How To Use SitterTime.com

SitterTime.com for Parents SitterTime.com is your babysitter list on the web, but instead of your list just being a piece of paper with names and phone numbers, your list on SitterTime tells you who is available, who's not, and who may be. For example, let's imagine that it's Thurdsay night, and your spouse says, "Honey, we've been invited to the Mitchell's Saturday night, so please line up a sitter!". Before SitterTime.com, you'd say, "OK, dear, I'll start making phone calls, wish me luck!". Now, you simply log onto SitterTime, and check out the calendar. With a little luck, you'll see this Saturday marked as green, meaning that at least one of your sitters is available. You then click on Saturday, and up comes your sitter listing for that day. Let's say it shows Suzy J, your favorite sitter, as being available from 4:00 PM to 2:00 AM. Great! You need her from 5:30 to midnight, so you set those times on the screen. Just click on the "Accept" button on Suzy's line, and you've got it. Suzie will immediately get an email that tells her who has reserved her and for what time. You call her to confirm and make arrangements. Is that great or what? If no one shows available, you can then see who is already busy. Then you can just call the sitters on your list who are not busy, saving yourself and your sitters the usual phone tag aggravation. Or, if you're not in a big hurry, simply request a sitter, and later on one of your sitters may sign up for that time to babysit for you. SitterTime is not a referral service, you must already know your sitters, or meet them outside of SitterTime, such as through your neighbors, church, etc. Read below to learn about other valuable features of SitterTime.com and how to use the system….
Register Log In View Messages Update Profile List of Sitters Sign Up Sitters	Calendar Setting A Date Canceling Auto Sub After Registering
Register - The first step in using SitterTime.com is to register. All you are doing here is giving information needed to allow you to use the system. You only give your first initial and last name, up to three email addresses, a user name and password of your choosing, and your zip code to help us see how we're doing in different geographic areas. The three email addresses may be your home, work, and cell phone address for phones that can receive email. Your sitters and other parents are not given your email addresses. We will not give anyone else your personal information. Log In - To log in, go to our home page or click on "Log In", and enter your user name and password. If you forget your password, click on "I forgot my password", and we'll immediately email your password to you.

	View Messages - Click on this to see any messages for you. This is like an internal email. You'll get a message for signifcant events, such as a sitter accepting your request for a babysitter. If the envelope is showing, then you have a message to read.
	Update Profile - You may change your email addresses, zip code, password, and your AutoSub setting (see below) at any time by going to the Update Profile screen.
	List of Sitters - The List of Sitters page lists your sitters. You may see what they are currently charging you and what their past history with you has been. Their user names are also shown in case you have more than one sitter with the same first name and last initial, to allow you to know which is which. This includes information on the number of times they have cancelled and the average of the ratings that you have given them in the past. You may also remove any sitter from your active list by clicking on the "Delete Sitter" button. Your are given the opportunity to "rate" each sitter after they have sat for you, so that you may better keep track of your favorite sitters.

Sign up Sitters - After you have registered, you may sign up one or more of your babysitters to your account. To do this, you must first have their user name, so you need to get them to register themselves with SitterTime. Be sure to tell them that it will always be free for sitters. After you get your sitter's user names, you simply enter those names on the List of Sitters screen. The sitters will not be available to you online however, until, they each accept your online invitation to sit for you. They may do this the next time they logon after you have signed them up.
	Calendar - This is where SitterTime does its work for you. Each month may be displayed to show which dates your sitters are available, which dates you have a sitter reserved, which dates you have already requested a sitter, and which dates all of your sitters are busy. Dates already passed are not accessible. To access a date, simply click on that date. To access a different month, click on the "Previous Month" or "Next Month" buttons.

Setting a Date - After clicking on the date (click on the number itself), a Date page will appear that shows the details for that date and allows you to accept an available sitter, request a sitter date, or cancel a sitter date. If no sitters are shown as available, and you want to immediately call to find one, the sitters whom are already busy are listed so that you may call only the non-busy ones on your list. If there are sitters shown as available, you may choose whichever one can cover the times that you need and/or who has done the best for you in the past and/or who has the most reasonable fees. To choose a sitter, click on "Accept" for that sitter. Your chosen sitter will be notified by email, but we recommend that you call immediately to confirm and make arrangements. Canceling - If you find that you will not need a sitter for a reserved date, please cancel that date as soon as possible so that that sitter will be available to another parent. The sitter will be notified by email, but you should also call them as well. AutoSub - During your registration we ask if you want to use the AutoSub feature, whereby a sitter may cancel a sitter date (for example, due to illness) and automatically substitute another sitter on your list who is available. If more than one of your sitters is available to sub, the one with the highest rating (see List of Sitters) will be selected. You will be immediately notified by email, and we recommend that the canceling and newly reserved sitter call you. If there are no other available sitters, or if you do not have AutoSub enabled, and the sitter still wants to cancel, you are notified by email, and of course the sitter should call you. We highly recommend that you enable AutoSub. If you do not have this enabled, someone else may beat you out to another one of your sitters who is available. The calendar system is active up to a year from the current date After Registering - After you first register, you will not have any of your sitters signed up, but you will be able to access your calendar where you can request sitters. None of your sitters will see this information, however, until you sign them up."