Check-ins are a simple yet important tool that can help you stay updated with the weekly progress of your team. It’s a great way to get an insight into the hurdles your team might face beforehand and recognise and resolve upcoming issues that might affect the progress. It will also help team members stay on track with their tasks and ensure they don’t lose focus.
How to create a Check-in?
You can create check-ins by accessing the Check-ins Dashboard through the left side panel.
Once you click on Create New Check-in you’ll be taken to a new page where you can set all the details regarding the check-ins you wish to receive from your team members.
Firstly, you need to decide how you will name your check-in campaign.
Next are the Check-in Questions. These are the questions your members will receive automatically to answer on the dates you set.
You can pre-set as many questions as you like. Our suggestion is to not set more than 4 questions and to keep things to the point so you don’t waste too much of your team members’ time.
You can also adjust them to be optional or required if you feel like they must be answered.
There are 4 options to choose from for types of questions:
- Text field
- You should choose this option if you wish to set your own questions
- Single select
- You should use this option if you want your team members to choose one from the few preset answers
- Multiple select
- You should use this option if you want your team members to choose multiple from the few preset answers
- OKR select
- You should use this option if you want to set a question linked to some of your OKRs
Check-in Settings
- Check-in Team
Here you can choose who will receive the questions for the newly created Check-in. It can be set to everyone from your team, a specific team, or specific teammates.
- Check-in Visibility
Each check-in can be set to be visible to everyone, the team members from the team it was set for, or it can be set as private – visible only to the admin and the user who created this check-in.
- Time zone setting and check-in frequency
Depending on where your team is located, you can choose multiple time zones so the desired team members will get notifications according to the time you set.
You can also set the interval to Daily, Weekly, or Monthly depending on how often you wish your team members to receive a Check-in question. As well as choose a specific day of the week.
Getting your team members notified about a Check-in
Team members can receive a notification about their Check-in either through email, Slack, or both. When it comes to Slack, you can either create a new channel and have users receive the notification in that one, or choose an existing one that is already used by the users that should complete the Check-in.
As for notification for completed check-ins, admins can also choose when they wish to receive notifications about completed Check-ins. There are 4 options to choose from: Once a day, once a week, biweekly, or once a month. Admins can opt-in to choose to receive a complete report each Sunday for the previous week at a specific time.
Note that if a Check-in was set to public, everyone can see all the answers in the Check-in menu.
Answering Check-ins
There are two options you can choose to get your team members engaged with a Check-in.
- Slack
Answering Check-ins in Slack
Once you connect your Focus account with Slack you can send out the check-ins through the Focus App in Slack.
Team members who received a notification for a Check-in through the Focus App in Slack can choose to answer them in Slack or the Focus platform.
Here is an example:
So they can choose to stay in Slack and submit their answers there or move on the website and answer the questions in Focus.
Once they submit their answers they get a notification that they are saved.
Answering Check-ins through email
Admins can also choose to send out the Check-ins through emails in cases when their team is not using Slack.
Each member will get an email prompting them to go to Focus and submit their answers.
Answers from Check-ins & Status
As an admin you can access the Check-in settings where you have an overview of all created Check-ins. Here you can activate, deactivate or delete a certain check-in. Or you can make edits if needed.
You can see all answers and Check-ins and you also have an overview in the right panel who completed the Check-in and when.
Editing the answers of your Check-in
Each member that submitted answers to a Check-in can also make edits to the same. This can be done through accessing Check-ins through the left side panel while on the Focus platform.
Here they can choose to see only their own submitted answers through the dropdown menu and select their username. All of their submissions will show up and they can edit them and submit the changes
Popular Check-in questions
Before setting the Check-in you should bear in mind that every team has different goals and different issues. Also, you should have a specific goal in mind for what you wish to achieve with these Check-ins. Is it to just stay in touch with your team or maybe track their progress. Either way here are some examples that you can use:
Monthly check in:
- What excites you most about work lately?
- How can the team help you achieve your goals?
- What resources or tools will you need in the upcoming months to reach your goals?
- What can your manager do to help you reach your goals next month?
- What problems have you solved the past month?
- Did you feel supported by your managers?
- What task is overwhelming you?
Daily Check-in:
- What are you going to be working on today?
- What is your priority for today?
- Do you need help with anything?
Check-in statistics
Admins can access check-in statistics through Analytics in their left side panel. These statistics are only visible to admins.
Here admins can see total users and active users, for which they can see the following data:
- Total Check-in answers and weekly answers
- Total Weekly Update answers and weekly answers
- Total Weekly Plan answers and weekly answers
