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]

You have the correct official documentation link.

In addition to that I believe a good starting point is: Define basic On-call rota schedule

Also the demo data that can be installed with the On-Call Scheduling plugin should hopefully give you some examples of usage:

e.g. the Service Desk group rota shows a 24/7/365 On-Call rota, while the Network group rota is a follow-the-sun 24/7/365 rota covered by office hours of various regions (Americas, APAC and Europe). Finally the Application Development group show a working hours 9-5 rota, with every 3rd Saturday of the month and exludes public holidays.

Of course this community site is also hopefully a source of Best Practice and guidance on how to share knowledge in creating On-Call Schedules.