Getting started
1. Open it
Muster is a web address, given to you by whoever runs it. It ends in /muster/. Open it in the phone's own browser (Safari on an iPhone, Chrome on Android) rather than in the browser inside another app, because only the real browser can add it to your home screen.
2. Sign in
Once you have a password, sign in with your Username and Password and press Sign in. They work on this phone after signing out, and on any other phone.
The first time, you have no password yet. Use whatever your admin sent you, under First time here?:
- An access link: open it on the phone you will use. It says Welcome and your name, and asks you to make a password: type it twice and press Create password and sign in. Opening the link uses nothing up; only that button does, so a work mail system that checks every link before you see it cannot spend it. It works once, within two days of being made. If your account already has a password, it asks only Sign in on this phone.
- An invitation link: a link ending in
#claim=mi1_…. Open it on the phone you intend to use. Like an access link, it says Welcome and your name and asks you to make a password: type it twice and press Create password and sign in. Opening it uses nothing up, so a mail system that checks links cannot spend it; only that button does, and it makes your account, signs this phone in and sets your password in one step. It is single use and it lapses. Nothing about you exists until you press the button, so an invitation that is withdrawn leaves no account behind. - An access token: a long string of characters. Paste it into Access token and press Connect.
Either link can also be pasted into the Access token box; Muster recognises it and shows the same Welcome sheet.
After a token, Muster asks you to Create your password, and the sheet stays until you have. It needs at least 8 characters, and the passwords that get guessed first - password, 12345678, your own username - are refused. Three or four ordinary words together are easy to remember and hard to guess.
Your password works for as long as your admin keeps your access open. If they revoke it, if the token they issued has lapsed, or if the last day they set for your account has passed, signing in says Your access is on hold or Your access has ended. Ask your admin for a new access link. Signing in needs a signal.
Whichever way you sign in, the phone keeps a token of its own, stored on that phone only. Muster does not keep your password on it.
3. Add it to the home screen
Optional, and worth it: the home-screen version has no browser chrome, keeps you signed in and works with no signal.
- iPhone: Share, then Add to Home Screen.
- Android: the browser menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.
It is the same app and the same bytes as the browser version. It updates itself; if it looks stale, close it fully and reopen it.
4. Pick your language
There is a Language box on the sign-in screen and another in Settings › Display. They are not the same setting, deliberately:
- The one on the sign-in screen belongs to the device, because nobody has signed in yet for it to belong to.
- The one in Settings belongs to your account, so it follows you to another phone or a laptop. It takes over the moment you sign in.
A language marked provisional was written by the same person who wrote the English and has not yet been read by a native speaker. There is an untranslated Reset to English button on both screens, which is there so it stays legible when nothing else on the screen is.
5. Say how you work
The first time you sign in, Muster asks How do you work? and offers three answers:
| Answer | What it switches on |
|---|---|
| Employee on site | Travel and Schengen, journeys and mileage, nights away and gate tags |
| Self-employed | Pay figures, and journeys for your mileage |
| Hourly or student | Pay figures, and little else |
It decides what the app shows you, and how you are paid: Self-employed sends invoices, Hourly or student is paid by the hour, and Employee on site leaves an employee's pay as it is. Every part can be switched on or off afterwards in Settings, and switching one off never removes anything you recorded - switch it back on and it is all there. Location is never switched on for you, and a part your employer's agreement needs, such as nights away on a timesheet that claims them, stays on whatever you choose. Not now leaves the app showing everything, as it always has; the question is at the top of Settings whenever you want it.
Choosing an answer that switches off something your timesheet claims from - nights away, shift pay - or that changes how you are paid says so and asks before it does. Changing how you are paid needs a signal; with none, nothing moves and it says so.
6. Then, if you want, the rest of Settings
Nothing here is guessed for you, and several of these change what you are paid or what you are asked.
| Set this | Why now |
|---|---|
| Account › Name on your payslip | If you send timesheets to HR, set this first: exactly as payroll spells your name. It is the one name on every timesheet - left blank, the sheet carries your display name instead, and payroll may not know it is you |
| Home and workplace › Home town | Days you work away from your home country are then recorded as stays by themselves, and the app stops asking where you stayed |
| How do you work? › How you work | Employed or Self-employed: whether the end of a period is a timesheet for HR or your invoices. It sets how you are paid too |
| Your working day › Start / End | The hours the Standard hours button books |
| Your working day › Default job | The job the one-tap buttons book. Until a job exists to log against, nothing can be logged; ask HR or an admin, or see Jobs |
| Your working day › Records start | The day your record begins. Earlier days are drawn hatched and counted in nothing, rather than reported as missing |
| Features › Nights away › UK and overseas £/night | An overnight tick is worth nothing until these are set |
| Overtime rules › Period starts / Claim by | Which days make a pay period, and when it is due |
| Overtime rules › Contract hours | What you are contracted to work each day. A weekday with no entry is assumed at contract, so the week is not read as short |
One Save for everything. Save settings, at the bottom of the screen, saves every group, the overtime rules included. While anything is unsaved, a Cancel sits beside it and puts the whole page back to the last save.
The overtime rules are kept on the server rather than on the device, because a phone and a laptop disagreeing about what counts as overtime is not a preference: it is a wrong timesheet. They are normally set by HR. You can change your own, and Muster says so and records the change.
Pay figures are off by default. With them off, no money is ever calculated and the hours check exactly the same. See Settings if you want them on.
7. Record something
Go to Today and either press Clock in, or Add entry manually for a day that has already happened. Recording time has the detail.
Next: Recording time · Settings