Housekeeping Board Builder Setup – Hotel Effectiveness

Applies to: Housekeeping Managers

Housekeeping Board Builder is a tool designed to build daily boards quickly. It balances the needs of the housekeeping team targets and the needs of the team members.

In order for our system to build daily boards for your room attendants, you must complete a few set up steps. Steps 1–3 must be completed once for Board Builder to work; however, you can modify them at any time.

Input Miscellaneous Settings (Must have)
Import Your Room Inventory (Must have)
Map Your Clean Types (Must have)
Map Realtime Rooms Clean Statuses to Night Audit Entry (Optional) - This is needed for ending room clean statuses for the day to flow automatically to Night Audit Entry. Only applicable for Realtime Rooms Users who view/complete cleans on the manager and employee mobile apps.
Set up Linen Change (Optional) - This is needed if you want certain room types to trigger a linen change.
Set up Priority Sort (Optional) - This is needed if you want for certain room cleans to be sorted higher in the board list of rooms to clean based on the PMS status.
Set Your Team Preferences (Optional) - Your team preferences need to be touched up as employees join or leave the Housekeeping team.

Step 1 – Input Miscellaneous Settings

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Mouse over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Miscellaneous Settings.
Select applicable options.
Save.

Miscellaneous Settings is where you tell the system what your source system is, how short/long shifts should be for each room attendant, and how you want rooms to match with employees.

Source System – Select Hilton OnQ, Hilton PEP, Opera, Galaxy Lightspeed, etc. depending on your hotel’s PMS.

Matching Type – Select the desired Matching Type. This will default as the selection each time you build boards, but you can always update this setting in the future if needed.

Equal Spread in Home Floor/Zone - assigns rooms to room attendants in a way that ensures everyone gets assignments resulting in an equal number of expected hours within their assigned Home Floor/Zones. This method is preferred. Setup Step 6 (Set Your Team Preferences) must be configured for this option.
Equal Spread – assigns rooms to room attendants in a way that ensures everyone gets assignments resulting in an equal number of expected hours. This method is preferred if you wish to assign a similar number of hours across the department, and there are no home floor/zones.
Top Up – assigns rooms to room attendants in order of the team preference until the maximum shift hours number is met without going over.

Matching Buffer Minutes – This setting allows the system to go slightly over/under the totally equal number of hours for each employee in order to assign all of the cleans with the Equal Spread Matching Type.

Shift Settings

Minimum Shift Hours – Lowest number of assigned cleaning hours an employee should get.

Maximum Shift Hours – Highest number of assigned cleaning hours an employee should get. This number is used by the Top Up matching method and determines the “top” number of hours to assign for each employee without going over.

Pre Shift Work Minutes – If pre-cleaning minutes aren’t incorporated into your MPR targets, input the number of minutes you expect each employee to need prior to cleaning rooms.

Post Shift Work Minutes – If post-cleaning minutes aren’t incorporated into your MPR targets, input the number of minutes you expect each employee to need after cleaning rooms.

Unpaid Break Minutes – Input the average number of unpaid break minutes you expect each employee to take.

Default Start Time – If you do not use Scheduler for room attendants, this will be the start time that appears by default. This is editable each day when needed.

Print Settings - When the boards are published and printed, the print setting allows you to customize what appears on the room attendants’ housekeeping boards. These settings will work both on paper and digital boards and include the ability to show/hide:

Start/Stop times and Target Minutes
Floor/Zone
Room Type
Guest Reward Status
Arrival Date
Departure Date
Guest Count

Assignment Settings - Automatically re-sort the board based on Room Status Priority after auto assignment. Room Status Priority rules can be managed on the Room Status Setup page. Setup Step 6 – Setup Priority Sort must be completed to use this setting.

Example, all Vacant rooms must be cleaned first, then Stayover rooms, then Due Out rooms, etc.

Step 2 - Room Inventory Manager

In order for Board Builder to work, the system must have a list of all rooms, room types, and room statuses. You can import your room inventory using a file from the PMS you selected in Miscellaneous Settings.

Import Rooms

You only need to import your inventory once.

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Mouse over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Room Inventory Manager.
Select Import Your Inventory >>.
Import the source system file using the instructions listed in the modal.
Upload this file using the Browse and Import buttons.

Review Inventory & Set Assignment Order

After you import your inventory, you should review it and save the assignment order. The system pulls all room numbers, floor numbers, buildings, room types, and number of beds from the Housekeeping Report - By Room and displays them in the Rooms Inventory Manager.

Select the blue Change Assignment Order >> link on the right side of the page.
Quickly modify the assignment order by using the ascending/descending drop box selections.
Once you’re satisfied with the assignment order, click Save Setup.
Note: Click Save even if you don’t change the sort order at all so the system knows this is your preferred sort order.

You can also modify the rooms list sort order by selecting the Change Assignment One by One >> link.

Step 3 - Map Your Room Statuses to Clean Types

After you are satisfied with your Room Inventory, you must match your Room Statuses from OnQ/Opera/etc. to the clean types you have in Hotel Effectiveness.

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Mouse over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Clean Type Mapping.
Select Quick Map by Room Status >>.
Note: We recommend this option to map each Room Status to a Clean Type. This will apply to every Room Type associated with that Room Status and is quicker than matching all Room Type/Room Status combinations.
Select applicable mapping
Save

Any Room Statuses that will not need attention from your room attendants should be mapped as No Cleaning Needed.

Step 4 - Realtime Status Mapping (Optional)

This is needed for ending room clean statuses for the day to flow automatically to Night Audit Entry. Only applicable for Realtime Rooms users viewing/cleaning rooms on the manager or employee mobile apps.

If you want to automatically save final room clean statuses for the day to Night Audit Entry, you must select to turn this on.

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Mouse over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Realtime Status Mapping.
Select the option to enable room clean statuses to be sent to Night Audit Entry.
- This is an automated process that occurs nightly at 10pm local time.
Cleans sent to Night Audit Entry will default to recording the final clean type (checkout, stayover, etc.). To capture the most accurate snapshot of actual work performed, which will generate the most accurate labor plans, map the Clean Type plus Clean Statuses to break out rooms that were assigned but not serviced.
- Mapping options are configurable in the Housekeeping Clean Type Setup within Hotel Effectiveness.

Step 5 - Linen Change (Optional)

If you opt to use the Linen Change setting, you must set which room statuses require linen changes.

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Mouse over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Room Status Setup.
Select Edit>>next to each Room Status code on the Room Status Setup page.
- For a room status that does not require a linen change select No.
- If you select Yes and 0 days, then linen change will always get triggered, like for vacant dirty rooms.
- You can change the number of days the linen change should trigger based on the length of stay, for example 3 days for a stayover.
Save each time.

Step 6 - Set Up Room Status Priority (Optional)

If you opt to use the Room Status Priority setting, you must set how room statuses should be sorted after the boards are automatically assigned.

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Mouse over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Room Status Setup.
Select Change Priority Sort >> in the upper right.
Note: if you don’t see this link, the setting may not be selected in Miscellaneous Settings.
Drag and drop each Room Status.
Note: Room Statuses at the top will be sorted first in the boards
Save when you’re done.

Example: Room Status Priority Setting NOT Turned On

Example: Room Status Priority Setting Turned On

Step 7 - Set Team Preference (Optional)

If you opt to use the Equal Spread in Home Floor/Zone matching pattern, you must set the Home Floor/Zone(s) for each employee.

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Mouse over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Team Preferences.
Select Edit >> next to each employee’s name to save their preferences.
Save each time.

Backup floors/zones are used when there aren’t enough rooms in an employee’s Home Floor/Zone to give them enough work. Any team members with no preferences saved will get whatever rooms are left.

Team Preferences – Assignment Order

The system assigns rooms in order of seniority, then in order of name (last name, first name) by default.

You can review and modify this preference order as needed.

Select Housekeeping Tools on the left main menu in Hotel Effectiveness.
Hover over Configure Board Builder on the top menu.
Select Team Preferences.
Select Change Assignment One by One >>.
Save each time.