Roll Call Pro — User Guide

Roll Call Pro is the scheduling layer for multi-location service businesses (smoke shops, cafés, salons — anywhere with hourly staff and more than one store). One owner runs the dashboard, every team member gets a personal mobile portal, and shifts get punched in via a QR code at each store.

This guide walks the whole product, end to end, with real screenshots from the live app. URLs assume production (https://rollcallpro.net).

Quick links

• Try the demo — /demo (no signup)
• Sign up — /signup
• Owner / manager dashboard — /dashboard
• Staff portal — /me/shifts (after accepting an invite)

Part 1 · Manager / owner

1. Sign up

URL: /signup

Five fields, one click. No card on file.

After Create account you land on /dashboard with zero stores, zero employees, zero shifts. Everything below is the empty-org bootstrap path.

2. The dashboard

URL: /dashboard

This is what you see every morning. Live counts for employees, locations, upcoming shifts, plus a Needs your nod card with the things waiting on a decision.

3. Add your first store

URL: /locations → Add location

Type into the Street address field — Google Places autocompletes as soon as you've typed three characters. Picking a result auto-fills the formatted address, latitude, and longitude.

Set opening + closing hours and the minimum closing-staff count, then Add location. The store appears on /locations as a card and on /live as a map pin.

4. Invite your team

URL: /employees → Send invite

Fill in their name, pick a role (Owner / Manager / Staff), optionally drop their phone for your own tracking, click Generate link. You'll get a copy-paste URL like:

https://rollcallpro.net/join/p4Kz9TmRx7QbVa…

Text it, email it, DM it. Pending links expire in 7 days.

The Invitations card shows everyone's status with copy-link / revoke buttons.

5. Set up the QR clock-in

URL: /clock-qr

Each active location gets its own card. Click Download PNG to save a branded image (Roll Call Pro logo baked into the bottom) — print it and tape it next to the punch station. Or hit Print at the top to send the whole sheet.

6. Generate a schedule

URL: /schedules → New Schedule

Pick a 2-week range, hit Generate. The scheduler respects every rule:

• Region lock (employees only assigned to stores in their region)
• 56-hour weekly cap
• 10-hour rest gap between shifts
• Expert closer required at "busy" stores on weekends
• Fair rotation across staff

You get a draft. Tweak any cell manually, then Publish — employees see their assignments next time they open /me/shifts.

Each period has a trash icon to delete. Published schedules require a two-step confirm before they go (employees were already notified).

7. Live tracking

URL: /live

Auto-refreshes every 10 seconds. Shows who's currently clocked in, who finished today, and who's coming up in the next 3 hours. Off-schedule punches (someone clocked in without a scheduled shift) get their own panel so you can spot surprises.

8. Approve swap requests

When a staff member taps Request swap on a shift, it lands in your Swap queue on the dashboard. Tap into it to approve or deny — both sides get notified via the staff portal.

Approving a swap re-assigns the shift to whoever the requester named (or to "anyone available" if the request is open). The state machine prevents double-assignment to a single shift slot.

9. Approve time-off requests

URL: /time-off

Same pattern. The list shows pending, approved, and denied requests with their date range and reason. Tap the green check or red X to decide; the employee sees the decision (plus any notes you add) immediately on their /me/time-off page.

10. Daily flow

1. Open /dashboard → glance at Needs your nod count
2. Click into Swap queue → approve / deny each pending swap
3. Click into Time off → same
4. Glance at /live to make sure stores are staffed for opening
5. Bookmark /schedules for next week's prep

5 minutes most days.

Part 2 · How employees clock in

The kiosk is mobile-first and lives at /clock/<storeSlug>. Employees scan the printed QR with their phone camera and land here:

Flow:

1. Employee scans the store's QR
2. Enters phone (one-time per device — saved by the browser)
3. Taps one of four buttons:
   • Clock in — start of shift
   • Clock out — end of shift
   • Break — pause the clock
   • End break — resume
4. Green confirmation flashes for 4 seconds
5. Kiosk auto-resets for the next person

First-time employees: if the phone isn't recognized, the kiosk reveals a register form right there — name + shift preference + weekend availability. Submit and the system creates the employee row, then auto-finishes the clock-in. No SMS, no manager involvement.

Built-in protections (enforced by a database trigger):

• Can't clock in twice in a row → "You're already clocked in."
• Can't clock out without clocking in → "Clock in before starting a break."
• Can't backdate a punch → "Time skew — try again."
• Can't end a break you didn't start → "You're not on a break."

Part 3 · Staff experience

When a new hire accepts the invite link, they land in the staff portal — a mobile-first dashboard at /me/* with four tabs at the bottom.

Joining

URL: /join/<token> (the link the manager sent)

Their name is pre-filled from what the manager typed. They confirm, optionally add a phone, pick shift preference + weekend availability, tap Join the team. A long-lived cookie gets set and they bounce straight to their shifts.

My shifts

URL: /me/shifts

Upcoming shifts grouped by day. Tap any shift card for the detail view.

Shift detail + Request swap

Tapping a shift opens the full detail with date, time, location, and a big Request swap button.

When they tap Request swap:

1. A reason textarea appears (optional — "doctor's appointment", etc.)
2. Send request posts to /api/me/swaps
3. Manager sees it in their Swap queue on the dashboard
4. The shift's row stays visible to the staff member with a "Pending" badge until the manager decides

My swap requests

URL: /me/swaps

Outgoing history. Each row shows the shift, the staff member's reason, and the manager's decision (or "Pending" while waiting).

Status badges:

• Pending (amber) — manager hasn't decided yet
• Approved (green) — shift is now covered by someone else
• Denied (red) — staff member still owns the shift

Time off

URL: /me/time-off

List of past + pending requests at the top, Request time off button that opens an inline form (start date, end date, optional reason).

Manager sees fresh requests on /time-off and approves/denies. Decision

• any manager note shows up here within seconds.

Profile

URL: /me/profile

Edit name, phone, shift preference, weekend availability. The role badge at the bottom is read-only — only an owner / manager can change a staff member's role on /employees.

Sign out revokes the staff token + clears the cookie so the device can't be re-used. To get back in, the staff member asks their manager for a new invite link.

Part 4 · Roles

Owners and Managers log into the main dashboard. Staff don't get dashboard access — their entire experience is /me/*.

Part 5 · The QR-only path (no schedule yet)

If you're just starting out and haven't built a schedule:

1. Sign up
2. Add one location with address
3. Print that location's QR
4. Tape it at the store
5. Employees scan, register themselves via the kiosk

Everyone shows up on /live under Clocked in (no scheduled shift). Add formal scheduling whenever you're ready.

Part 6 · Troubleshooting

Map is blank on /locations or /live. The NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY isn't loaded or the key doesn't have Maps JavaScript API enabled. Open DevTools → Console — Google prints a specific error name (RefererNotAllowedMapError, ApiNotActivatedMapError).

Invite link says "expired". Generate a fresh one from /employees → Send invite.

Employee can't log into /me. Their staff cookie expired or got cleared. Send them a new invite — accepting it issues a fresh 180-day cookie.

QR scan opens the kiosk but punch fails.

• Phone number doesn't match any employee → use the Register flow shown right under the error message.
• Already clocked in → the DB trigger rejects double punches with a friendly message ("You're already clocked in").

I want to delete a store / schedule / employee. Stores: open the location → Delete (left side of the modal footer). Schedules: trash icon on the list. Employees: open their row → flip Active to off (preserves historical shifts).

Part 7 · URL map

Try the live demo →

Brewline Coffee Co. is loaded as a sample org. Every nav item is wired so you can poke around — clicking any action button funnels you to /signup. The staff portal demo lives at /demo/me/shifts.