How to efficiently setup a shift pattern to allow weekly rotation?

[clarkchong]

Hi experts

I have been struggling to find the most efficient way to setup the various shifts I have. Would love to hear from the experts.

4 shifts in my team, there are 2 members each shift.

0800-1600

1200-2100

1500-0000

2000-0800

1. The system does not allow overlapping shift. What would you recommend me to reflect my overlapped shift patterns in reality?

2. Everyone in the shift will be rotated to do a different shift on a weekly basis. Which way is more effective: to create a new schedule every week and reflect the members on duty that week? or keep updating the team members manually one by one on a weekly basis? or there is a smarter way to reflect this?

3. I notice when I am putting a time off for a night shift member who works from 1 Oct 8pm to 8am 2 Oct. When i update the time off in 1 Oct, the person will be reflected as time off HOWEVER on 2 Oct (2nd half of his shift) he is still reflected as On call.

4. I understand there is no DELETE option for me when I have screw up a schedule. However this "Filter out" option is not working perfectly - given though it is being set to INACTIVE it would still appear in the calendar after sometimes.

5. The oncall calendar is only showing name. Any way we can reflect the personnel's contact number so it would make it easier for someone who can contact this person straight after looking at the calendar?

Please advice. Appreciate your help.

[andrew_och]

On-Call Scheduling implements Rotas and Rosters rather than shifts. Rotas are the repeating time slots, whereas Rosters are people who are active during those time slots.

The fundamental part of the implementation is that rotas cannot overlap because it would make the rosters, i.e. the who covers this time slot ambiguous. In your case you have two members (I take that to mean two rosters, Primary and Secondary) per shift.   From your example imagine I wish to call someone at 1530, that time cuts across three of your shifts. So that is 6 people I can choose to contact, but in what order. Rosters are hierarchical, e.g. first Primary than Secondary, but at 1530 you would have 0800-1600 PRIMARY/SECONDARY, 1200-2100 PRIMARY/SECONDARY and 1500-0000 PRIMARY/SECONDARY.

The Goal of On-Call Scheduling is to provide a definitive/unambiguous and hierarchical list of people to call at a point in time and this requires overlaps to be forbidden.

With that in mind my answer to question #1 split your shift into rotas that do not overlap e.g. 0800-1200, 1200-1500, 1500-1600 etc.

Answer to #2 On-Call Scheduling is designed to cycle through a list of people (a roster) over a repeating timeslot (a rota). E.g. 4 people in roster for a rota lasting a week means each person will be on for one week and off for three. That way a member can book a holiday in 2 months safe in the knowledge that they are not On-Call for that particular week. If your shift pattern has no repeats and changes weekly, On-Call Scheduling may not be the app for you. Find the repeats and configure accordingly thereby letting On-Call Scheduling work out the when people are on for you.

Answer #3 A timeoff cuts across Rotas (or should) so second half of shift they should not be available or On-Call. Can you provide a screenshot?

Answer #4 We do not make delete visible or available, because it is a very destructive option to take (it will cascade delete the data model). That does not mean it is not possible to delete. You can delete cmn_rota records, cmn_rota_roster records and cmn_rota_member records if you have rota_admin role, but please use with great care (as you can wipe out all of your work, as well as then loosing info such as who was on-call last week). Perhaps you can test this out on your dev instance.

Answer #5 Does the sys_user have their Business number populated and are you looking day view?

[clarkchong]

Thanks Andrew. This is very informative and useful.

Would you mind to share how do we effectively manage "unwanted" schedules? We are at the very beginning of exploring this feature and many are unsure how to do this correctly and consistently , hence resulted in many schedules the individuals created by mistakes.

Is there a specific role we should create for a team rota admin? or how should we effectively "retire" schedules that we dont want to see anymore?

[andrew_och]

cmn_rota records are the base record of the On-Call Schedule Data Model. The Delete ACL on these records calls the following script include function: new OnCallSecurityNG().rotaMgrAccess(current.group);

This function allows the following users to delete cmn_rota records (cascading through the rota data model):

1. Users with the rota_admin role

2. Users with the rota_manager role AND (are a sys_user_group manager or have been delegated as a sys_user_group manager)

Such users can then view list of cmn_rota records selecting those they wish to remove. see below

[clarkchong]

Reply to Answer#2 - Most of the team on call rotates on weekly basis. Is there an option to create a empty schedule so I could insert the names on weekly basis?

Reply to Answer#5 - I am unable to see the same view even when I put it to DAY view.