel radius, have marked themselves unavailable or are already working then, or want more than the rate you offered. The rest are ranked on how well their availability fits, distance, reliability, ratings, whether they know the store, and rate. Each match on the shift page shows the main reasons that person was matched.

Look at the matches on the shift page and invite people directly, or raise the priority so matched staff are alerted. Raising the rate or widening the travel radius on the shift reaches more people. A shift that reaches its response deadline or its start time without being filled closes on its own. If someone stood down from a shift it goes back to unfilled, and you can put it back out from its page.

Yes, if they are matched to the shift. Open the shift and invite them from its list of matches. They get an offer they can accept, decline or counter. If the person you want is not in the list, the usual reasons are that they do not hold the role, are outside their travel radius, or are not available then.

When you invite someone, they can accept your rate, decline, or propose a different one up to the maximum you set on the shift. You can then accept their rate, decline, or counter back. Every step is kept on the offer, and once a rate is accepted it is fixed on the confirmed shift.

Once the shift has ended, both you and the staff member confirm the hours actually worked. If the two sets of hours are within 15 minutes of each other the shift completes; if not, it is marked disputed and either side can propose corrected hours for the other to agree. If someone has not arrived 10 minutes after the start, you can record a no-show from the shift page.

Group head office sees every store in every brand, and a brand’s head office every store in its own brand. A franchisee sees the stores they own, and a store manager sees the stores they manage, one store at a time using the picker at the top of the page. Staff see only their own shifts, matches and messages. Messages on a shift are visible to the staff member, that store’s managers and head office.

Open Rota. Each row is someone whose home store it is, and every square shows the hours they said they can work that day, or that they are on time off. Add shifts with "+ Add" — for a person, or as an open shift for the first from the team to take it. They stay as drafts until you press Publish, and then each person gets one alert to accept their shifts. "Copy this week forward" builds the next weeks from this one, as drafts for you to check.

It shows on the rota as "Can’t do it" or "Open to the team". Click the shift to give it to somebody else — once a week is out, a change needs a reason, and the people affected are told it. If your team cannot cover it, "Offer to the network" makes it an extra shift that is matched across the network like any other. The rota page points out uncovered shifts in the next few days, but Looper never sends one to the network on its own.

On the rota, each person’s row shows their pay rate (or No rate set) with Set rate or Change; head office can also set it on their staff record. Their store manager, franchisee or head office can set it, once they have a home store. New rota shifts for them use it automatically, including Suggest this week, repeats and Copy this week forward, and you can still change one shift. Changing it moves their upcoming shifts that are not confirmed yet, and they get one alert; confirmed shifts keep the rate agreed. Extra shifts keep their own rate.

Yes. Click a name on the rota to see their availability and add to it. They are told, and it shows on their availability as added by you. What somebody entered themselves stays theirs to change.

Rota shifts pay their rostered hours. When the confirmed hours run past the rota, the extra time is flagged on Timesheets and on the shift, and you agree it or not; not agreeing needs a reason, which they are told. Agreed extra time shows separately as extra hours, paid at head office’s premium (time and a half unless head office changes it in Setup, and a store can have its own). A manager can change the premium on one shift: open the shift from Timesheets (click its date) and press Change premium there, with a reason the person is told.

Head office, franchisees and store managers. A store manager reaches the team of the store they are working in; a franchisee their own stores; head office everyone or chosen stores. A store’s team is the staff whose home store it is. Broadcasts arrive in the app with an alert, cannot be replied to or unsent, and you see how many people one will reach before you send it. Head office can see every broadcast.

Log a shift for them: on Timesheets press Log a shift for someone, or on the store tablet sign in as a manager and use Log a shift for someone in the team view. Pick the person, role, day (up to 14 days back), times, break and rate, which starts at their pay rate. It goes onto their timesheet straight away, already approved, and they are told. It is refused if it overlaps another of their shifts. The Unscheduled shifts page lists what was logged or approved, and by whom.

Rota hrs are the hours on rota shifts only. Scheduled all is every hour booked in the period, rota and extra shifts together. Worked is the hours actually worked, once a shift has been signed off. Extra hrs is agreed time on top of a rota shift. Payable is what it pays at the agreed rates, before tax. The same key is under the By person table. To fix a worked shift’s hours or rate, open the person’s view, click the shift’s date to open the shift, and press Change hours or Change rate there; give a reason, and they are told the old and new figures.

On the tablet itself, sign in to Looper as a store manager, franchisee or head office, go to Setup, then Store tablets, and press Use this device next to the store. You are signed out and the PIN pad appears; it only works for that store. Staff, managers, the franchisee and head office sign in with their own PIN. Managers see the whole team for today or the week: who is in, on a break, late or a no-show; the store tasks; their own tasks; and Log a shift for someone. Everyone signed in sees the store tasks and can tick them off. Everyone has a Messages button at the top. If a tablet goes missing, switch it off on the same page.

Yes. On the rota, open the week and press Suggest this week. Looper looks at the last four weeks at the store and drafts the shifts that keep coming up, each with the person who usually works it, as long as they are available that day, not already working then, and within their weekly hours. Anything it cannot fill is left open with the reason. They are drafts: change anything, or undo the whole suggestion, before you publish. With less than four weeks of rota it uses the weeks it has: with one or two weeks it suggests anything that came up, and with three or four a shift has to come up in at least two of them. Only published weeks count. The more weeks you build in Looper, the better it gets.

On the Sales page, under More: one figure per store per day, gross before VAT, typed in day by day. Head office can also upload a spreadsheet (date, store, gross sales) for many stores at once; it is checked and shown line by line before anything is saved. The page shows labour as a percentage of each day, and the Network page shows labour % of sales and sales per labour hour for any period.

Some parts of Looper are add-on modules, switched on store by store: the Manager’s log, the Task list, Chat (the Direct tab in Messages), Policies and L&D. Everything else is standard at every store. If a store doesn’t have a module, it’s hidden for the people working there, and someone working across several stores sees it only at the stores that have it. Head office can see which store has what on Setup, then Modules. Looper switches modules on and off, for one store or many at once - ask through Feedback.

Staff can give a rota shift to one or several teammates (the first to accept takes it) or swap with one teammate. Once the other person accepts, it waits for a store manager, franchisee or head office to approve it under More, then Shift trades; nothing moves until then. Approving moves the shifts on the rota and tells both people. Trades close by themselves if a shift changes or starts. The list shows 10 at a time, those waiting for you first, and you can search by either person’s name. When staff have more than 5 teammates to choose from, Who to ask is a dropdown.

Messages, then Direct, then Message staff. Pick one or several people; each gets their own private conversation with you, so replies come back to you alone. Staff can message their home store’s managers the same way. Nobody else, head office included, can read a direct conversation. Direct messages are part of the Chat module.

Under More, then Task list, press Set a task at the top. Set it for one or several people at a store, managers included, with an allocation and due date, a due time, a priority and whether it repeats daily or weekly. Each person ticks off their own copy, and notes go both ways. Daily and weekly tasks stay on To do, shown as done for today or this week, until the next one comes round. The list is split into Daily, Weekly and Just once. % completed counts the copies already due (plus any done early). Overdue tasks are flagged on the store dashboard and to the people involved. Store tasks, for the whole store rather than named people, have their own section at the top.

A store task is a job the store needs done, whoever does it, like opening and closing checks. Press Set a task and choose For: The whole store; nobody is named. It shows on the store tablet and on the phone of everyone with a shift at the store that day. The first person to tick it completes it for everyone, and Looper records who and when. The Store tasks section at the top of the Task list shows today’s, split into Daily, Weekly and Just once, with "x of y done today"; open one to see each day’s record. If nobody ticks one by its due time it shows as overdue, counts on the store dashboard, and the store’s managers are told once. Store tasks are kept out of the % completed figures for named people. Head office can also send store tasks to every store in a brand from a template.

Setup, then Task templates (or the button on the Task list). Add a template for a brand, for example Opening checks every day by 10:00, or Deep clean the fridges every Monday, and choose all the brand’s stores (stores added later get it too) or only the ones you pick. Each store gets it as a store task. Change a template and every store follows from then on; what was already ticked off stays as it was. Taking a store off a template, or archiving it, stops it at those stores and keeps what was done. Store managers can’t change or stop a template’s task, but can set their own store tasks. Each template shows how many stores have done it today.

Store managers and franchisees add to it, for one of their stores, under More, then Manager’s log, with Add to the log at the top. The store’s managers, its franchisee and head office read it, can filter it by category, and can tick an entry resolved. The Network page shows the top 5 categories for the period. Entries aren’t edited or deleted; each shows who wrote it and who resolved it. Head office sets the categories on Setup.

Looper adds up paid hours across every store someone works at and warns on the rota, when you publish, and on the store dashboard when someone is close to or over a limit: by default 48 hours a week on average over 17 weeks, and for under 18s 8 hours a day and 40 a week. At UK stores, staff aged 18 or over can opt out of the weekly average (recorded on Working time, under More). Group head office sets the numbers on Setup, then Working time, and can switch the checks off for a whole brand; opt-outs are kept if it’s switched back on.

Group head office turns it on in Setup, then Extra time and clocking: record only, or must be at the store. The distance is set in miles (0.5 miles to start with). When someone clocks in or out on their phone, it asks for the location at that moment only; the phone’s own accuracy counts in their favour. On Timesheets and the shift you see how far away they were if they were outside the distance.

Each store follows a region (England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, or one head office adds), set on the store in Network setup. Holidays show on the rota and on the shift. Head office can add local days and regions on Setup, then Public holidays.

Staff share their referral code from My passport. When someone signs up with it and completes their first shift, the referral shows as bonus due on head office’s Referrals page; head office marks it paid once paid outside Looper.

Group head office sees every brand, with a brand picker at the top; a brand’s head office sees its own brand only. Each brand has its own roles and skills, and on Setup, then Levels and permissions, its own names for the levels and a tick-box grid of what each level can do (it can only take things away). Some parts of Looper are add-on modules per store (Manager’s log, Task list, Chat, Policies and L&D); Setup, then Modules shows what each store has, and Looper switches them.

Yes. In Network setup, "Offer shifts to the wider network" can be set for the whole group, a brand or one store; each level follows the one above unless it’s changed there. Off means that store’s extra shifts only go to its own team, and its team can’t pick up extra shifts at other stores. The wider network is anyone outside the store, including other stores in the same brand.

Yes. Turn "Find staff in the wider network" off for the store, its brand or the group in Network setup. Its managers and its franchisee then see their own team only on Find staff. Head office always sees everyone.

Head office has turned it off for your store, so you can search your own team only.

Each store follows one set - from its country to start with (US stores get the USA rules, everywhere else the UK’s). Group head office can change which set a store follows in Network setup, and change the numbers in Setup, then Working time. Someone who works UK and US stores in the same week is held to the stricter number for each limit, and their hours at every store count. The one exception is the US overtime warning: it only counts hours at the same franchisee’s stores, since that is who would pay the overtime.

They start at the US federal rules: no weekly limit for adults, but a warning about overtime above 40 hours a week (that’s about overtime pay, not a legal limit), nothing federal for 16 and 17 year olds, and for 14 and 15 year olds 3 hours on a school day, 18 in a school week, 8 on a non-school day and 40 in a non-school week, between 7am and 7pm (9pm from 1 June to Labor Day). US states add their own rules, so check the numbers with your adviser - every one can be changed.

Working time, under More, lists everyone with their hours this week, with a name search and a sort: closest to a limit, most hours or fewest hours. Head office also has a Working time box on the Network page: average paid hours a week per person and how many are close to or over a limit this week, for each store, each brand and all stores.

No. They stay in the list of suggested staff with a warning saying which limit and why. It’s your call.

Yes, unless you choose otherwise. When group head office adds a brand in Network setup, pick "Start with Looper’s starter list" (the usual roles and skills, as the brand’s own) or "Start empty". Rename, switch off or add to them in Setup, then Roles and skills. To add the starter list to a brand later, press "Add Looper’s starter list" there; anything the brand already has is skipped.