Privacy policy

Who we are

Pebble WFM is run by Blackpebble Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (number 11884353), registered office 39b Borough Street, Brighton, BN1 3BG. For anything about this policy or your data, email hello@pebblewfm.com.

This policy covers two things:

• pebblewfm.com, the calculators, tables and guides. Here we decide what is collected, so we are the controller.
• The Pebble WFM app at app.pebblewfm.com. We are the controller for account and billing details. For the scheduling data an organisation puts in (its people, shifts, time off and so on), the organisation is the controller and we process it on their behalf, under our terms of service and data processing agreement with them. If you are an agent or manager whose employer uses Pebble, your employer's privacy notice explains how they use it, and requests about it go to them first. We will help them answer.

On pebblewfm.com

Calculators. What you type into a calculator stays in your browser. It is saved in your browser's local storage so the page picks up where you left off, and it is not sent to us.

The help chat. When you ask the chat a question, your question and the calculator's current inputs and results are sent to our server and to Anthropic, whose Claude model writes the answer. To keep the chat free, we keep a daily usage count for each visitor: a random ID your browser makes up, and a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address. We do not store the conversation. Please do not type personal details into the chat.

Analytics, only if you allow it. If you choose "Allow analytics", Google Analytics measures which pages are used. It sets cookies and sends page views and button clicks, with your IP address, to Google. If you choose "No thanks", or never answer, it does not load. You can change your answer at any time from "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page.

Server logs. Like any website, our hosting records requests (IP address, page, browser type, time) to keep the site running and secure.

In the Pebble WFM app

• Your account: name, work email, role, and your Google identity if you sign in with Google (we ask only for openid email profile). Passwords, where used, are stored only as a secure hash.
• Your organisation's scheduling data: people, skills, contracts and hours, teams, shifts and breaks, schedule history, time off and absence (including sickness as a type of absence), preferences, demand forecasts, spreadsheets you import, conversations with the assistant, and an audit log of changes.
• Billing contacts: who to invoice and how to reach them. Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store card numbers.
• Emails we send you: invitations, password resets, schedule notices and trial reminders. They carry a link rather than your schedule details.

Google Calendar

Connecting your Google Calendar is optional and your own choice: your organisation cannot connect it for you. By default Pebble asks only for free/busy times (calendar.freebusy), so it sees when you are busy but not what the appointment is. If you switch on "Show appointment names", it also reads event titles (calendar.events.readonly), so your planner sees, for example, "Dentist" rather than "Busy".

Calendar data is used only to show your appointments on your schedule and to stop you being rostered into them. If someone in your organisation asks the assistant about your schedule, your appointments (as "Busy", or by name if you chose that) can be part of what it sends to answer. Pebble staff never see your event titles, even when helping your organisation with support. Disconnecting revokes our access at Google and removes the imported items. Your access token is stored encrypted.

Pebble WFM's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not use Google user data to develop, improve or train AI or machine-learning models, we do not sell it, and we do not use it for advertising.

The assistant and spreadsheet import

The assistant uses Google's Gemini model. When you ask it something, your question and the schedule, people and forecast details needed to answer it, including calendar appointments on the schedule, are sent to Google to produce the reply. When you import a spreadsheet, the model sees only a masked summary of its layout, never the file itself, and the uploaded file is deleted after 24 hours. Under the paid terms we use, Google does not use this data to improve its products. The assistant suggests; a person confirms every change, and Pebble makes no decisions about people on its own.

If we contact you about Pebble

We may email or message people whose work involves contact-centre planning, using business contact details that are publicly available or that you have given us, to ask for feedback or tell them about Pebble. We do this only for organisations, not sole traders. Every message says who we are and how to opt out. If you opt out, we keep your email address on a do-not-contact list so we never contact you again.

Why we are allowed to use it

• Contract: running your account, and billing your organisation.
• Consent: analytics cookies, and connecting your calendar. You can withdraw either at any time.
• Legitimate interests: keeping the site and app secure, running the help chat within a budget, and contacting business contacts about Pebble. We have weighed these against your interests, and you can object at any time.
• Legal obligation: keeping financial records.

Who we share it with

We use these providers to run Pebble. Each may process personal data only on our instructions. The full list of sub-processors sets out what each one receives and the transfer safeguard.

• Google Cloud (hosting and database): the app in London, UK.
• Google, Gemini API (the app's assistant and import): may process outside the UK.
• Anthropic (the site's help chat): United States.
• Resend (sending the app's emails): United States.
• Stripe (billing and payments): United States and Ireland.
• Proton (our email inbox): Switzerland.
• Google Analytics (site analytics, only with your consent): may process outside the UK.

Where data leaves the UK, it goes only to countries the UK recognises as adequate, or under the UK's approved safeguards (the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, or the UK–US data bridge). We do not sell personal data, and we share it with no one else unless the law requires it.

How long we keep it

• Help chat usage counts: 90 days.
• Spreadsheet uploads: 24 hours.
• App data: for as long as your organisation uses Pebble. When a trial or contract ends, the organisation's data is deleted within 90 days, and backups age out within a further 90 days. Your organisation can ask for an export first.
• Assistant conversations: 90 days.
• Invoices and billing records: 6 years, as UK tax law requires.
• People we have contacted: until you opt out, or 2 years after we last heard from you. Opt-outs are kept so we never contact you again.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, restrict it, or ask for it in a portable form. Email hello@pebblewfm.com and we will reply within a month. For data your employer put into Pebble, ask them first; we will help them answer.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. We would appreciate the chance to put it right first.

Cookies and browser storage

On pebblewfm.com:

• Local storage, pebblewfm: entries (no consent needed): your calculator inputs, the help chat's random visitor ID, and your answer to the analytics question. They never leave your browser except as described above.
• _ga and _ga_* cookies (only if you allow analytics): Google Analytics, kept for up to 2 years. Choosing "No thanks" later removes them.

In the app, we use only the cookies needed to keep you signed in and protect your session. They need no consent.

Change your cookie settings

Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Each organisation's data is kept separate, and when Pebble staff need to look at an organisation's account to help with a problem, it needs a recorded reason, lasts minutes, and appears in that organisation's own audit log.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change matters to how your data is used, we will tell account holders by email first.