Objective: Create a basic rota, and add staff to it. Later, you will use it to make rotas for specific periods of time.
Preparation: Before starting this lesson you should first complete lesson 1, "Register and log in".
Action: If you are not already logged in as admin, log in as admin.
Note: To log in, you need to replace the default contents of both the User ID (email) and Password boxes with your admin ones.
Result 2a: You see your identity in the tablet at the top right of the screen. The tablet button reads "Logout>>" and your Role is shown as admin.
Objective: Create the basic rota for your group using the symbols from the Medium Ward example.
Action: If it is not already selected, select Your users & rotas in the top menu.
Result 2b: You see two menus, Your users and Your rotas, at the left of the screen.
Action: Select Create the basic rota in the Your rotas menu.
Result 2c: A form appears with the same title.
Action: Enter into Duration the number of days that your rotas will cover. The default value is 28. You can use a different duration if you wish.
The basic rota can be of any duration but we strongly recommend 7, 14, 21, 28 or 31 days. Each group can have only one basic rota. It is usually better to make a basic rota with 28 or 31 days, and use it to create two specific one-month rotas at a time, rather than to make a basic rota with duration of 56 or 62 and try to manage overlapping specific rotas. Specific rotas you make from the basic rota will have the same duration. You can use the Change Rota function in the menu of any rota to change its duration at any time.
Action: You can use the pulldown menu to change The first day of week if you wish.
Action: Pull down the Symbols from list and select Medium Ward.
Action: Press the button labelled Create the basic rota >>.
Result 2d: A basic rota is created ready for the rest of the tutorial. Item Basic rota appears in the Your rotas menu. It has already been selected for you, so it is displayed, with five example staff in it. At the top of the basic rota the menu item called Edit staff also has already been selected for you, so the rota is ready for you to edit. The existing staff are editable and a blank editing line is open for a new member of staff.
Objective: Add three staff to the basic rota.
Action: On the blank line:
| * | In the Posn column enter 6.0. |
| * | In the Name column enter Edward East. |
| * | In the Grade column enter E. |
| * | In the Target hrs column enter 160. |
Depending on the resolution of your screen, you might need to scroll right to see and edit the Target hrs column.
Action: Now press the Save staff edits button.
Result 2e: The details for the member of staff are saved and another line opens for the next staff member.
Action: On the Example Visitor line:
| * | leave the Posn column entry as 3.0, |
| * | change the Name from Example Visitor to Gail Good, |
| * | change the Grade column entry to G and |
| * | in the S column click on the box to mark it. |
Action: On the new blank line:
| * | In the Posn column enter 7.0. |
| * | In the Name column enter Freda Friend. |
| * | In the Grade column enter F. |
| * | In the Target hrs column enter 160. |
Action: Press the Save staff edits button again.
Result 2f: Freda's details are saved, appearing on a line below Ed's and another line opens below Freda's.
Result 2g: At the same time, the changed line is saved.
Action: On the new blank line:
| * | In the Posn column enter 2, |
| * | In the Name column enter Sebastian Scribe, |
| * | In the Grade column enter F, |
| * | In the Target hrs column enter 160. |
Action: In the Posn column:
| * | In the Anne Adams line enter 8. |
| * | In the Bert Brown line enter 7. |
| * | In the Gail Good line enter 1. |
| * | In the Carol Clark line enter 6. |
| * | In the Doug Downs line enter 5. |
| * | In the Edward East line enter 4. |
| * | In the Freda Friend line enter 3. |
Action: Press the Save staff edits button.
Result 2h: The details for Seb are saved.
Result 2i: At the same time, the lines are re-ordered in the sequence you specified and another line opens at the bottom. Staff are now listed in descending order of grades, with Seb above Freda.
Exercise 2.1: Continue entering staff, but finish this tutorial with 8 members of staff including Gail Good, Sebastian Scribe, Bert Brown and Anne Adams as they were at this stage. All eight staff members should have Target hours of 160.
Note: Last updated by at the bottom of the rota shows who last edited the rota and when they edited it (in British Standard Time).
Note: An entry of - (minus) or _ (underscore) in the Grade column has a special meaning. It is used for divider rows, and should not be used for real staff.
Action: It's a good idea to set the Approval Status of the basic rota to Draft so that specific rotas created from it initially also have Draft status. This also means that the basic rota will be visible to staff, but they will not be able to change it. If ever you want staff to be able to alter their own typical shift patterns in the basic rota, set its status then to Self-roster.
If you want to delete a member of staff, click the corresponding box in the Delete column to mark it, then press the Save staff edits button.
Action: When you have pressed the Save staff edits button to save your last updates, select View rota from the menu at the top of the rota
Result 2j: You confirm your changes have been saved.
Congratulations: You have now completed a basic rota and are ready either to customise it or to create a specific rota.
Default patterns of shifts: Often, there are shifts when particular staff generally prefer to work or request leave. It is more efficient in such cases to put their general preferences into the basic rota than to edit them into every specific rota. In a later section of this tutorial you can learn to define these as fixed shift patterns in the basic rota.
Defining your own symbols: The symbols you need probably differ in some way from each of the examples. A later section of this tutorial shows you how you can define your own symbols.