You can set up a standard template for your progress notes to prompt staff on what information should be included in their notes.

If you are on the Professional or Premium plan, you will also be able to set up standard templates for your Incident, Feedback, and Enquiry notes as well.

Navigate to Account > Settings > Notes Headings and click 'Edit'. You can toggle the different note categories on or off to control which ones appear on the mobile app.

To add or change the headings for the note type you are interested in, click the 'Manage' button next to the relevant note type.

Click '+ Add new heading' and type in your new heading. You can choose to make a heading required by ticking the 'Mandatory' checkbox. If enabled, a staff member can't submit the note without completing the mandatory heading (this will not stop them from being able to clock out of the shift). See the section below to learn how to add strictly mandatory progress notes.

Once you have finished, click 'Save' to add the heading to your notes. When you have added all the headings you need, click 'Done'.

To remove a heading, click on the red bin icon next to it. You will be prompted to continue before it deletes the heading. Click 'Done' when you are finished.

To edit headings, click on the blue pencil edit button in line with the heading you want to edit. This will allow you to edit the heading text and whether it is optional or mandatory.

You can easily edit the order of your headings, which is important when adding new headings that you might want to promote up the heading order. To edit the order, click 'Edit Order' and click and drag the arrow icons to move the headings to a different order.

When adding notes via the web app, the headings are not mandatory and can be overwritten, even when the mandatory checkbox is ticked. See the section below to learn how to add strictly mandatory progress notes.

ShiftCare allows you to require staff members to submit a progress note before they can clock out of a shift. You can also enforce a Minimum Word Count to ensure your team is providing detailed, compliant reports.

When this feature is enabled, it applies globally to all staff and all shifts across your account.

By default, staff receive a soft reminder if they try to clock out without a note, but they can dismiss it and clock out anyway. Enabling this setting changes that reminder into a strict block.

Enabling these settings will change the clock-out workflow for your staff members on both the Web and the Mobile App.

If a staff member attempts to clock out without submitting a mandatory progress note, the system will block them with a pop-up modal stating: "Unable to clock out until progress notes have been completed."

The staff member must add a note before attempting to clock out again.

In the mobile app, if they attempt to save the note before reaching the required word count, they will be blocked with an error message.

In the web app, when staff begin typing their progress note, they will see a Live Word Counter directly inside the text box. This counter updates in real-time as they type, and the 'Add Note' button will be greyed out until they reach the required number of words.

Once the requirements are met, the clock-out process will succeed normally.

For further assistance with Customising Note Headings and Mandatory Progress Notes, please contact our Support team using online chat when you're logged into ShiftCare or email our Support team at support@shiftcare.com.