In any system understanding the terminology is a big part of understanding the system. This glossary is intended to help clarify terminology used in Tātou, so users can confidently use features and tools to make the most of the system.
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Click any of the Terms to be redirected to support articles with more information. |
Tātou Office App = The website interface at office.tatou.app
Tātou Field App = The tablet/phone app used by crews in the field to log Jobs
Site and/or Farm Information
Clients = A group of locations (properties).
For a contractor: This can be a grouping of a client’s properties
For a grower: you can have all your properties under 1 Client - Your Organisation, or use Client to group different properties based on your organisation’s management structure (i.e. North Island Vineyards vs South Island Vineyards)
Location = A property composed of a group of blocks (aka vineyard, orchard, farm)
Block = Designated area of your property that are uniquely identified (aka patch, paddock, block)
Units = A measure of work completed e.g. plants pruned, bins picked, kilometres sprayed. Employees can be paid per unit (AKA piecework or piece rate), productivity can be tracked by unit and invoices can be charged by unit.
Key Pro Tips and Notes
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Pro Tip - When deciding how to set up Clients, Locations, and Blocks - think about how you direct employees where to go. When Jobs are created in the Field App employees are asked to Select:
Before starting a Job, so these need to make sense to your employees, to ensure Jobs are accurately entered in the app. |
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Blocks at the same Location can be added to a single Job. If your crews would normally complete a single Task across multiple Blocks and you would like these to be worked together, the blocks must be under 1 Location. (e.g. Client A, Location A, Blocks1,2,3,4,5 - Task Wire Lift) |
Organisational Structure and Settings
Division = Divisions are an organisational tool to help users of both the Tātou Field App and the Tātou Office App see what is relevant to them. They can be applied to: Employees, Clients, Locations, and Task Categories.
Restrict to Division: This means that users in divisions or subdivisions below, cannot see this.
Permissions = Permissions are used to set user’s ability to access and/or work within Tātou Field App and the Tātou Office App. There are 3 categories of users based on 26 individual permission items, which allows flexibility to grant employee access relevant to their position in the company. (e.g. Administrator - all access, Crew - Field App Access + create Jobs).
Roles = play can be used in a couple of ways and play an important part in Tātou allowing your organisation to:
Set different hourly/contract rates for employees working in different roles, and
Can also be used to restrict Task completion to employees with the linked role designations
Groups = A filtering tool to help users of both the Tātou Field and Office Apps quickly locate, report on, bulk edit employee information, or filter a number of dashboards, reports, and pages. Employees can be in multiple groups, and groups can be made Active or Inactive.
Pay Period: Your organisations designated pay period - start date and frequency set in Settings.
Additional Costs: Percentage based costs that can be applied to Employees to help capture full cost of work. Common costs include Kiwisaver and Holiday, but these can be created with any name and any percent. Multiple Additional Cost items can be applied to any employee.
Entitlements: Standard requirements for work including: paid rest breaks, top up windows for contract work, and overtime.
Attendance and Absence Reasons: Tātou’s Attendance feature allows organisations to track Attendance, and log absence reasons. Absence Reasons can be set by your organisation, and define how many hours to apply, and decide whether those hours contribute to an employee’s Gross Earnings, Minimum Hours, and Agreed Hours.
Key Pro Tips and Notes
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Divisions can be applied to Employees, Clients, Locations, and Task Categories on their respective pages. They cannot be applied from the Divisions Page. |
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Employees in the same Division can see all information related to their Permissions group, that is located in that division, AND any information relating to divisions above them UNLESS the items above have been marked as “Restrict to Divisions.” |
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Pro Tip: When deciding on divisions and subdivisions, it is helpful to draw out a division flow chart to map out who and what is in each division, and check what can and cannot be seen. |
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When using the Invoicing Feature in Tātou Office App, Invoice lines are split by Role, and cannot be combined - even if the sales rate is the same for roles. To reduce the complexity of your invoicing lines, contact support@tatou.app for more information on other ways to assign employee rates, with less Role complexity. |
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Permission Group is not the same as a Group |
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Roles and Permission Groups can often have the same name - this can become confusing. App and Task accessibility are common errors that arise from this. |
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Groups, while useful, are nothing more than a filtering/grouping tool - they can be used to group people into a crew for example, but that does not assign crew members to a crew leader. |
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Absences can be included in Payroll reports, or excluded from Payroll reports. This options is set in the Custom Report details. |
Work Tracking Terms
Job = a record of work containing details on:
Date - when the work was completed
Task - what type of work is happening (each Job can only contain 1 Task. If multiple Tasks are completed in a day, each Task will be a different Job)
Location - where the work is happening
Block - which blocks within a location are being worked
Expenses - any machinery or supplies that are used during the work
Timesheets - contains hours and pay rate for employee(s)
Employees working
Hours worked
Type of pay rate (i.e. hourly or contract)
Units worked
Relocate Feature = If a field app user accidentally tracked a job at the wrong location or block, Tātou Office App users are able to Relocate the information to the correct, Client, Location, and or Block.
Job ID = A unique code assigned to a Job.
Job Summary = comprised of Operational Summary, Cost Summary, Pricing and Performance Summary, Invoicing Summary, and Timesheets - the Job Summary is the first page when Tātou Office App users open a Job to review information.
Task = a type of work (aka activity - e.g. pruning, mowing, picking, etc.)
Task Category = a group of Tasks designated by your organisation (i.e. Vineyard Work, Orchard Work, Harvest, etc.)
Internal [Task] = a task whose costs are applied to your organisation. Client, location, and block details are not recorded for Jobs that are created for an internal task.
Client [Task] = a task whose costs are applied to a specific client, location, or even block.
Scheduled Task = Task planned ahead of time in the office containing details of a job. They are assigned to a person or crew leader to help direct work in the field. Scheduled Tasks will appear on the assigned workers tablet, allowing them to hit PLAY, and skip past the “Start a Job” questions on Task, client, location, block, etc.
Key Pro Tips and Notes
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Each Job can contain 1 Task, 1 Client, 1 Location, but can include multiple Blocks, Employees, Expenses, and even rate types. |
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When adding a Job in Tātou Office App, users are able to create Jobs with Client Tasks that do not have a location or blocks assigned. If a Job is created without this information it cannot later be allocated to Blocks, using the Relocate Feature. |
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Relocating a Job that was tracked by Assign Rows is possible, however the information will be transfered to the new place and the Job Tracking Type will be converted to Simple Summary. |
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Pro Tip: Job ID’s are used in reports, but there is no filter to search by Job ID. That’s because the Job ID number is found in the web address for the Job → http://office.tatou.app/#/jobs/ ________/summary If you want to find a job based on a Job ID from one of your reports, you can paste the number into the highlighted section, and you’ll open that Job. |
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Scheduled Tasks allow Tātou Field App users tracking Jobs using Simple Summary to use the CarryOver feature, which is normally only available to Jobs that track work with the Assign Row Feature. |
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Pro Tip: Can be in bulk by using the Generate Scheduled Task feature in a Project. |
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Scheduled Tasks have a place to add a Description. When a Description is added to a Scheduled task that information will show up in the Tātou Field App users tablet. |
Work Planning Tools
Project = A project is a collection of synced Jobs and can be a planning tool OR tool to retrospectively review costs, hours, and units for a group of Tasks. Synced jobs that are linked to a Project(s) contribute to progress tracking of specified tasks within the Project.
As a planning tool: Determine:
What you want to track (i.e. Winter Pruning),
Where you want to track against (i.e. All Clients, All Locations, All Blocks)
Start and Finish Dates
What Tasks are tracked (i.e. pruning, wound protection, etc.)
As a retrospective review: Synced Jobs can be added to a project at any time, or even used to create a project after the fact.
From the All Jobs Page - select all jobs you would like to group in a project
Then select Add to Project from the menu at the bottom of the page
Selecting New Project will create a project based on the details from those jobs
Planner: A work planning tool driven by Groups and Scheduled Tasks. Users can assign scheduled tasks to crews on a weekly or daily basis using the Planner Tool.
Key Pro Tips and Notes
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Pro Tip: Create a project ahead of time and select “Automatically sync newly-tracked jobs that match this project” to ensure all blocks and tasks are added correctly for progress tracking. |
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When you create a New Project, by adding Bulk Edit from the All Jobs page, the Progress by task portion of the project will only include blocks that have been tracked on Jobs. If you would like to add more blocks to the Task or Project, you will have to Edit the Block list for each Task item that needs additional Blocks. |
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Jobs can be synced against multiple Projects giving Tātou Office users the flexibility to create Projects that report progress at different levels. For example:
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If you do not see a Group to add Scheduled Tasks to on the Planner Page, check that the Group is “shown in planner” |