Shift Schedule Creation - Managing Schedules

The schedule creation tool allows you to easily plan and populate shifts using your staff availability and skills to meet your staffing requirements. This is the method of choice for most large teams or venues with irregular shift patterns. This scheduling view can be found under Shifts > Schedule Creation > Manage Schedule. 

This tool works closely with templates and can be useful for automatising your scheduling. It allows templates of shifts to be assigned and set up to repeat. Once you have planned out what templates are going to be assigned the system can then automatically assign the required shifts out to staff based on their availability and skills. If you have not yet created any templates, check out our article on creating Templates.

Building the schedule

The Schedule Creation: Manage Schedule page, by default, displays a calendar view that allows you to add templates (that have been created via the Manage Templates page) to a schedule. These templates can be repeated on an ongoing basis (you can set the frequency the template will be repeated) until a certain date. Templates can also be added for a single date, without repeating for special or irregular events.

At the top of the page you can, select the template, date, repeat pattern, and repeat until date and then click “Add”. These will then show in the calendar below.

 More than one template can be added to a particular day, allowing you to build up staffing as needed.

If your templates have been set to “Quick Add” then you can hover over the day to see a green + icon. Clicking on this will allow you to quickly add a template to a date.

You can choose either to schedule each venue separately or you can use Venue Groups to manage multiple venues at once. 

If required, you can clear all templates from your schedule under the Actions Menu on the month view. This allows you to start afresh.

Repeating your Template

If you want to automate more of your scheduling, repeating your template is an easy way to do so. You can repeat a template as many times as you need, and you can combine different templates into your schedule to work in tandem.

To add across multiple days, go to the top of the schedule where you can select a template. This could be every week, every fortnight, every day. Then, set the date on which you want the template to start. Then, how frequently would you like to repeat? 

We have many options here:

Day/Week repeats - Choose whether to repeat a shift every day, every two days, every three days and so on. If you want bigger breaks, you can set it to repeat every week, every two weeks, etc. You can also specify whether to use the template on weekdays or weekends.

Days of the week - This is useful if you have specific tasks and events on certain days of the week. You can apply the template to repeat every Monday, Tuesday or any day of the week.

Days on and off - This option allows you to use this shift template on alternating days. You can select the option where it applies one day on, one day off, two days on, two days off, etc.

Day combinations - Here are some frequently used day combinations, so you could select this template to apply every Friday AND Saturday or every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This option depends on what days work for your company and whether these options can apply.

Weeks on and off - Similar to the days on or off, this option might be employed when you use this template in accordance with many others and need to use it less frequently. You can use it one week on, one week off, two weeks on, or two weeks off.

Again, you can see what works best for you and how regularly you need your templates. These options, allow you to automate your templates whilst making sure there is a variety in your shift schedule. Once you have decided how often this will repeat, you can set how long this pattern will continue. You select this by setting the end date.

Different Views

There are three different ways to to view the Schedule Creation page.

Calendar view

Calendar view is the default view and will show you all dates in any given month. It allows can view Event titles and cost codes on this page by using the options on the right.

It displays the templates that are assigned to each day of the month. You can click the X to remove them from the template and click the title of the template to go straight to the template to edit it.

The system will also check and warn of problems in the templates used. The warnings are displayed as red exclamation marks next to the templates affected. Hover over the icons to see the reason.

If you are viewing a venue group of values then each venue will be listed and the templates shown for those assigned that day. Event titles and cost codes can be turned on and off from the top right of the page.

List View

This view is ideal to see further details about the templates or to view multiple venues at the same time. Each venue will be displayed across the top of the page. Use the button on the left above the calendar to change to the List View.

Like the calendar view, you can toggle the display of the Event titles and cost codes using the options on the right of the page.

You are also able to enable a template details option. This will show a summary of the role requirements by shift times. It makes it easy to see how the day is scheduled.

Day View

Day view will show the templates across the venue/venue groups for a single day. Use the button on the left above the calendar to change to the Day View. 

You can choose which day to view within the month at the top. Days in green have templates assigned to them. Days in red have event information added but no templates yet assigned.

The view allows for detailed budget information to be shown along with detailed event details if provided.

Customised Templates

If required, you can bespoke a template for a single use. This allows you to make adjustments to times or skills for one-off instance instead of creating a completely different template that you won’t use again.

To set this up, simply click on the template title on the calendar page or list page. You will see the option to customise the template.

This bespoke template will automatically be deleted when it’s no longer needed. You can convert the bespoke template to a real template (so it’s always available) but do this before the preview shifts are converted as the bespoke templates will be deleted once the shifts have been converted.

Processing your shifts

Once you are happy with your schedule the next step is to preview your shifts, this allows you to check your schedule is perfect before sending it out. There are also several configuration options here on how shifts should be assigned. For more detail on the Preview Shifts options click here.