Managing Tasks & Hours
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.
Completing tasks
Au pairs see their daily assignments on the Dashboard. To complete a task:
- Find the task in today's list
- 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
Two tools help you get started on your first dashboard visit:
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
- Calendar & Scheduling: view tasks in a weekly overview
- House Rules: set expectations for your household
- Leave: manage free days and leave requests
- Export: download schedules and rules as PDF or Excel