Templates, Preferences, Availability and Leave Breaks all share the underlying concept of Recurring Schedules.
In this document we will use 'Roster' to refer equally to Templates, Preferences, Availability and Breaks.
A Recurring Schedule is period of time describes an activity that occurs on a regular basis. For example John has a shift every Monday.
Recurring schedules are designed to make it less tedious to setup Templates, Preferences etcRosters. Instead of defining a shift for every Monday of the year, you just set up a single schedule.
In some cases you may need to add multiple Schedules to fully describe an Agent's roster.
If an Agents Roster changes over time the you would need to created subsequent Rosters (Templates, Preferences, Availability and Breaks) with a different Start and End Date range. For example an Agent may plan on working part time for a 3 months. In this case you will need to set an End Date for their current recurring schedule, create a schedule for the 3 month period and then create a third schedule for when the return to normal hours.
So lets look at the elements of a schedule.
...
The first date from which the roster (preference or availability) should start.
End Date
The last date (inclusive) which the roster (preference or availability) should be active.
Type
- On Call - used for staff that are on call. Normal breaks and maximum shift periods don't apply.
- Roster - a normal Roster.
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The Time Period allows you to set one or more periods Time Periods within the above 'Period' that the Agents is to be rostered, available, etc.
You MUST have at least one Time period Period set for each Template, Preference etc.
Click To add a Time Period, click the '+' button.
You may need to add several Time Periods to fully describe the Agents recurring schedule.
A Time period is composed of:
- Enabled - a convenient way of disabling a Time Period
- Day - describes what days the Time Period applies to.
- 24 Hours - if ticked then this roster covers a 24 hour period - normally only used with On Call staff.
- Start Time - the start time each 'Day' that the roster starts.
- End Time - the end time each 'Day' the roster ends.
The Days field perhaps needs a little more explanation.
The Days field describes on which day the Start Time and End to apply. For example if you selected 'Week days' then this implies that the Agent should be Rostered each day of the working week (Monday - Friday) on the given times.
The Days fields options are:
- Monday - Sunday
- Any day - every day of the week.
- Week days - Monday through Friday
- Week end - Saturday and Sunday
Combining Time Periods
Sometimes a new Time period.single Time Period may not be sufficient to describe the Agent's roster.
For example they might work 9-5 on Mondays and Wednesdays and 10 - 4 on Weekends. This will require three Time Periods as below:
Examples
An Agent's Roster will likely change over time and as such you will need to create multiple Rosters for the Agent, each with a different set of roster times.
For example, you may hire a University student whose roster is constrained during the school term, but is happy to work just about any time during the summer holidays.
This agent will need at least two rosters created. One for the School term and one for the summer holidays. In reality you probably need a new roster for each school term and each holiday period.
Each roster will have a different Base Schedule:
Name: School Term
Period: Weekly
Start Date: March 1st, 2015
End Date: June 1st, 2015
Days: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
Start Time: 4:30pm
End Time: 10:00pm
Name: Summer Break
Period: ODD_WEEKS
Start Date: June 2nd, 2015
End Date: July 31st, 2015
Days: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Start Time: 9:00am
End Time: 10:00pm