Recurring schedules

Templates, Preferences, Availability and 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 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 Rosters. 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.

Period

The Period of a schedule describes the interval over which the schedule recurs. The following Periods are available:

Weekly - the staff has the same roster (preference or availability) each week.
Odd Weeks -the staff member has the same roster on odd weeks.
Even Weeks - the staff member has the same roster every even week
Single Day - the staff member has the same roster every day (this isn't used very often).

Odd and Even weeks can be used when you have two staff members that work alternating weeks. Set on to Odd Weeks and the other to Even Weeks.

Start Date

The first date from which the roster should start.

End Date

The last date (inclusive) which the roster 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.

Time Period

The Time Period allows you to set one or more Time Periods within the above 'Period' that the Agents is to be rostered.

You MUST have at least one Time Period set for each Template, Preference etc.

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 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