Blog
We recently launched an update to the rota system in At The Yard that expanded functionality to let yards organise everything from staff rotas through to who’s turn it is to clear the paddock.
But what if you still need more?
Well that’s where integrations come in. Like At The Yard is with livery yards there are companies who’s focus is 100% on building the best software for creating and managing rotas.
Through integrations you can pick the best software available for rotas and bring that data into At The Yard where it can be easily displayed to your customers on the dashboard.
RotaCloud (https://rotacloud.com/) was the clear choice for us to support as the initial 3rd party rota System to integrate with At The Yard and we are excited to be announcing the launch today.
RotaCloud is based in the heart of Yorkshire, UK - and who better to tell you about themselves than themselves:
Having been on the receiving end of more than a few poorly managed work rotas themselves, RotaCloud’s co-founders David, Joel and James decided to come up with a solution. They pooled their skill-sets and got to work building an app that would let managers create and share rotas in minutes, regardless of their experience of rota management or technology. Cut to today, and RotaCloud is used by more than 3,000 businesses all over the world, saving managers time, helping businesses grow, and making life easier for their staff.
- RotaCloud - https://rotacloud.com/about/
Before you get started you’ll need to make sure you have:
To start the setup you need to go to the Integration Configuration page by clicking the button on the Admin ➔ Yard Config page. On this page you’ll see a section called RotaCloud Integration and a button you can press to enable the integration. Once you’ve clicked it you’ll see the following screen:
Next you’ll need to create an API key over in RotaCloud. You can do this by going into RotaCloud, go to the settings menu and go to the 'API & Webhooks' section. Create a new API key called At The Yard and copy and paste the API key into the box in At The Yard and click Store Key.
At The Yard and RotaCloud are now connected.
The next thing to do is link your staff users in At The Yard to your Employees in RotaCloud. To do this click on the Manage Contact Links button.
You’ll need to go to each staff member’s row and select the corresponding employee name from RotaCloud in the dropdown box. When you’re ready click on Create and it’ll setup all the links between the users and the employees in the two systems.
Your rotas will now be set to synchronise - this updates every 2 to 3 hours so you may have to wait a little while for the first synchronisation to take place. Once the first synchronisation takes place your rotas will show up under the Management ➔ Rota page. To let users see them you’ll need to go into the manage section for the rota and check the Publish checkbox (you may also want to check the Show in Forecast checkbox depending on your needs).
Congratulations! RotaCloud is now setup and syncing data with At The Yard and you can start benefiting from both systems working as one.
Today we’re taking a look back at an existing feature - Included Services Schemes. This feature was introduced to allow the setup of Livery/Membership packages which include a number of services.
For example your full livery may include:
With Included Services Schemes we can setup the allowances within At The Yard and track how many services a horse has used. Then once they exceed the included allowance the system will automatically raise a charge for any additional orders for a service.
When we combine this feature with At The Yard’s Included Facilities Schemes (https://www.attheyard.co.uk/blog/2020/1/7/included-facilities-schemes)) and Included Products it allows us to codify, track and automatically raise a charge for any extras that are not included for a customer.
Included services can be setup on any of your ‘Continuous’ services e.g. Livery or Membership. To start the process go to the Admin, Services page and locate your service. To the right hand side of the service’s row you’ll see a button with a drop down. When you click the dropdown you’ll see a list of options (shown below) which includes Edit Included Services Schemes. Click on this to start setting up your first scheme.
To begin with you’ll see an empty list of existing schemes and also, of more interest to start with, a button called New Included Services Scheme. When clicked it’ll bring up a page allowing you to choose the type of scheme you wish to create.
This screen will explain the types of schemes you can setup. At the time of writing there are 4 types of scheme; Weeks Allowance, Months Allowance, Per Week Allowance and Per Month Allowance.
Each of these are explained in the dialog. In this example we’re going to create two different schemes to achieve a basic setup for a livery package.
The first is a Weeks Allowance Scheme will be used to setup the allowances for turn outs and bring ins. The second, a Per Week Allowance, will be used to setup an exercise allowance.
Once you’ve selected the scheme you wish to use you’ll be presented with an interface to set the allowance for each day.
You have the option to setup an allowance for a single service or for a category of services. In this example we have created the category called Horse Movement which includes both Turn Out and Bring In.
You can then choose how many of these are included as part of the package for each day in the week.
In this example we’ve setup your typical 5 Full/2 Part style livery in which over the weekends they only get to choose from either Bring In or Turn Out where as in the week they get both included as part of their package.
Once you’re happy you can click on Create and your new scheme will be ready.
The per week allowance is slightly different in that, instead of allowances being on predefined days, a user is given the choice of which days in a given week their allowance is used. Because of this the setup screen is slightly different.
Again you can choose a category (in this case Exercise) and set the number of these included in a given week.
Once you’ve finished creating your schemes you can click back on edit for the service and get an overview of everything included (shown below).
This not only allows you at a glance to see what subscribers to the service will receive but also lets you see what services are part of a given category. As you’d expect you can also go in and edit the scheme or remove it entirely.
For a user to receive these schemes they simply need to have an active subscription to the service and from there At The Yard will automatically track everything, meaning both the yard and user can go ahead and order services without having to worry about manually keeping track.
Keeping track of billable costs at a livery yard is much more than just charging for livery and any extras. You have to be able to calculate costs incurred for usage beyond what’s included, whether it’s for extra services, products or facilities.
With the included services schemes feature we’ve looked at today you can keep track of everything automatically. This not only ensures you’re paid for additional services you provide your customers but also makes things fairer for everyone - it makes sure that one horse at the yard is not excessively using the yards resources without paying their fair share.
It’s a win win - the yard realises the revenue it should already be receiving and customers are happier due to the equitable service received for their livery bill.
Within the invoicing side of At The Yard you have long been able to track payments for your invoices. This means, at a glance, you can always see how much you’re owed and which clients owe it to you!
Today we’re making this tracking more flexible by introducing Prepayments.
Prepayments allows a customer to pay a lump sum upfront and for you to apply this payment to invoices going forwards. There are numerous use cases for this. for example:
Getting started with prepayments is simple, at the top of the admin invoices page there is now a button called Record Prepayment.
Simply click on it to bring up the new Prepayment screen.
(Note: You can also click the dropdown which will allow you to see all existing payments and their status)
As you’ll see it’s the same as the payment form you’ll be used to seeing when recording payments for invoices. Similarly when recording a payment for an invoice you can record to which account the prepayment was made and by which method it was paid.
That’s all it takes to record the prepayment and have it ready to apply at a later date.
When it comes to invoicing time you simply go to Record Payment on an invoice as usual but now you’ll see a new option to Assign Existing Payment.
From this screen all you need to do is click on Assign To This Invoice and choose how much of the prepayment you want to apply.
As with our entire invoice and payment tracking system we support syncing these payments and allocations to both Xero and Quickbooks, meaning you can keep your accounts as organised as your yard.
Due to our commitment to sync data within At The Yard to various accounting packages there are a few limitations with prepayments at this time. We are, in general, dependant on the integration options provided to us by the 3rd party packages we sync with and so whilst we are looking into working around these limitations we wanted to make you aware of them for now:
We have just released two updates to the Booking system in At The Yard. The first, exclusive bookings which brings the ability for you and your users to exclusively book a facility for a horse. The second, multi slot bookings to make it quicker and easier for users to book extended sessions in a facility.
To make the most of the facilities you provide many yards allow multiple horses to use a facility at the same time. At The Yard’s social features means your customers cam see what others are doing with their horse, letting them decide if it’s a suitable time to join in or if the need to wait for another slot.
However there are times when a horse must have the facility to itself, an exclusive booking. The most common example of this being a riding lesson with an external instructor which typically requires the entire school so not to interrupt the lesson.
There are two different ways to set up exclusive bookings. The first is to simply allow users to choose when they want to make one. This can be done by going to the facility in the admin panel and checking the ‘Allow users to book exclusively’ checkbox.
Once setup the users will see a new option (shown above/to the side) when booking that will allow them to make it an exclusive booking.
The second way of setting up exclusive bookings allows you as a yard owner/manager a bit more control. It works by integrating with the defined uses for a facility. A new option called Exclusive Booking? is now present when making/editing a defined use. By checking this option it will make any booking for that specific defined use automatically an exclusive booking, all without any extra user interaction.
This allows you to offer the facility exclusively when required whilst stopping users from just choosing to have exclusive use of a facility either excessively or unnecessarily.
The second new feature called Multi Slot Bookings allows for bookings to be easily made which span multiple booking slots. The maximum length of these bookings is defined by the Maximum allowed bookings in a row value set for the facility in the admin panel.
When a multi slot booking is available to a user they’ll see an Extend Booking button whilst making a booking, When clicked it extends the length of the booking by one slot length. It automatically checks the availability before offering the extension and if it’s possible it’ll allow to user to extend the booking more than once (up to the allowed number of bookings in a row).
This is also available for members of staff when making bookings on behalf of the users and will be coming to the kiosk view soon.
Today we’re announcing a brand new and major feature we’ve been working on. It’s one that’s been requested by many of our customers and will add a whole new way of using At The Yard. We call it Kiosk View.
The Kiosk view can be used by yards to allow their customers quick and easy access to At The Yard, allow them to make bookings, orders and to keep everyone informed about up and coming events. Its availability and visibility acts as a direct replacement for the old yard diary or book.
To make this possible all you need to do is find a tablet or old PC to place in your tack room or communal area. Once set up with the Kiosk view your customers can start using it straight away.
Without further ado we’ve put together a short promo video outlining what you can do with the Kiosk.
The key features made available to users through to Kiosk view are:
Once set up your users just need to choose what they want to do (book, purchase, order), select their name and then fill in the options. It’s as easy as that!
This feature further reduces the barrier to entry in getting your yard up and running with At The Yard. No longer will you require your customers to have a smart phone or tablet as now they can do all the basics from the Kiosk view.
We’ve designed the Kiosk view to run on most tablets but will be happy to optimise a version for popular tablets chosen by our subscribers (iPad, Kindle Fire etc). In addition to this, there are a range of Kiosk stands for tablets that can be purchased (e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=ipad+secure+kiosk ) to help get the tablet installed safely at your yard. As we receive feedback from our subscribers we’ll be posting some of our favourite setups to our Facebook page along with popular stands being used.
The setup process for the Kiosk view is very similar to a standard user set up. So the first thing is to go to the Admin -> Users page. From there, click on Create New User button.
You’ll be shown the user type selector where you’ll need to click the Create a Special User button. This will bring up a standard New Login User form. For the majority of the fields you can fill them in with N/A and select 0 horses and remove the default phone number box.
Please Note: We’ll be clearing this screen up in the future so you don’t have to put the N/A in manually
Once done click on Create User and your new kiosk user will have been created.
The email account you entered in the above step will receive an email which will allow you to set the password for the new Kiosk user. Once set up you can then use this email & password to login on your tablet. Login works just like a normal user, go to your yard’s individual address on the tablet and enter the login details.
The first screen you’ll be welcomed with is the diary view. This gives an overview of the day’s events, services and bookings. This page automatically refreshes which means this screen will never be more than a few minutes out of date.
We can’t wait to see this feature out in the wild and installed in your tack rooms, barns and everywhere in between.
Along with getting a secure kiosk mount for your tablet we want to remind you that as this kiosk view allows anyone with physical access (or the account details) to make purchases, booking and orders etc on behalf of other customer it’s important to put this in an area that only customers you trust can access it. You also need to ensure your use of it is compliant with your privacy and data protection policies (this would be the same as when you were using a paper diary showing the same information). It’s also important to outline the rules of use to your customers to ensure it’s used responsibly.