Navigation: Roster | Agent Management

Agent management for Rostering is all about setting up Availability, Preferences and Templates for each agent.

You don't need to set any of these up to Roster an agent (just go straight to the roster screen and start rostering) but they do make make rostering faster and Templates in particular a pretty important for large teams.

In order of Importance:

• Templates describes recurring shifts given to an agent.
• Preferences describe when the agent would prefer to work.
• Availability describes when an agent is prepared to make themselves available to work even if they would prefer not to work these hours.
• Leave describes any holidays the agent has planned.

Templates

Templates describes recurring shifts given to an agent. Many of your agents will receive recurring shifts each week, month or fortnight. Rather than having to individually roster each agent each week, you can setup templates that describe these recurring shifts and then use the Roster's 'Auto Fill' function to almost instantly create a roster.

Whilst you don't have to create Templates you almost certainly will want to use them, they are a great time saver.

Priority

When using the Roster Auto Fill function you may have times when you have more 'Templated' staff than you have shifts you need to fill. e.g. the Shift requires 8 staff this week but you have templates for 9 staff.

In this scenario the 'Priority' field of a Template will dictate who is given shifts first.

Agents with a low priority value (e.g. 0) will be given shifts before agents with a higher priority value.

The priority allows you to give preference to the more reliable and/or skilled staff.

Set Shift

Set Shift guarantees an agent a shift. When running the Roster's Auto Fill function an agent that has a 'Set Shift' in the Roster period will be guaranteed to be given a shift regardless of the number of staff required.

If you have key staff that you always need on then use a Set Shift to ensure they are always rostered.

Note: If you need to guarantee that a staff member with a particular skill is always rostered, but don't care which team member, then look at Reservations.

Preferences

Preferences really give your team a chance to tell you when they would like to work. If you need to fill a shift it's much easier to give an agent a shift that they would prefer to work, they are likely to be happier and the chances of you getting a rejection and then having to find someone else is greatly diminished.

When rostering staff the Roster screen will show agents that have a preference for the selected shift first. This is a real time saver as you don't have to go looking for someone that wants the shift.

Availability

Availability is generally used if you have a lot of adhoc shifts that come up unexpectedly and occasionally you need to look beyond agent's preferred shifts. 

When rostering shifts the Roster screen will show staff that have an availability after those staff that would prefer the shift.

Most organisations can skip recording availability.