Café QR Staff: Food Safety Reminders on Staff Phones

Café QR Staff is a small app for staff phones. Once a phone is linked, its owner gets a reminder while they're on shift when a check is due or overdue, or when food they started cooling has 10 minutes left. They can also log temperatures, food records, checklists, pest sightings and faults from the phone. Using your own phone is always optional: everything can still be done on the till. You need the Food safety add-on.

Link a phone (managers)

Managers and owners link phones from Staff. A site manager can only link people at their own site.

1. Make sure the person has a PIN. They type it to finish linking.
2. Open Staff and find the person under the list of staff.
3. Press Link a phone, then Make a link.
4. Send them the link, or let them scan the QR code. The link works once, for 24 hours.

For a whole team, put up a staff-room QR instead:

1. Open Staff. Under Staff phones, pick the site if you have more than one.
2. Press Make a staff-room QR.
3. Print the QR code and put it up where staff take breaks.

Anyone who scans it picks their name and types their PIN. Making a new staff-room QR stops the old one working. Five wrong PINs in a row lock that name for five minutes, as on the till.

Managers and owners who sign in to Café QR can link their own phone without a link: open Café QR Staff on the phone while signed in and press Use this phone for reminders.

Set up the phone (staff)

1. Open the link or scan the QR code on your phone.
2. On an iPhone, use Safari. Press the share button, then Add to Home Screen, then open Café QR Staff from your Home Screen. Reminders only work on an iPhone once the app is on the Home Screen (iOS 16.4 or later).
3. Type your PIN.
4. Open Settings in the app and press Turn reminders on. Allow notifications when your phone asks.

If notifications are blocked, allow them for the app in your phone's settings, then try again.

What the reminders say

Reminders only go to people on shift. Café QR sends them to whoever is clocked in at the site. If nobody is clocked in, they go to whoever is on the rota at that time. If nobody is on the rota either, they go to the site's managers who have reminders on. Nobody off shift gets one.

The lock screen never shows people's names, temperature readings or anything about anyone's health. A reminder says the site and what needs doing, for example "Leeds: opening checks due". Tap it to open the task.

Log from the phone

Open Log in the app. You type your PIN before logging, and it stays good for 2 minutes after you last used it, as on the till. The phone only shows tasks for its own site: there's no sickness, complaints, documents, training or set up on a staff phone.

Today on the phone puts overdue checks first, in red, then what's due now. A temperature round shows which equipment is still to do, for example "3 of 4 left: Fridge 2, Freezer, Bain-marie". Food that is cooling shows how many minutes are left before the limit. If the phone has no signal, a No signal strip shows at the top. Keep logging: records are kept on the phone and sent when it's back online. Checks that need a photo wait until then. See Food safety records when the internet is down.

Push alerts for managers

Managers can get food safety alerts by push as well as text and email. Push is free and never uses your message balance.

1. Link your own phone and turn reminders on.
2. Open Safety, then Set up, then Alerts.
3. Tick Also by push (free) next to each alert you want by push, for the site or under your own choices.
4. Press Save.

If you haven't linked a phone yet, the alert settings say so. Push isn't offered for sickness alerts, which go by email only.

Unlink a phone

• On the phone: open Settings and press Unlink this phone. If records are still waiting to send, you're warned first.
• From the dashboard: open Staff, find the person and press Unlink next to the phone.

An unlinked phone stops getting reminders and showing tasks straight away. Pausing someone on the Staff page unlinks all their phones.