The Team Mantis Scheduling App is a mobile application usable by both Employees and Managers of a given business. Managers are able to create and edit schedules for their work place and also review requests by Employees, such as time off requests and shift trade requests. Employees are allowed to edit their availability, view their work schedules, and pick up or trade shifts with other Employees. The app is only available on devices that use the Android OS.
There is a demonstration video below that shows in detail each aspect of the Mantis Scheduler application.
To use the Mantis Scheduler, one can simply download the APK onto their Android phone and then executing the file will install the application. Alternatively, you can use an Android emulator, such as Android Studio, to run the application on a computer. On Android Studio once you have an emulator running, you can simply drag and drop the APK file into the running device and it will install the app for you.
On the start page, the user will be presented with two options. The first option is "Registration". When the user navigates to this page, they will see the following:
The registration page then has boxes for the user to enter their email, name, and password, where the password must be entered in twice and both entries must match. To indicate whether they are registering as an employee or manager, there is a switch they can activate with the label "Manager Account" next to it. Once the user is done, they can them press "Submit", or if they need to go back to the start page, they can either press the "Back" button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen, or use the back arrow in the top left corner of the screen.
The second option the user can choose on the start page is "Login". When the user navigates to this page, they will see the following:
The login page then presents the user with two input fields that allow them to enter their email and password to login. If the username or password entered is incorrect after pressing "Login", a message will display informing the user of this error. If the user chooses to back out to the start page, they can do so by either pressing the "Back" button, or by pressing on the back arrow in the top left hand corner of the screen.
When an base level employee logs into their account, the following is the home page that they will see:
Down in the bottom right hand corner is a button that allows the employee to logout of their account. The top right of the page contains a menu that allows the employee to navigate around the app along with pressing a tab on the home screen that they would like to go into. The page's available to an employee are as follows:
The "Today's Schedule" page allows the user to select a day for the current month as well as future months. When they select a given day, the shifts of every employee, manager's included, who is working on that day will show up, displaying their name, scheduled time, and position.
The "My Schedule" page allows the user to view their shifts by selecting a day for the current month as well as future months. When they select a given day, if the user has a shift scheduled for that day, it will show. Displayed with the shift will be the scheduled time, date, and position. The user also has two button options to either trade the shift with someone else, creating a trade request, or drop the shift entirely.
The "Change Availability/Time Off" page allows the user to submit their preferred time to work for the manager to see when they are available to be scheduled for work. The employee selects the start date and end date, and can even add a comment. The comment is optional, and is not required to be able to submit the request.
Once an employee has submitted a time off request, this page allows the employee to view all past and outgoing time off requests, as well as if they have been approved or denied.
The available shifts page shows all shifts that currently have no employee assigned to them. This occurs when an employee drops a shift they previously had. If the employee decides to pick up a shift, it will be added to their schedule automatically.
This page allows the employee to see all current employees. Included in this information is each employee's name and their role(s).
The Manager Home Page gives managers of the establishment the ability to Make/Edit Schedules and access to employees Time Off Requests and Trade Requests.
The Make/Edit Schedule page allows Managers the ability to create and edit schedules and roles for the employees. This information is pushed to all of the current employees schedules.
The View Time Off Requests Manager Page list the Time Off Requests sent in by the employees. The manager can view the employee name, the start/end date of the request, as well as any comments on the reason. The manager can then approve or deny the request.
The View Trade Request Manager Page list all Trade Requests sent in by the employees. The manager can see the two employees information and the dates that the two employees would like to trade. The manager can approve or deny the request.
The members of Team Mantis, the developers behind the Mantis Scheduling App, are all soon to be graduates and alumni of the University of South Carolina Columbia in May, 2023. This application is the result of undergoing the senior design course for the Computer Science major at USC.