Dashboard, Announcements & Team Chat

These three screens - Dashboard, Announcements, and Team Chat - are what most people see first when they open SessionPilot OPS. What appears depends on your role (owner/manager vs. employee) and on which features your restaurant has turned on.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is your home screen. It looks different depending on whether you manage the restaurant or work a shift there.

What owners and managers see

At the top is a row of stat tiles, each one only shown if the related feature is turned on for your restaurant:

Open Tasks - how many pending tasks exist, plus how many are overdue.
On Shift Now - how many employees are currently clocked in, with a 7-day sparkline of daily attendance.
Stock Alerts - how many inventory items are at or below their minimum stock level.
Schedule Gaps - how many shift slots today are still understaffed.
Payroll MTD - total hours and estimated pay so far this month, with a 7-day labor-cost sparkline.

Below the stat tiles is a grid of cards, also shown only when relevant:

Insights - a short list of plain-language callouts generated from your own data (not AI) - things like “3 shifts understaffed today,” “Labor cost is up 24% over the past week,” or “2 active employees have no hourly rate set.” Each one links straight to the relevant page. If nothing needs attention, it shows an “everything looks on track” message instead.
AI Daily Briefing - if your restaurant has this feature enabled, a card with a Generate Briefing button. Click it to have the app write a short summary of the day; click Refresh Briefing to regenerate it later. This is separate from the Insights list above - it’s an on-demand AI summary rather than automatic rule-based alerts.
Team - your active headcount, how many people joined in the last 30 days, and a breakdown of your team by role.
Labor - Last 7 Days - a bar chart of daily labor hours or cost, toggled with Hours/Cost buttons at the top of the card.
Routines - a completion ring showing what percentage of today’s checklist runs are done, plus a 7-day completion-rate trend.
Weekly Attendance - a bar chart of how many distinct employees clocked in each day over the past week.
Incidents - your count of currently open incidents (only shown when there’s at least one).
Announcements - a preview of the 3 most recent announcements (pinned ones first), each linking to the full Announcements page.
Inventory Alerts - up to 5 low or out-of-stock items with quantity badges.
Item Requests - how many inventory item requests from staff are still pending.
Waste (7 days) - number of logged waste entries and their total cost.
Leave Requests - how many leave requests are waiting for a decision.
On Shift Now - a list of everyone currently clocked in, by name.

A greeting bar at the top shows the time-appropriate greeting (“Good morning,” etc.), today’s date, and - if your branch has a location set (under Restaurants & Branches settings) - the current weather for that branch.

What employees see (“My Day”)

Instead of restaurant-wide stats, employees get a personal view:

Clock in / Clock out card - always shown, regardless of any feature setting. Depending on how your branch is configured (PIN or QR check-in), you’ll either see Clock In/Clock Out buttons directly, or a prompt to scan a QR code. While clocked in, you can also Start Break and End Break here. This card shows how long you’ve been clocked in (or on break) since.
Today’s Shift - your shift time(s) for today, with a link to view your full calendar.
Working Today - which coworkers at your branch are scheduled today, with their times and positions.
Hours This Week - your total hours worked this week and how many days you’ve worked.
My Tasks - your open tasks, with due dates and priority badges (if Tasks is enabled).
My Checklists - checklist runs assigned to you that aren’t complete yet (if Checklists is enabled).
Announcements - the 3 most recent posts.
My Training - your assigned courses with a lesson-completion progress bar (if Training is enabled).
Item Requests - a shortcut to request an inventory item (if Inventory is enabled).

Announcements

Announcements is a company-feed style page for restaurant-wide updates - think of it as your restaurant’s internal social feed.

Who can post

Only Owners, Ops Managers, and Managers can post, pin, or delete announcements. Everyone else can read, react, and comment.

How to post an announcement

Go to Announcements.
Click into the composer box at the top of the feed and type a title (required) and, optionally, a longer message below it.
Optionally add a photo using the image toggle.
Optionally check 🚨 Urgent to flag it as urgent, or 📌 Pin to top to keep it pinned above the regular feed (urgent posts are automatically pinned too).
Click Post.

When a new announcement is posted, every other employee at the restaurant gets a push notification.

Urgent announcements posted in the last 3 days also pop up as an on-screen modal the next time an employee (other than the person who posted it) opens the app on any page - not just the Announcements page. They have to click Got it to dismiss it, which counts as acknowledging/viewing the post. This dismissal is remembered on that device.

Managing existing posts

Managers can open the ⋯ menu on any post to:

Pin / Unpin it.
Delete it (this also removes its comments and reactions).

There is currently no edit option for an already-posted announcement - to fix a mistake, delete it and post again.

How employees interact with posts

Anyone can, on any post:

React with one of six emoji reactions (👍 ❤️ 🎉 👏 😂 😮) - picking a new one swaps out your previous reaction, and clicking your active one again removes it.
Comment, and reply to a specific comment (threaded one level deep). You can delete your own comments; managers can delete anyone’s.
Share the post (uses your device’s native share sheet if available, otherwise copies a link) or Copy link from the ⋯ menu.
Save a post to a personal, on-this-device-only bookmark list (see the Saved filter tab).
See who’s seen a post - a post is automatically marked “seen” for you after it’s been visible on your screen for about 2.5 seconds, or immediately if you dismiss it via the urgent popup’s Got it button.

A filter bar at the top lets you switch between All, 🚨 Urgent, 📌 Pinned, and 🔖 Saved posts. New posts from other people while you’re on the page trigger a “New posts” pill you can tap to jump back to the top and load them; older posts load automatically as you scroll down.

Team Chat

Team Chat supports three kinds of conversations:

Team Chat - a single, restaurant-wide group conversation that everyone can see, always pinned at the top of the chat list.
Direct messages (1:1) - a private conversation between you and one teammate.
Shift groups - a temporary group chat for everyone scheduled at a specific branch on a specific date.

Starting a conversation

Direct message: click + New Chat in the sidebar, then search for and tap a teammate’s name. If you’ve already messaged them before, it reopens that same conversation instead of creating a new one.
Shift group: click Shift Group in the sidebar, pick a date (and branch, if your restaurant has more than one), then click Open Group. This automatically adds everyone scheduled to work that branch on that date, plus you (even if you’re not personally scheduled that day). Opening the same branch/date again reuses the existing group rather than making a duplicate.

Sending messages

Inside a conversation you can type a message and press Enter to send (Shift+Enter for a new line), and attach a single photo per message using the image icon. Messages you send appear instantly; messages update live for other participants without needing to refresh.

You can delete a message you sent. Owners, Ops Managers, and Managers can delete any message in any conversation.

Pinning and hiding conversations

Open the ⋯ menu on a conversation in the sidebar (or in the open thread’s header) to:

Pin to top / Unpin - keeps that conversation above your other chats (Team Chat is always first regardless).
Delete chat (direct messages only) - removes the conversation from your own chat list. It isn’t deleted for the other person, and it reappears in your list automatically if they send you a new message. Team Chat and shift groups can’t be deleted this way since they’re shared channels.

Auto-translate

If a teammate writes in a different language than yours, SessionPilot OPS can translate their messages for you automatically. Turn this on from your profile settings (the “You” page): enable the “Auto-translate chat messages” toggle, alongside the Language setting that tells the app which language is yours.

Once it’s on, any message from someone whose profile language differs from yours is translated automatically, with a small 🌐 “Show original” link underneath so you can toggle back to what they actually typed. Messages while translation is still loading show a “···” indicator.