How to use Week View

 

This video will explore a key feature of StaffSavvy: Week View (Manage shift week). Week view, also known as manage shift week, has undergone several changes and is constantly adapting to best suit your company's needs.

This video's main purpose is to explain the week view, how to use it, and explore the available filtering options.

If you would like to review the information from our video guide, go through our step-by-step guide for managing your shift week below.

What is a Week view?

The week view option allows managers to see the full week of shifts to be managed. Here, you can see all the days of the week and the forecasted budget for each day.

This helps managers get a full scope of the week ahead and provides an easy way to see everything in one place. From this view, you can also print out your week view, send notifications about shifts to staff, or even duplicate the current week to repeat it for another date. As this is a lot of information, several filtering options help you view the most pertinent information at that moment.

Step 1

Settings

Before we discuss the main functionality of the week view, it is important to choose your preferred settings, as these will influence your final layout. Once chosen, these will remain set even after you leave the page until otherwise changed.

Time Format
You can choose which time format you want to appear under the shifts. This can be in the 12-hour format or the 24-hour format. 

Toggle

You can also choose to toggle between showing any offered, unassigned, or extra shifts in your week view and using the confirmed shift button (to see only assigned shifts) or hiding this. 

You can also decide whether to show the event summary at the top or to have the quick edit events option, which allows you to edit the event title from this page.
Format
You can also choose the format in which the hours figure on the left of the screen (under the staff member’s name) is shown.

Whilst all the options are relatively similar, each has some key differences. 

• Actual contracted hours are the number of hours a staff member is currently expected to work under their contract. This option considers time entries that have occurred and shifts that are planned to occur during the contract period.
• Planned paid hours are the hours that have already been budgeted for that week.
• Planned scheduled hours will include that week's scheduled hours but will ignore breaks completely.
• Planned working hours show all planned hours and ignore manipulations, including double-time or minimum call time.
• Planned contracted hours for that week ignore unpaid breaks and pay manipulation rules but still consider contracted time manipulation rules where some shifts might be excluded from their contracted hours.

Colour Coding
You can also choose the appearance and colours of your skills, which can help make them easier to recognise and distinguish when glancing through shift information. The skill colour can be tied to the staff member’s default or assigned skill for that shift.

 

Venue Views

Colour coding can also be used with venues and is useful when managing a venue group. To change the colour of your venue, go to System > Venues > Manage venues and edit details. You will then see the option to change the colour of your venue. If managing multiple venues, create distinct colours for each venue so it is easy to distinguish.

 

Then, on week view, the venues will appear in different colours when viewing in Single List View. 

If you choose to split the venues, the page will be split into different sections for each venue. 

It is important to remember that you can only sort by colour using either skill or venue, but not at the same time. But if you are colour coding by venue, you can sort by skill or vice versa.

Using filters

Another option is to show only certain skills in the Week view. This can be helpful when editing if you want to manage one skill at a time. To do this, click the filter button in the corner and select the skills you want to focus on.

 

Attendance & Absence

The final settings you must manage are your attendance and absence options.

Attendance

Under the menu filter options, you can decide whether or not to display unattended shifts. You can show only completed or scheduled shifts, even if they were not attended.

Absence

Similar to this feature, you can display all requested absences or only those approved by a manager.

Step 3

Choose your view

Now that we have gone through the main settings, we will review the views you can choose for this page and their differences.

Show all shifts
The first option is to show all shifts. This will list all shifts at a single venue for the given week, including unassigned, offered, and extra shifts. It will also show the shifts assigned for the week and who has been assigned to them.

When using this view and sorting by start time, you cannot add new shifts unless you sort by one of the following options simultaneously. However, you can still edit a shift by clicking on it.

If you sort by skill hierarchy, you can add a new unassigned shift by adding in a shift time. You can then assign it to a staff member. When adding this shift, you must input it using the correct time format.

If you sort by squad, you will have similar editing options, but your view will be arranged into squads, and you can add more shifts within a squad.

Depending on what you decide under the 'Add shifts as' button, it can be opened to edit, hidden, or locked when adding a shift.

Home/Assigned Staff View

Alternatively, you can view either Home Staff or Assigned Staff. This will display each staff member based in or assigned to the selected venue down the right-hand side. Home staff will show only those with the selected venue as their default venue. Assigned staff includes anyone who can work at that venue.

If you choose this option, it will display every staff member currently assigned, regardless of whether or not they have been assigned a shift for that week.

This option makes it easy to quickly add shifts to a specific staff member. Each staff member's shifts are displayed per day, and you can easily add shifts using the green plus icons. No matter what you sort this by, your editing options remain the same. You can either create a new shift or choose a template to add.

 This view can be useful for adding single shifts rather than in bulk. If you want to add multiple shifts, we recommend checking out our Create additional shifts page or considering creating a shift template. For more support on these topics, look at our video on creating a shift template.

When adding a single shift, you must input all the details, including shift start and end times, skill, task, event, whether the shift visibility will be hidden or locked, and any other details.

Direct Reports

The next option is Direct Reports Only. This setting allows managers to see only those who report directly to them. This is useful if a line manager only manages a small part of a large team and wishes to view only the staff they manage. You can also easily edit and add shifts using the green plus button in this view.

Quick Edit

The final view option is Quick Edit. This is a different view of the 'Home Staff view,' it is designed to work similarly to Excel. You can quickly modify shift times by simply typing them into the grey boxes, and they will be added. StaffSavvy will understand the times and convert them into real shifts.

The quick edit view can also be used to view assigned staff. 

The staff member's default rota skill will be used as the shift skill, so ensure this is assigned beforehand. Once you enter the shift times, click on the next box or elsewhere on the page to save the shift. If it turns green and the times are changed to 24-hour formats, then the shift has been accepted.

If the shift turns orange, there is an issue, and you can hover over the box to see the details.

The shifts are instantly saved, so once the times are entered and accepted, then it is complete.

 

Step 4

Giving staff shift week access

All staff can access a new view-only version of the week view, which allows them to see schedules easily but does not allow them to make changes or adjustments.

This permission option must be given to staff to view the weekly schedule. It allows them to see the shifts scheduled for their own venue, ensuring that only relevant information is provided to staff.

 

Once the permission has been granted, staff can find this view under Shifts > Venue > Shift Schedule.  Staff can also personalise the time format of their view and set a colour code for skills.

 

 In this guide, we have discussed all of the different settings, alternate views, and how to create and edit shifts within week view (manage shift week). If you would like to learn more about our other features at StaffSavvy, check out our other How to Videos on our support site.