In order for many of Crew’s features to function on your device, the app needs access to parts of your phone’s operating system that are directly related to your personal data and system info. In this article we will explain why these Permissions are necessary to the proper functioning of the app.

Note The format of the Permissions screen will look somewhat different if you ever need to return to it to grant or withdrawn specific permissions. 

This is the screen you saw when first installing Crew. 

This is the permissions screen used during the Crew install

Here are the reasons we need these permissions, and how they contribute to the smooth and efficient running of the app.

• Read your text messages (SMS or MMS)/receive text messages (SMS) This permission enables Crew to automatically plug in the pass code we send you when you first sign up for the app, so that you don’t have to. Crew does not read your text messages and only uses this permission to speed up your Crew app set up.
• Take pictures and videos This is necessary so that you can send pictures and videos to your co-worker and for the video messaging functions.
• Microphone This is necessary for the audio messaging function, for Crew Calls, and so that your videos can include sound.
• Approximate location (network-based)/precise location (GPS and network-based) This permission is only applicable if you are using Location Groups; otherwise it is not used at all. Crew doesn’t track your actual location, it only tracks whether you are at the Location Group (worksite) or not. Neither Crew nor any of the Organization’s employees who are on the app will ever know your location when you aren’t at work.
• Read your contacts This permission makes it easier to invite co-workers to join the Crew app. It is only used to display contacts on your screen and doesn’t send their contact information to Crew’s servers. Only the people you specifically select will be sent to / used by the app; the rest of your contacts will remain one hundred percent private.
• Activity recognition This permission is only applicable if you are using Location Groups. It uses your battery more efficiently by waking up your GPS only when appropriate.
• Modify or delete the contents of your SD card/read the contents of your SD card Messages, photos, etc. get to you faster if they don’t have to be downloaded every time you need them. This permission allows Crew to store cached data on your device.
• Find accounts on the device/read Google service configuration This permission allows Crew to send you notifications when you have a new message.

We recommend that you designate other trustworthy managers to be Admins in your Organization, in addition to yourself. This helps to spread out the workload of adding/removing employees, approving requests, and more. 

How to Add an Admin

1. Go to your Coworkers tab
2. Tap the 3 dots across from the person's name you want to designate as an Admin 
3. Tap “Make Admin” 
4. Confirm your selection (iOS only)

You will now see “Admin” under that person’s name in your Coworker list.

               

 

You can also designate another admin through the Admin tab.

1. Scroll down to “Manage coworkers”
2. Select the name of the person you want to designate as an Admin
3. Tap "Make Admin”
4. Confirm the assignment

              

 

How to Remove an Admin

Removing someone’s Admin privileges is just as easy. Follow the exact same steps but instead of “Make Admin,” choose the option to “Remove Admin.” Note Be careful to choose “Remove Admin” and not “Remove,” which will remove that person from your Organization in Crew. 

 

 

An Organization Admin is someone who has ultimate privileges/control over your Organization. By default, the person who creates the Organization is automatically an Admin. You can have as many Admins as you like. Generally speaking, you should make trustworthy managers and supervisors Admins in order to take the burden off any single person. (How do I designate additional people as Admins? Check out this article.)

A non-comprehensive list of privileges only Admins have

• Designate other people as Admins
• Remove team members from an Organization
• Add/Rename the Organization
• Manage the Groups in an Organization
• Add/Change the Organization Logo
• Change the overall Organization Settings
  • Turn on/off the schedules feature, shift postings, time-off requests and other schedule functions
  • Require that only other Admins can add users to your Organization
  • Turn on/off the Tasks feature
• Approve/disapprove shift requests and requests for time off 
• Create named Groups
• Create Location Groups

Note Certain Admin functions are only available for subscribers to Crew Pro. Want to know more about Crew Pro? Check it out here.

Admins can choose to temporarily suspend a non-Admin team member’s message-sending capabilities on Crew. Note Suspension is an Enterprise-only feature and must be enabled by a Crew Account Manager. 

Suspended team members will not be able to send or reply to any messages in Crew—either direct or group messages—for the duration of the suspension. (Crew Calls will also be suspended for that person during the suspension.) They will be able to read all messages, and to participate in all other Crew functions, e.g. shift changes, time-off requests, etc.

Suspension can last for an hour, 24 hours or 72 hours. An Admin can also decide to end a suspension early (see below for details.)

There are two ways an Admin can effect a team member suspension: from Message Details or from the Coworkers tab.

Setting a Suspension From Message Details

1. From the message itself, tap on the Reaction menu
2. Tap the three horizontal dots at the bottom left of the Reaction screen (iOS) / top right of the Reaction screen (Android)
3. Select “Suspend”
4. “Confirm” the suspension
5. Choose the duration of the suspension: 1, 24 or 72 hours

Setting a Suspension From the Coworkers Tab

1. From the Coworkers tab, tap the three horizontal dots across from the team member’s name
2. Select “Suspend”
3. “Confirm” the suspension
4. Choose the duration of the suspension: 1, 24 or 72 hours

          

Suspend an employee from here (left) and choose how long you want the suspension to last (right)

Admins will be able to see a notation of the suspension under the team member’s name in the Coworkers tab, along with the time remaining in the suspension.

Admins can see a record of the suspension, and how long it has to run, in the Coworkers list

Everyone in an organization can input their birthdays to the Crew app and view the birthdays of their fellow team members. Admins can also broadcast a birthday message to an employee on their special day. The whole team will see the message, which includes a link that allows others to send that person good wishes, too.

Adding the Birthdays Feature

Admins can add the Birthdays Add-on through the Admin tab.

1. Tap on “View all add-ons” in the Admin tab
2. Scroll down to “Birthdays”
3. Tap “Add”

You can customize the feature to send your greeting in the morning, afternoon, or evening to best suit your schedule. Simply select the time of day you want and tap “Done.”

You can customize the Birthdays add-on from here

How Does It Work?

Birthday shout-outs will appear as a message in the “Everyone” line item, with as many as four employees who celebrate on the same day listed by name. (Over four, a general birthday greeting will still go out.)

The Birthday message shows up as an “Everyone” chat

Individual team members can click on the link to “send a wish” to the birthday boy or girl on their own account through the “Everyone” chat.

Team members can send their own birthday wishes through the link

Ensure that your company’s communications are professional and on-topic when you utilize the Report a Message tool from your Command Center interface.

The Report a Message feature allows all team members to flag a message they’ve received that doesn’t seem right for the workplace—inappropriate, offensive or just not work-related—and bring it to a manager’s attention. An Admin can then review the reported message and choose to either delete it from the conversation thread, or let it pass. Admins can even report messages themselves, which can be useful in organizations with multiple Admins. And any type of message—text, voice or video—can be reported.

An Enterprise Admin can enable this feature within Command Center for each, or any, organization. (Or, let each organization’s Admin toggle it on for themselves at the app level.) 

Enabling the Report a Message Feature

1. Go to the Enterprise tab
2. Click on “Organizations” 
3. Tap the Settings wheel for the specific organization
4. Toggle on the appropriate line item under “Profanity & harassment”

There are several possible settings configurations, which follow here.

“Users can report inappropriate content to org admins”

This toggle enables the feature in an organization, without that org’s Admins having to enable it through the app themselves. Those Admins will also not be able to disable the feature themselves. It allows users in the organization to report inappropriate content to their Admin/s.

“User can report inappropriate content to Command Center”

This toggle sends the reported message to the Command Center Alerts tab for an Enterprise Admin to review (see Note below).

 

• If only the first option is toggled on, inappropriate messages will only be reported to organizational Admins.
• If only the second option is toggled on, messages will only be reported to Enterprise Admins and, potentially, Enterprise Users (see Note below).
• If both options are toggled on, messages will be reported to both organizational and Enterprise Admins/Users.

Note Enterprise Admins can grant Enterprise Users the capability to review and act on reported messages from an organization (or multiple organizations) as one of the additional permissions that can be specified for any User. However, Enterprise Users may not enable or disable the Report a Message feature for specific organizations; only Enterprise Admins have that capability.

“Automatically hide content for everyone after the following number of people have reported it”

Once the Enterprise Admin has selected the desired threshold—let’s say it’s three people—and three employees report the message as inappropriate, even if the reviewer decides to “Ignore” the message and let it stand, it will be hidden for those three people. All other recipients will still be able to read the message in its original form.

Reviewing Reported Messages

Reported messages will appear in the Alerts tab, where the reviewer will have the option to “Review” or “Ignore” them.

The reader can choose to “Review” or “Ignore” the reported message

If reviewing a message, the reader will then have the option to “Delete” or “Ignore” it.

Note The reviewer will also see the prior 24-hours’ worth of earlier messages in that thread (up to 10 messages) for context.

The reader can choose to “Ignore” or “Delete” the message

Once a message has been either deleted or ignored, it will move to the Alerts History page in the Alerts tab as “Resolved” or "Ignored" - to get to that page, tap the Clock icon in the upper right corner. From there it can be reviewed again, but no further action can be taken on it.

This message was allowed to remain and the issue resolved. In future it can be reviewed, but not acted on

 

 

The Alerts entry notifies you of items that need your attention as an Organization Admin. These can include 

• Reviewing reported content  For employee-reported messages that require review. Learn more about our Report a Message feature, a compliance feature available with Crew Pro and Crew Enterprise.
• Completing scheduling integration setup  When you have employees whose Crew setup needs to be completed for scheduling integration.  

           

Reviewing Reported Content

The Report a Message feature helps ensure that your Organization’s communications are professional and on-topic. Once an employee has reported a message to be reviewed, Organization Admins can take action by following these steps

1. Tap on the Alerts box
2. Select the appropriate item to review and tap Review
3. Review the reported content
4. Choose to “Ignore” or “Delete message”
5. Confirm the choice to ignore or delete

Learn about the full Report a Message feature here. If you’re a part of an Enterprise account, you can review reported messages directly through Command Center.

Completing Scheduling Integration Setup

If you’ve enabled one of our scheduling integrations, you may need to complete certain employees’ Crew setup by linking their schedule to their Crew accounts. You can do that through the Alerts entry.

1. Tap on Link next to the employee’s name
2. Select the employee’s phone number from your Address Book or Crew Organization, or input your employee’s mobile number
3. Tap "Link" at the bottom of the page. Or, if the employee is no longer a part of your location, tap "Ignore" (see Note below)
4. Repeat these steps for all employee names requiring action

Note  If instead of an employee’s name, you’re seeing their employee number, this means they haven’t been assigned to any shifts yet. Their name will populate as soon as they’re assigned. Check back in a few days to link these employees.

Alerts History

Once you’ve addressed items in the Alerts tab, they’ll move to the History section, which you can access by tapping History in the top right corner. Here, you can make edits as desired by tapping on the button next to the appropriate item.