How to Create, Assign and Manage Chores in S'moresUp

Chores, a.k.a task, activities, to-do, job, duty or errand is a unit of work that needs to be completed by a specific person by a specific time period. Its the building block for any community or a family. For kids and adults, it's a character-building exercise there are a lot of studies out there that say why doing chores at a young age help with our kids have a successful adult life.

We started S'moresUp as an easy to use chore management system for my family. I have a 12-year-old daughter and my needs were simple. I wanted her to take care of herself and clean up after she is done playing with things or eating her meals.

There are two ways by which you can assign chores to your family. You can create your own chore or you can pick a chore that is already on the system through Discover Chores. 

Creating your own chores:

Creating your own chore is simple. After login, click on the "Chore" tab. If it is your first time, you are welcomed with a First Time Use screen that guides you to either create a chore or discover from a pre-filled list. Click the + icon on the screen. You will be taken to chore creation screen

• Give a name that is easy to understand. This name is visible on all places where a chore is viewed, like in weekly chore reports and from the kids' profile view. 
• Make sure you allocate some S'mores. These are the points that are allocated to a kid when the chore is completed. 
• Assign it to the right kid/kids. You can assign a chore to more than one kid, and when done so, each chore will be assigned separately. Currently, there is no way for kids to share a chore or points.
• Define the frequency (Once, Daily or Weekly) and the time by which the chore is to be complete.
• If there are any special instructions, provide the same under Instruction. This information is shown for the kids when they view the chore or when they mark the chore as complete. 

Congratulations! You now created your first chore. 

Discover Chores

Another way of assigning a chore to kids is through the Discover Chore. If you do not have a chore system in place for your family, this is a good place to start. Discover chores have a set of curated chores that can be directly used by a family. 

Click on Discover Chores from the Chores Tab, and you will be taken to a set of chores categories. These chore categories are a collection set, and it gets updated with new category and chores. 

To pick a chore and assign it to a family member, click on the chore category that you are interested in and select the chore that you would want to assign it to your kid. From there, click "Edit and Add to my Family." You will get a copy of a chore added to your family. From here, you can edit the S'mores and the frequency of the chore, and you can assign it to any member of the family.

Viewing my Family Chores

All chores created can be viewed by clicking the "Family Chores" section on the Chores Tab. If you have any "Unassigned" chores (chores that you have created and are not assigned to any kids), they can also be viewed from the Family Chores section. As of this writing, unassigned chores are not visible to kids and as a result, will not be able to mark them as complete.

View Weekly Chore Progress

You can view the weekly chore progress for your family by clicking "Chore Progress" from the family tab. This gives a summary view of the chores for a week. 

• A green checkmark against a chore for a particular day indicates that a chore for that day was completed. 
• A red cross mark indicates that the chore for that particular day was incomplete
• You can change the status of the chore by clicking on a particular instance ( green checkmark or red cross mark) and mark them as Pending or Complete as many times as you please.

And that's all folks! You are now a Master of Chores!