Room Assignment System

Efficiently assign rooms to housekeepers using HelloShift's flexible assignment system. Choose from AI-powered assignment, credit-based auto-assign, zone-based grouping, or manual assignment based on your property's needs.

Overview

HelloShift offers multiple ways to assign rooms to housekeeping staff:

Accessing the Assignment Page

1. Go to Housekeeping > Assignments in the left sidebar

2. Select the date you want to assign rooms for

3. You'll see:

   • List of rooms with current status (Dirty, Clean, DND)

   • Check-in/check-out indicators from your PMS

   • Available cleaners with their credit capacity

   • Assignment controls

AI-Powered Assignment

AI Assign uses historical cleaning data to distribute rooms in a way that matches your property's established patterns.

How AI Assign Works

1. Analyzes the past 15 days of assignments

2. Identifies patterns in how rooms are typically distributed

3. Considers cleaner preferences and zone assignments

4. Balances workloads based on actual cleaning history

Using AI Assign

1. Navigate to Housekeeping > Assignments

2. Click AI Assign button

3. Review the suggested assignments

4. Make manual adjustments if needed

5. Click Save Assignments

Benefits

• Saves time by auto-distributing rooms in seconds

• Maintains consistency with your property's real-world practices

• Reduces repetitive manual setup

• Learns and improves over time

Tip: Use AI Assign as your default during busy check-in/check-out days to minimize manual work.

Credit-Based Auto-Assignment

Credit-based assignment distributes rooms proportionally based on each cleaner's available capacity and the credit value of each room.

Understanding Credits

Credits represent the time/effort required to clean a room. For example:

Setting Up Credits

Step 1: Configure Cleaner Capacity

1. Go to Admin > Settings > Cleaning

2. In the Credits by Cleaner section, set each cleaner's daily capacity

3. Enter credits by day of week (leave empty for days off)

Step 2: Configure Room Credits

1. In the Credits by Task section, set credit values for each room type × cleaning type combination

2. Values represent relative effort (1 = base unit, 2 = twice as long, etc.)

How Auto-Assign Works

1. Calculates each cleaner's available credit for the day

2. Computes each room's credit requirement based on:

   • Room type

   • Cleaning task type (Clean, Checkout, Check-in, etc.)

3. Distributes rooms to fill each cleaner's capacity proportionally

4. Balances workload so no cleaner is over- or under-assigned

Using Auto-Assign

1. Navigate to Housekeeping > Assignments

2. Click Auto-Assign

3. Review and adjust assignments

4. Click Save Assignments

Zone-Based Assignment

Zone assignment groups rooms by location (floor, building, wing) to minimize cleaner travel time.

Setting Up Zones

Step 1: Assign Zones to Rooms

1. Go to each room's settings

2. Set the Zone field (e.g., "Floor 1", "Floor 2", "Building A")

3. Repeat for all rooms

Step 2: Configure Zone Distances (Optional)

1. Go to Admin > Settings > Cleaning > Zones

2. Enter distances between zones:

   • 0 = Same zone

   • 1 = Adjacent zones

   • 2+ = Distant zones

Step 3: Set Max Zones Per Cleaner

Configure how many different zones a cleaner can work in per day:

1. Go to Admin > Settings > Cleaning > Zones

2. Set Max Zones per Cleaner (e.g., 2)

How Zone Assignment Works

During assignment:

1. System tracks zones already assigned to each cleaner

2. New room assignments prefer zones the cleaner already has

3. If adding a new zone, system checks adjacency

4. Adjacent zones (distance ≤ 1) are allowed within the max limit

5. Non-adjacent zones require cleaner to be under their zone limit

Benefits

• Reduces travel time between rooms

• Keeps cleaners focused in familiar areas

• Improves efficiency on large properties

• Works with both auto and manual assignment

Manual Assignment

Assign rooms to specific cleaners using drag-and-drop or bulk selection.

Drag-and-Drop Assignment

1. Navigate to Housekeeping > Boards

2. View rooms in the left column, cleaners in right columns

3. Drag a room to a cleaner's column to assign

4. Room moves to that cleaner's list

Bulk Assignment

1. Select multiple rooms using checkboxes

2. Scroll to Bulk Actions at the bottom

3. Choose:

   • Assign Cleaner - Select the cleaner

   • Inspector (optional) - Select the inspector

   • Task Type - Choose Clean, Checkout, etc.

4. Click Submit

Assignments are pushed instantly to each cleaner's device.

Setting Default Cleaners

Assign a default cleaner to rooms for automatic assignment:

1. Open a room's settings

2. Set Default Cleaner

3. Set Default Inspector (optional)

4. When assignments are generated, this room auto-assigns to this cleaner

Self-Assignment

Allow housekeepers to choose their own rooms when you trust them to manage their workload.

Enabling Self-Assignment

Self-assignment is available by default. Cleaners can:

1. Open Housekeeping on their mobile device

2. Tap All Rooms to see unassigned rooms

3. Filter by: Dirty, Vacant, Stayover

4. Select a room and tap Assign to Me

Best Practices

• During training: Keep self-assignment disabled until staff know room standards

• For experienced staff: Enable to reduce management overhead

• Monitor workload: Review assignments to ensure fair distribution

Assignment Status Flow

Rooms progress through these statuses:

Clearing and Reassigning

Clear All Assignments

To start over for a date:

1. Go to Housekeeping > Assignments

2. Click Clear Assignments

3. All assignments for that date are removed

4. Re-run auto-assign or manually assign

Reassign a Room

1. Find the room in the assignment grid

2. Drag to a different cleaner, or

3. Use bulk actions to reassign selected rooms

Viewing Assignments

Calendar View

See assignments across multiple days:

1. Go to Housekeeping > Calendar

2. View assigned cleans by day

3. Spot unassigned rooms

4. Click a day to manage assignments

Board View

See rooms flow through cleaning stages:

1. Go to Housekeeping > Overview

2. View Kanban-style board: Dirty → In Progress → Clean → Done

3. Drag rooms between columns to update status

Troubleshooting

Auto-assign isn't distributing rooms evenly

• Check that cleaner credits are set correctly for the day of week

• Verify room credit values match expected cleaning times

• Ensure cleaners are set as Housekeeping department members

Rooms aren't appearing in the assignment list

• Verify rooms are marked as Dirty in room status

• Check that rooms aren't Out of Order

• Ensure the correct date is selected

Zone assignment isn't working as expected

• Verify zones are assigned to all rooms

• Check zone distance matrix is configured

• Confirm max zones per cleaner setting

Schedule Projection

Schedule Projection automatically generates room cleaning assignments for upcoming days based on your existing room automations. Instead of assignments appearing only on the day they are due, the system projects them forward so your team can see the full cleaning schedule in advance.

How It Works

1. Each night, HelloShift looks at your active room automations (scheduled jobs) and calculates which rooms will need cleaning over the next several days

2. It creates assignments for each future date, matching the same rules your automations use (room schedules, stay-based triggers, etc.)

3. The system reconciles nightly — adding new assignments, removing stale ones, and preserving any manual assignments you have made

Configuring Projection

To configure schedule projection:

1. Go to Admin > Settings > Housekeeping > General

2. Find the Schedule Projection section

3. Set Projection Days — how many days ahead to project (1–14 days, default: 7)

4. Set Auto-Assign Cleaners — when enabled, projected assignments automatically include cleaner assignments based on your usual assignment patterns

Projection vs. Manual Assignments

Projected assignments are tracked separately from manual ones. If you manually assign a room on a future date, the system preserves your manual assignment and does not overwrite it during nightly reconciliation.

To identify projected assignments, look for the automation source label on the assignment card.

Preview

Admins can preview the projected schedule before it runs. The preview shows which rooms will receive assignments on each future date, along with the automation rule that generated them. Use this to verify your automations are configured correctly.

Related Articles

• All About Housekeeping - Complete housekeeping overview

• Housekeeping Credit System - Credit configuration details

• Housekeeping Time Tracking - Cleaning duration tracking