Opairly

Managing Tasks & Hours

How to create tasks, track completion, and watch the hours add up automatically.

The core of Opairly is task management and the hour overview. Here's how both work.

Creating tasks

As a host family, go to Dashboard > Tasks and create a new task:

  • Title: what needs to be done (e.g., "Pick up kids from school")
  • Category: Looking after the kids, Around the house, In the kitchen, Learning & activities, or Other tasks
  • Recurrence: how often the task repeats:
    • Every day: every day of the week
    • Weekdays: Monday through Friday
    • Specific days: choose individual days of the week
    • One-time: one-time task
  • Time of day: optional preferred time
  • Estimated minutes: how long the task typically takes

Tasks are templates. Each day, Opairly generates concrete task assignments based on the recurrence rules.

From recurring work to today's plan

Set up recurring work in Tasks. Explain how your family does it in Routines; these instructions do not create calendar events. Adjust an individual event in the Calendar using Edit this event. This leaves the recurrence rule unchanged.

Use Google Calendar? Connect the separate Opairly calendar to adjust the schedule from either app. Complete tasks and review hours in Opairly. Moving or removing a calendar event does not mark a task as completed.

Completing tasks

Au pairs see their daily assignments on the Dashboard. To complete a task:

  1. Find the task in today's list
  2. Mark it as completed. Skipping a task is done from the Calendar.

Completed tasks are tracked with a timestamp and the user who completed them, creating an audit trail.

Tracking hours

When hour-limit tracking is enabled in settings, the dashboard and calendar automatically show the planned hours based on the weekly schedule (skipped tasks do not count):

  • Dashboard shows daily and weekly hour totals with progress bars
  • Calendar shows daily hour summaries per day

Progress bars change color when approaching limits (default 8h/day, 30h/week).

Dashboard overview

The main dashboard provides a quick view of:

  • Today's tasks and their completion status
  • Today's planned hours alongside the week's total

Both family members and au pairs see the same data, the dashboard is a shared view of the household's activity.

First steps after logging in

As a family, start with a conversation: describe your day and review suggested tasks and rules. You can return to the conversation later. Two additional tools help you find your way around the dashboard:

Guided tour

An interactive tour highlights the key parts of the dashboard: tasks, calendar, house rules, and settings. The tour appears automatically once you've completed or dismissed the setup checklist.

Setup checklist

A checklist appears on the dashboard with steps to set up your household:

  • Create your household
  • Add house rules
  • Create your first task
  • Invite your au pair

You can dismiss the checklist when you no longer need it. Completed steps are checked off automatically.

Explore more

Household setup

How to create your household, configure hour limits, and invite your au pair.

Tasks

Create task templates with recurrence, categories, and child assignments.