This article was last updated March 22, 2024

Welcome to Sling! Together, Sling and Toast simplify employee scheduling and time tracking, improve internal communication, drive team engagement, and save restaurateurs time and money.

→ What data syncs?

→ Creating your Sling account

→ Schedule enforcement

→ Verifying synced data

→ How to schedule

→ Video: How to schedule shifts in Sling

→ Reviewing and editing timesheets

→ Running payroll reports

→ Company settings

→ Schedule settings

→ Labor cost settings

→ Preference and notification settings

→ Removing the integration

→ F.A.Q.’s and Helpful Hints

Employee data

Send employee names, along with their assigned positions, locations, and wages, created on Toast to Sling and keep the changes up-to-date.

Timesheets

Send timecards created on one platform to the other, from Toast to Sling or Sling to Toast. Compare the scheduled and actual hours and costs, analyze discrepancies, and export timesheets for processing payroll.

Sales

Send sales data straight from your Toast POS to Sling. Compare projected sales, actual sales, and labor %, and optimize the cost of labor by building better schedules that respect the margins you are after.

Schedules

Send shift data from Sling to Toast, so you can enforce scheduling as employees use the time clock on Toast POS and prevent time theft.

First, you will navigate from your Toast dashboard to the tab labeled ‘Scheduling’ to create a new Sling account.

STEP 2

When you click on ‘Try Now’ a new page will appear directing you to select one or multiple Toast locations you want to have connected to this Sling account.

(You can have separate Sling accounts for each location, just repeat the steps for the 2nd, 3rd, etc. account selecting the individual locations.)

STEP 3

A new tab will open up (please ensure pop-ups are enabled for best results) with the adjacent window to create a new Sling account or connect an already existing one to the selected Toast Location.

STEP 4-A

If you are selecting “Connect to an existing Sling account” then you would sign in with your Sling email and password and the associated Sling accounts would appear as applicable for you to select one.

STEP 4-B

If you are selecting Create a new Sling account you will be prompted to fill in an email address and to create a password consisting of at minimum eight characters, a Capital letter, a symbol, and a number.

STEP 5

Once this is done you will see the Sling account load and prompt you with a pop-up showing that the integration is complete.

Sling will start importing employees with their email, job(s), location, and wages as well as timesheets and sales. Sales data up to 30 days in the past can be synced. New employees added in Toast will be automatically synced with the next update. Beyond the initial integration sync, updates to wages, timesheets, and sales in Toast will also be updated in Sling with the next sync. However, note that deleting an employee or timesheet in Toast will not remove the data from Sling.

A few other things to note about imported data:

Your schedule data in Sling will be exported to Toast to allow you to prevent early clock-ins on your Toast POS, if you choose.

STEP 1

To set up schedule enforcement, go to your Toast (tab/web) account, and under employees scroll down to “Timesheet Management" and select the “UI options: Shift Review.”

STEP 2

Once inside, Scroll down to the "Time Clock" section and enable the "Enforce Scheduling" option.

Save & Publish your changes.

Go back to the main page on Toast and then go to "Employees" and select "Schedule Enforcement."

From there, you can adjust your preferences in terms of early clock-in/out and late clock-in/out.

You will need to also ensure that the early clock in setting matches the data on Sling’s Time Clock Settings page.

Even if the Sling mobile time clock or kiosk is not going to be used for your account, you will need to enable the tool at least temporarily in order to access the full suite of settings.

See this article on schedule enforcement for more details.

After the initial integration, Sling will automatically sync data every 15 minutes, but you also have the ability to manually sync new info as often as every 5 minutes. To do this, access the integrations tab in your settings, and click the options button under Toast.

After connecting Sling and Toast, you can check to see that information is being synced properly.

Employees

Go to the Employees tab in Sling to review the imported profiles and check for accuracy. Their names, contact info including email and phone number, and assigned positions (“jobs” on Toast), locations, and wages will be imported and assigned in Sling.

Positions

Any Jobs that were listed in your Toast account will also be added to Sling under the positions tab in addition to being added within employee profiles. New positions added on Toast will be imported to Sling with the next sync. Positions created in Sling are not exported to Toast.

Locations

Locations from your Toast account will also be imported and listed in Sling under the locations tab. New locations added in Toast after the initial integration will be imported to Sling, and will prompt the locations mapping tool, so you can be sure the locations in Sling are properly connected to the ones in Toast. Locations created in Sling are not exported to Toast, shifts scheduled for a Location or Position originating in Sling will affect your Toast POS Clock in/out enforcement.

Wages

Any wages assigned to your employees in Toast will also be carried over to Sling. To verify that their wages have been imported and applied properly, check the Labor cost tab.

You can also confirm wages on the Sling in the employee profile page by selecting the wages tab. There is a drop-down menu that will confirm if the employee is set to an Hourly wage or a Salary.

Timesheets

Any clock in and clock out activity recorded in Toast will sync to Sling, and can be reviewed under the Time clock tab:

By horizontally scrolling to the right of the timesheets page you will be able to see extra data including the source of the entry - whether it originates from Toast as a clock in, from Sling as a Scheduled shift, or a clock in from the Sling mobile time clock or kiosk.

The timesheet data rolls up into the payroll report, where you can review total hours and gross wages for the pay period.

Sales

Your actual sales data from Toast is imported to Sling and will be populated in the sales report under the “actual sales” column. This data automatically updates every 15 minutes with the integration sync.

Note that anyone assigned to the manager role in Sling will need to be given access to labor cost data by an admin in order to see wage info and sales data, and access the labor, payroll, and sales reports. An admin can grant access under the labor cost settings tab.

Once you have ensured that your employees, wages, positions, and locations have been synced to Sling, you can get started with scheduling. The shifts you add here can be sent to Toast so you can make sure employees are adhering to their schedules.

Using the full schedule view lets you see all schedule data. You can add a new shift by clicking the blue Create shift button near the top right of the screen.

You can also hover over the calendar to see an add [+] button appear.

Depending on where you click (specific employee’s row, specific date, under a grouping for a location or position, etc), some information may pre-populate into the shift for you.

A time, location, and position are required to create a shift, while all other details are optional.

If you leave the employee field blank, this will create an unassigned shift, which helps you plan out the coverage you need. Unassigned shifts can be assigned later, or made available for employees to apply to.

Unassigned shifts (blue) are only visible to Admins/Managers; Available shifts (green) are visible to employees assigned to that position and location.

There are many scheduling features and options, but this video overview can help you understand all the functions that are available and how to use them:

If you’d like even more info on scheduling, you can also check out this collection of articles from our Help Center: ✏️ Schedules

Before you begin: For best results it's important to understand that Sling and Toast’s bi-directional time sync has adjustable settings on both Sling’s Settings -> Time Clock page AND on Toast’s Employee Management -> Schedule Enforcement page.

Then to ensure that you want employees to only be able to clock in and out based on their schedule unless they have manager approval, this would be under Toast’s Timesheet Management -> UI Options: Time Clock. If this is not needed for your business, select “no."

Any hours recorded in Toast will be synced to Sling allowing you to review the data and pull reports. Changes to timesheets on the Toast side will be imported with the next sync and overwrite anything that was previously imported.

Under the Time clock tab, you can select the range you wish to review.

You can also apply filters to focus on specific information like locations, positions, or groups.

Use the filters -> “Columns” to confirm when employees have duplicate entries for a single date to enable “Scheduled” time in/out as well as “clock” in/out time.

For example - The duplicate recordings of February 3rd show a scheduled in/out time from Sling and an actual Clock in/out from Toast POS that is not in line with the scheduled shift.

The information can be printed or exported, as well.

The data recorded here will also populate into the payroll report for easy processing in your payroll software.

At the time of this publishing, Sling does not directly integrate with Toast Payroll. This data will be accessible on Toastweb through the Sling/Toast integration and your Toast account itself will integrate from there to Toast Payroll if available.

Once hours are logged via timesheets, you can review and export the data under the payroll report.

Filters can be applied here, just like in your timesheet report.

You can also choose which columns populate in the report, in case there is any data that isn’t relevant to you.

Then, export the data in a .csv or .xls file for easy processing in your company’s payroll application.

Before fully implementing Sling, you should double-check these settings. They allow you to make sure your schedule is laid out in a way that matches your business needs and that your employees are only seeing the information you want them to see. Note that company and schedule settings can only be adjusted by an admin of the Sling account.

Your company settings apply to everyone within your company, and they allow you to define which features and information are available to your employees. This includes access to coworkers’ information and the messaging, newsfeed, and tasks features.

(On the topic of Messaging, Scheduling Lite includes private one-on-one messages, Scheduling Pro offers this AND Group Messaging.)

Your schedule settings also apply to everyone in the company and allow you to adjust the appearance of the schedule as well as which scheduling features are accessible.

These settings include hours of operation*, the first day of the work week, schedule visibility for employees, breaks, and more.

*For End of Day purposes, Toast POS/web automatically uses 4 AM as the cutoff between dates; on Sling this is adjustable.

The breaks tool now has much more flexibility than ever before.

Shy of outright disabling breaks, at its minimum you can set the Break Type- Standard Break: Paid/Unpaid -> How long: 10/15/30min etc.

If you choose to set Automated Breaks, a whole suite of features is now open to you including whether it's a meal or a rest break, if these are both paid, unpaid, one of each, etc. How long one vs the other lasts, if employees can waive their break, etc.

In addition to the company and schedule settings, you also want to make sure your labor cost settings match your business needs. These will dictate how estimated wages are calculated and help keep you within your labor budget.

Under Settings > Labor cost, you can define your pay periods, set overtime rules, define labor cost % goals and provide labor cost access to managers. In addition to the company and schedule settings, you also want to make sure your labor cost settings match your business needs. These will dictate how estimated wages are calculated and help keep you within your labor budget.

Under Settings > Labor cost, you can define your pay periods, set overtime rules, define labor cost % goals, and provide labor cost access to managers.

The pay period setting will designate the dates that populate when you use the “payroll” date range within timesheets and reports.

Sling offers weekly, daily, and daily double overtime options, so you can be sure you’re keeping track of hours accurately and scheduling within your budgets.

If you offer extra pay for holidays on which your business is open, you can enable the holiday pay setting and define the extra rate.

Then, mark any holidays on your schedule, and Sling will calculate the extra pay for any hours logged* via the time clock.

*This wage rate applies to shifts scheduled and worked on a date marked as a holiday and is not an automated bonus applied to employees.

Enable the labor % goal to set the maximum labor as a percentage of sales that you want to spend, and get alerts for exceeding it when scheduling.

By default, only admins can view labor cost data on the schedule and in reports. If any managers should have access to the information, you can add them here. Note that managers will only see data related to employees assigned to the same location, and they will never see wage info for other managers or admins. You can spot any managers who have access, as they will have an “x” next to their name, so they can be removed. Admins cannot be removed from having access.

Toast integration customers with a Scheduling Pro subscription will now be able to import projected sales to Sling. Using seasonal data, historical trends, and industry trends, Sling is able to provide forecasting with fewer steps.

From the Schedule page, when you are in the Week view, you will notice a new icon in the top right that allows you to sync projected sales from your Toastweb account:

Projected Sales and other Labor Cost data will be viewed on the schedule page in week mode and with filters selected so that only one location is on the screen at a time.

The sales numbers can still be manually edited to best reflect your estimations as the algorithm continues to learn and become more accurate over time.

In addition to all these company-wide settings, you also have some options to customize the appearance of your own account. These settings will not affect other users.

Under Settings > Preferences, you can choose the time format, name format, appearance of shifts on the schedule, and more.

The notifications tab is where you will choose which alerts you wish to receive, and how to receive them.

(Please note there is not a master setting to enable alerts company-wide on behalf of your staff. It will be their responsibility to enable their reminders as they see fit.)

If at any point you want to disable the integration, you can do so from Sling or from Toast. Disabling the integration will not remove any existing data from Toast or Sling, it will just prevent further syncing. You can reestablish the integration to pick right up where you left off, as well.

In Sling, go to Settings > Integrations, then click the options button next to Toast and disconnect.

In Toast, go to the Scheduling tab, then click the broken chain icon to disconnect.

-The data sync between Toast and Sling automatically occurs every 15 minutes but can be manually done every 5 minutes

-If the button for the Toast sync on Sling says ‘Queued’ that means the data sync is backlogged and a manual sync will resolve this.

-When employees map over from Toast (or another integration) to Sling these user profiles cannot be “deleted;” they can however be deactivated which will function the same way with the caveat that they can be reactivated at a later date.

-If an employee was pre-existing on Sling before the Toast integration, then a duplicate of this employee originating from Toast may exist. These two profiles can be merged together, and the duplicate may be in the deactivated user list.

-When an employee is added to Sling, admins and managers will have the ability to adjust the user’s email address until the email is verified. Once verified, the email can be updated by the user by logging in and accessing their profile page.

-The Sling mobile app is free to download on the Apple iOS app store and Google Play store, titled Sling: Employee Scheduling app.

-When a user is mapped from Toast onto Sling, the default is for them to be imported as an Employee by system role. This will need to be adjusted by an Admin or a Manager and is not the same as the job/position that they are assigned on the schedule.

-A number of video demonstrations exist within Sling’s help articles and can be found easiest by simply searching ‘Video;’ a Full Demo overview is also available in the support articles. These can be found here: https://support.getsling.com/en/?q=video and here: https://support.getsling.com/en/articles/2961944-full-demo