Use symbol clusters

Objective: Use more than one symbol to roster a staff member for more than one shift, or partial shift, in one day.

There are two main reasons for making shift entries containing more than one symbol:

*	A staff member might need to work two shifts (or just be credited for two activities) that start in the same planning day.
*	When shift lengths vary, it can be simpler to add extra hours to core shifts than to use a symbol for every combination of shift and length.

Getting Ready: Before starting this lesson, first complete lessons 1, and 4, "Register and log in", "Set up the basic rota" and "Define your symbols". Planners and administrators should also complete lesson 6, "Start a specific rota".

Action: Ensure you are logged in as admin or planner, and Your users & rotas is selected in the top menu.

Two shifts starting in one day

Action: If you followed the instructions in lesson 6 "Start a specific rota" to create a specific rota, select that rota in the Your rotas menu. Otherwise select Basic rota.

Result 7a: A view of the selected rota is displayed in the window.

Exercise 7.1: Make sure that the symbols for the rota you have selected include the Twilight shift W. It needs to be as you defined it in lesson 4 "Define your symbols". When you first created the basic rota, you imported symbols from the Medium ward example. If you have changed any of those symbol definitions in your selected rota, restore them to the same as the example ones. You can see the symbol definitions summarised in the Key below the rota or in full on the View symbols page.

Getting Ready: Check that:

*	The grades for the staff in your list are, from the top down, G, F, F, E, D, C, B and A.
*	The top box in the S (supernumerary) column is checked and all others are blank.
*	Bert Brown is the staff member second from last in the table.

If any do not match, use the Editing staff page to change them in this specific rota. Be sure you save any changes you make.

Action: At the top of your rota select the menu item Edit shifts.

Result 7b: The part of the rota view showing shifts changes to a form.

Action: Make sure the first column of shifts is, from the top down, E, D, N, Dr, L, N, E and S, as you set it in lesson 6 "Start a specific rota"

Action: Make a note of the total hours planned for Bert Brown and the cover planned for the first day.

Action: Change the cell size, below the rota cover counts, to 3 and press the Save shift edits button.

Result 7c: The boxes for shift symbols show up to 3 characters, rather than the default 2.

Action: In the first day for Bert Brown, replace the symbol E by the three characters W for twilight, space character, and E for early. You can use a comma instead of the space, if you prefer.

Action: Press the Save shift edits button.

Result 7d: The entry is saved and displayed in its edit box as two shifts separated by a space, "W E".

Action: Select the View rota menu item to view and confirm your changes.

Result 7e:

*	In the first day for Bert Brown, the two shifts can appear either one below the other or, if the window is wide enough, separated by a space.
*	The total hours for Bert Brown have increased by 5 hours, the hours for the extra W shift.
*	The first day's TWILIGHT cover is 1, and only the cover levels counting Grade B staff on W shifts have changed.

Note: In pdf files of rotas and in printouts of them, clustered shifts are shown one above another

Exercise 7.2: Enter multiple activities for staff members in various other days of your rota to see how they affect the hours totals and cover counts.

Shifts of varying length

Action: If you have not already done so, use the Edit symbols page to create a new symbol for an hour of extra work that does not count for cover, but is credited to the staff member who works it.

Exercise 7.3: Use your extra hour symbol to extend the beginning or end (or both) of some shifts you have entered into your selected rota. Avoid altering the first two columns. See how the extensions appear when you are viewing the rota and when you are editing it. Check that they do increase the Total hrs figures for the staff who work them, while not affecting cover.

Congratulations: You have used symbol clusters to plan multiple activities beginning in the same day for staff members and to track hours worked for shifts of varying length.