All About Housekeeping

HelloShift's Housekeeping module helps you manage room cleaning efficiently from assignment to inspection. Track room conditions, assign cleaners, monitor progress in real-time, and generate performance reports.

Overview

The Housekeeping system includes:

Accessing Housekeeping

Desktop

1. Click Cleaning in the left sidebar

2. You'll see the Room Board showing all rooms with their current status

Mobile

1. Tap Rooms in the bottom navigation

2. View rooms filtered by condition (Dirty, Clean, etc.)

Room Conditions & Status

Room Condition

The cleaning state of a room:

Room Status

Occupancy state (typically synced from your PMS):

Filtering Rooms

Filter the room board by condition or status:

• Dirty - All rooms needing cleaning

• Dirty Assigned - Dirty rooms with a cleaner assigned

• Dirty Unassigned - Dirty rooms without a cleaner

• In-Progress - Rooms currently being cleaned

• Not Cleaning - Assigned but DND or refused service

• Clean / Inspected / Out of Order

• Vacant / Occupied

• My Rooms - Rooms assigned to you (for cleaners)

Room Assignment Workflow

Basic Workflow

1. Rooms appear as Dirty - From PMS checkout or manual marking

2. Assign cleaners - Manually or using auto-assign

3. Cleaner starts room - Timer begins

4. Cleaner completes room - Room becomes Clean

5. Inspector checks room (optional) - Room becomes Inspected

6. Room ready for guest

Assignment Methods

AI Assign (Smarter Workload Distribution)

AI Assign uses historical information about your property's cleaning patterns to automatically distribute rooms in a way that mirrors how you run operations.

How AI Assign works:

• Analyzes past assignments to understand typical room distribution

• Balances workloads by cleaning history and staff efficiency

• Reduces repetitive manual setup as the system "learns" your preferences

Tip: Use AI Assign as your default during busy check-in/check-out days to cut down on manual workload.

Manual Group Assign (Great for Small Properties)

1. Multi-select rooms in the assignment grid

2. Scroll to Bulk Actions at the bottom

3. Choose Assign Cleaner and select the cleaner

4. (Optional) Select an Inspector

5. Pick the Task Type (Checkout, Stayover, etc.)

6. Click Submit — assignments push instantly to each cleaner's device

Self-Assignment

Enable Self-Assign if you trust staff to choose their own rooms:

1. Cleaner opens All Rooms view

2. Selects a room and taps Assign to Me

3. Uses filters (Dirty, Vacant, Stayover) to pick efficiently

Tip: Keep Self-Assign off during training; enable once staff know room standards.

See Room Assignment System for detailed instructions.

Housekeeping Views

HelloShift provides four different views for managing housekeeping:

Room Statistics Bar

At the top of each view, you'll see real-time room counts:

• All Rooms: Total active rooms

• Assigned / Unassigned: Assignment status for today

• Occupied: Rooms with current guests

• Dirty: Rooms needing cleaning

• Out of Order: Rooms unavailable

Room-Level Actions

Inside any room card, you can perform several actions:

All notes and tasks link to the cleaning record for audit trails.

Assignments View

The Assignments view is where you assign cleaners to rooms:

• Grid layout with rooms on the left, cleaner columns on the right

• Use Auto-Assign or AI Assign buttons for automatic distribution

• Set cleaner action (Checkout, Stayover, etc.) per room

• Photo activity badge in the Cleaning column for rooms with a photo on their feed today (see Photo Evidence)

See Room Assignment System for detailed assignment instructions.

Boards View

The Boards view organizes rooms by cleaner:

Features

• Each cleaner has a section showing their assigned rooms

• Credit totals display next to cleaner names

• Drag and drop to reorder rooms within a cleaner's list

• Swap cleaners - Exchange all assignments between two cleaners

• Print - Print assignments for all cleaners or individual cleaners

• Photo activity badge on room tiles that have a photo on their feed today

Swapping Cleaners

To swap all assignments between two cleaners:

1. Find the cleaner whose assignments you want to swap

2. Use the "Swap with" dropdown next to their name

3. Select the target cleaner

4. Click Swap Now

All rooms assigned to cleaner A move to cleaner B, and vice versa.

Calendar View

The Calendar provides a monthly overview of room assignments:

Features

• Month-at-a-glance view of all assignments

• Click any date to see assignments for that day

• Filter by cleaner using the dropdown

• Navigate between months with arrow buttons

Accessing the Calendar

1. Go to Cleaning > Calendar (if enabled)

2. Or click the Room Calendar button in the navigation bar

Printing Assignments

Print cleaning assignments for staff without mobile devices:

Print All Assignments

1. Go to Cleaning > Boards

2. Click the Print All icon in the navigation

3. Print dialog opens with all cleaner assignments

Print Single Cleaner

1. Go to Cleaning > Boards

2. Find the cleaner's section

3. Click the print icon next to their name

4. Print dialog opens with just that cleaner's rooms

Mobile Board View

On mobile, rooms display as cards you can tap to:

• Start/Pause/Complete cleaning

• View room details

• Change assignments

Cleaning a Room (Cleaner Workflow)

Finding Your Rooms

1. Open Housekeeping on your mobile device

2. Tap My Rooms to see rooms assigned to you

3. Or tap Dirty to see all dirty rooms

Starting a Room

1. Tap the room you're ready to clean

2. Tap Start

3. The timer begins counting

During Cleaning

• Timer displays elapsed time on your screen

• If interrupted, tap Pause to stop the timer

• Tap Restart when you resume

• Review task details if a cleaning checklist is configured

Completing a Room

1. When finished, tap Complete

2. Confirm in the popup dialog. If your property has turned on Photo on Complete, the popup also shows Photo of the finished room: tap Photo and the camera opens directly. Confirm stays disabled until the upload finishes, and when the setting is Required you cannot confirm without a photo.

3. Room condition changes to Clean

4. If an inspector is assigned, they're notified

5. The photo, if you took one, is posted on the room's Activity Feed as Room cleaned — photo evidence

See the Photo Evidence section below for the setting and where photos appear.

Inspections

How Inspections Work

1. When a cleaner completes a room with an inspector assigned

2. The inspector receives a notification

3. Inspector opens the room and taps Inspect

4. Completes the inspection checklist with photos

5. Room passes or fails based on checklist score

Inspection Results

When a room fails inspection:

• The room condition changes back to Dirty

• Feedback from the inspector is attached

• The cleaner can see what needs to be fixed

• The room goes through the cleaning cycle again

• On the phone, the inspector is prompted to Add a photo of the issue. The photo is attached to the failed item and shows on the inspection report

Inspection scores appear on the room assignment card.

Setting Up Inspections

1. Create an inspection checklist in Checklists

2. Assign inspectors to rooms in the assignment grid

3. Inspectors receive inspections automatically on room completion

Photo Evidence

Cleaners and inspectors can attach a photo at the moment it matters: when a room is completed, and when an inspection item fails. Managers can then see at a glance which rooms have photo activity today.

Photo on Complete Setting

Go to Admin > Settings > Cleaning > General and set Photo on Complete:

The rule applies to everyone who completes a room from the Complete popup, on the phone or on desktop, cleaners and managers alike. A manager can still set the room condition directly from the Room Condition dropdown on the room page, which is the override when a camera is broken.

Taking the Photo

• On a phone, tapping Photo in the Complete popup or in the failed-item prompt opens the rear camera directly. Every other Photo button in HelloShift still lets you choose between the camera and your photo library.

• Confirm and Save buttons stay disabled while a photo is uploading, so a tap mid-upload cannot lose the photo.

• Phone photos are reduced to 1600 px before upload so they save quickly on hotel Wi-Fi. Photos under 500 KB are sent as they are.

Failed Inspection Items

When an inspector marks an item Failed on the phone, the item expands with Add a photo of the issue. The photo is posted as a comment on that item, so it shows in the checklist and on the inspection report next to the failed item. Adding the photo is encouraged, never required.

Where Photos Appear

• Room Activity Feed: the completion photo is posted as Room cleaned — photo evidence by the person who completed the room. It does not send notifications.

• Inspection report: failed items show their photo thumbnails inline, without expanding the comments.

• Photo activity badge: see below.

Photo Activity Badge

On Assignments, Overview and Boards, a room shows a Photo activity badge when any photo was posted on its Activity Feed today. Click the badge to open the room's feed.

The badge means photo activity on that room today, not proof that today's clean has a photo: a front-desk photo posted on the room (a maintenance issue, a guest's pet) lights it as well. Hover over the badge to see this reminder.

Settings & Configuration

Access housekeeping settings at Admin > Settings > Cleaning:

General Settings

• Room Status Sync - Push room condition changes to your PMS

• Photo on Complete - Off, Optional or Required: ask cleaners for a photo of the finished room in the Complete popup (see Photo Evidence above)

Credits Tab

Configure the credit system for workload balancing:

• Credits by Cleaner - Daily capacity per cleaner by day of week

• Credits by Task - Credit value for each room type × task type

See Housekeeping Credit System for details.

Zones Tab

Configure zone-based assignment optimization:

• Zone Distances - Define how far apart zones are

• Max Zones per Cleaner - Limit zones to reduce travel

Custom Fields Tab

Define cleaning task types (Checkout, Stayover, Deep Clean, etc.)

Room Settings

Each room has individual settings:

1. Go to Staff > Assets & Tags > Rooms

2. Click a room to view its profile

3. Click Edit Room to configure:

PMS Integration

HelloShift syncs room data with your Property Management System:

From PMS to HelloShift

• Guest check-ins → Room status changes to Occupied

• Guest check-outs → Room status changes to Vacant, Condition to Dirty

• Room changes → Updates reflected automatically

From HelloShift to PMS

When enabled in Cleaning settings:

• Room condition Clean → Pushed to PMS as room ready

• Room condition Inspected → Pushed to PMS as inspected

• Guests can check in as soon as the inspector greenlights a room—no extra clicks needed

Note: You can use housekeeping tracking even without PMS integration. You'll manually update the room status on the PMS, but you can easily monitor and report on cleaner efficiency from HelloShift.

Supported PMS systems vary - contact support for your integration options.

Reports

Access housekeeping reports at Reports:

Overview Report (Housekeeping Section)

Summary metrics per cleaner:

Detailed Housekeeping Report

• Average clean time per housekeeper

• Time-of-day peaks for starts/completions

• DND frequency and refused-service counts

• Stacked bar charts by cleaner

• Breakdown by task type

• Date range filtering

• Export CSV for payroll or analysis

See Housekeeping Time Tracking for time tracking details.

Best Practices

Daily Workflow

1. Morning: Run auto-assign for the day's rooms

2. Throughout day: Monitor board for completion status

3. Afternoon: Review any incomplete or overdue rooms

4. End of day: Check reports for any issues

For Cleaners

• Start rooms promptly when you begin

• Pause for any interruptions longer than a minute

• Complete rooms immediately when done

• Check your assignment list regularly

• Use Photo Notes to document damages before checkout disputes

For Managers

• Group by floor for faster cleans and fewer cart moves

• Set up credits to match realistic cleaning times

• Use zones to minimize travel between rooms

• Review weekly reports to identify trends

• Adjust staffing based on performance data

• Monitor DND rates and high-refusal rooms

Troubleshooting

Room not appearing in assignment list

• Verify room condition is Dirty

• Check room status is not Out of Order

• Confirm correct date is selected

Cleaner can't see their rooms

• Verify rooms are assigned to that cleaner

• Check the cleaner is using My Rooms filter

• Confirm date filter matches assignment date

PMS sync not working

• Check PMS integration is configured in General Settings

• Verify Room Status Sync is enabled in Cleaning settings

• Contact support for PMS-specific issues

Related Articles

• Room Assignment System - Assignment methods and configuration

• Housekeeping Credit System - Credit-based workload balancing

• Housekeeping Time Tracking - Time tracking and reports

• Room Inventory Management - Track supplies by room

• Checklists - Cleaning and inspection checklists