SwapUP

The problem

Hotels, restaurants and shops run on shifts, and shifts change all the time. In most of these businesses, the roster is a sheet on the staff-room wall, and changes happen in WhatsApp groups.

• Swaps agreed informally. When someone cannot work, they message colleagues until one agrees. The manager often hears about it late, or not at all.
• Attendance hard to trust. Fingerprint scanners fail in kitchens, where hands are wet or greasy, so businesses fall back on paper sign-in sheets, and people can sign in for absent colleagues.
• Hours lost to admin. Supervisors build rosters in spreadsheets, work out who was late and match leave notes to hours by hand.

What we built

SwapUP is Trivista’s own product, in two parts that work from the same data.

• A web admin panel for owners, managers and HR: the weekly schedule, live attendance, departments and their managers, leave rules and requests, and reports on punctuality by department.
• A mobile app for staff: their own roster, shift swaps proposed in chat, clocking in, leave requests and balances, team messages, and notifications when anything changes.

How it works

• Swaps with both sides agreed. A worker picks a shift they cannot do and proposes it to an eligible colleague, as a card in their chat. The colleague accepts or declines. Only accepted swaps reach the manager, and when the manager approves, both rosters change in a single database transaction and both people are notified.
• Clocking in needs two checks. The worker scans the QR code on the wall at work, and the app sends the phone’s location with it. The server refuses a clock-in from outside the workplace and records why. It then marks the worker on time or late, against the shift start and the business’s grace period.
• QR codes that can be replaced. Each business’s code is generated randomly. If a photo of it gets passed around, a manager makes a new one in one click and the old one stops working.
• Shifts that cross midnight. Dates are worked out in Sri Lankan time on the server, so a night shift and the day’s attendance figures fall on the right day.
• Businesses kept apart. Every query is limited to one business’s data, and new staff must change their temporary password the first time they sign in.

Where it stands

SwapUP is live at swapupnow.com, with free and paid plans.