Deployments are an exciting new feature that will give schedulers more precision when creating shifts. They will allow those scheduling shifts to station staff members in certain venue areas and move them around throughout the shift.
In this video, we will discuss:
- What are deployments and positions?
- How to create Deployment Patterns
- How to add and build a template in our deployment planner
and more...
Step 1
Positions
When creating a deployment, you will first need to set up positions, which you can do by going to shifts and then > Deployment positions. Positions are physical locations and will often be rooms or key spaces within your venue. You can then create a template to organise them.
The first thing we do is create a new position. Very simply, just click on ‘Create new position’ Then you need to choose which venue this is going to be in and where you intend this position to be.
Next, choose a colour for the position. Make sure you choose a colour for your venue that will stand out to you because later on, when you print off the deployments, the different colours on the template will show up. You can also choose a pattern and then save it. Once you have created your positions, you can view them as a list.
Step 2
Creating a Deployment Pattern
A key feature of deployments is the ability to create patterns. Patterns can easily be created for regular deployments and used repeatedly.
You may only want to use one position in a shift, but if you are piecing together multiple positions, you must go to deployment patterns to create a new pattern.
To create a pattern, you must combine multiple positions. This means that whoever is doing this deployment pattern on shift will be expected to move across the different positions. Then, choose a venue.
Start Times
Then, set the Venue start time. The venue start time will default to your company start times, which can be found in your Venue settings, so if you want to just use that, that’s fine. However, if the deployments are for only an evening event or it is for a different event taking place throughout the day, then you can also choose the timing so it starts at a specific time.
An example start time might be choosing a 6 p.m. start time and stating that the event should be around five hours long, which would be the template timeline length. This can also be adjusted and is just a rough guide for you to work around.
You can then decide whether to use the ‘show in the drop-down’ option. This means that when you manage deployment later, it is easy to add this pattern option as an additional position quickly.
Then, multiple positions can be added at specific times to build this pattern. This would be a position for one person to do. You can move this if you need to, change it, and move it around. You can also edit the times if you want to start later. So you can work around the different times here and create a template that you can then repeatedly use against different staff members.
Step 3
Once you've completed building up your deployments, you can set this new pattern against different staff members, which we do at the bottom through managing deployments. There are a few ways you can do this.
Deployment Planner Templates
You can go to the deployment planner and add patterns to create a template. The planner creates a deployment template that can include a certain number of your patterns. The planner is structured very similarly to the planner used in scheduling.
You will need to create a planner template. For the template details, you need to set a title and venue category and then add deployment patterns against it. Based on the patterns you have already created, you will have many different options. The number of patterns you include should correlate with how many staff you want to work as each staff member can be assigned to one deployment pattern. You can include multiple of the same patterns so that you might have two people doing those.
Once this is completed, it is ready to be put on a date. If you see a space, set the template for that date. You can also choose to repeat this template regularly and edit the details of the template if you need to. If you want to run your different templates, you can use any of those options as well.
We are then going to manage the deployments on that date by going to Shifts > Manage Deployments > Shift deployments.
Step 4
Manage Deployments
Once we are in here, you can see all of the shifts. Manage deployments show you all of the shifts running across the different dates. You can also print from here if you need to.
Go to your chosen date, where you can view positions, then go to manage deployments. You will see what deployments are needed for this event because of what has been input into your templates. So you will need to assign a certain amount of staff, and if you want to do it directly, you can see who is available to work.
All staff members appearing running down the side are already working, so they all have shift times against this event. We can then assign deployments based on that and fill that in. If you then assign the template to staff members, you can see that it has hit that deployment and is ‘on plan’.
You can also add custom deployments or extra deployments if the current template does not provide enough, such as if you think you might need an additional staff member for a section.
You can also swap deployments between staff members and copy and paste deployments. You can edit the shift using the pencil icon and change the actual shift.
*As you build your deployments, it might be that some people can’t be assigned it because their shift times are slightly different.
Labels
The times that you can set the patterns and deployments can be changed to personalised labels. You can edit this by clicking on edit timeline labels for certain times of the day. You can then go in and change these here and do different timeline labels.
Step 5
Automatically Assigning Deployments
While you can manage your shift deployments and patterns manually, once you have created templates, you have the option to automate more of the process.
Once a template has been added to your calendar, it will automatically appear in your shift deployments as deployments/deployment patterns that need to be filled.
You can then assign deployment patterns automatically. Under shift deployments, once you have assigned deployment patterns into the deployment planner, all patterns that are still needed will appear at the top of the page. You now have the option to automatically fill up any shifts that have not yet been assigned a deployment pattern with the deployments needed, as laid out by the deployment planner template assigned. You can auto-assign just one of the missing deployment patterns or auto-fill all empty patterns.
Below, you can see the shift deployments before you choose the auto-fill all empty patterns option.
Then, you can see how the shift deployments look after the template has been assigned to staff.
The deployment templates are randomly allocated to staff. You can also randomly reshuffle these patterns by choosing the clear and reallocate option.
It is important to note that you cannot automatically fill empty patterns if the shift timings do not match the times in the planner template. For example, if the planner template deployment pattern starts at 7 am but the staff member’s shift only begins at 9 am, they cannot be assigned that pattern as it is outside their shift time and, therefore, would not fulfil the requirement.
If you click the autofill button and nothing is being added to your shift deployments or only some of them are being assigned patterns, it is essential to go back and check your assigned template in the planner.
If you do not want to autofill the entire pattern but would like to fill one of the deployment patterns, you can choose the autofill option that runs alongside each deployment pattern.
Another point to remember when creating shift deployments is that if you do not wish to assign staff randomly, you can still manually assign staff to the deployment template under the options menu for each pattern. Click the options button along with the pattern you want to change. You can either just clear or clear and auto-fill that pattern. Under the ‘On plan?’ button, you can see that you are now on target for that pattern.
Step 6
Viewing Deployments
Manager View
If you want to view the positions, you just need to click ‘View Position Deployments’. This will then show you where everybody is throughout the day, so you can see everybody, where they are going to be, and the different positions here. You can change the view. You can change it to a timeline view if you prefer working in this view.
Staff Member View
Then, just go through how this all looks under the staff member view. Switching to their view and into ‘My shifts’ and going to the date the 13th of July, you can then see that on their shift, where they have their shift details, you have the ‘Ticket/Ices/Litter’ deployment. Having staff able to view their deployments is totally up to you. If you want to use this feature, you do not have to; you can switch it off if you want to move around positions right on the day. But you can send this staff if you need to.
One of the things to check on their profile is that if you have certain staff members who can't do certain positions, we can also go onto a staff member’s profile. Under the actions menu, there is the shift management option here and the deployment position blocker. Click this, and you will be able to input that this is a position the staff member specified is able to do. You can allow managers to override and add restrictions, which means that when you put that in, it will block them from that position.
Step 7
Print View Options
To view print options, go back to ‘manage shift deployments’ > View positions.
Once you have completed all the previous steps and reviewed your deployments, you are ready to print them. This is for the printed version that you would give to staff when they enter the building, or you can change it throughout the day and reprint.
You can print these under > print shift deployments and have multiple print view options.
- Print by Shift Deployments
- Print by position.
- Print a singular position per page.
So, if you wanted to leave a printed-off physical copy in one area, you could print the one position to leave at that location.
One of the things to note about deployments is that they are changeable throughout the event, so whereas on a shift, when a shift starts, you then wouldn't be able to change it, with deployments, you are able to change them at any time as they are a live feature. So you can adjust the times around and then just reprint them off.
If you would like to learn more about our other features at StaffSavvy, check out our other How to Videos on our support page.
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