Objective: Track cover at different grades and at different combinations of grades.
To achieve cover, you usually you need more than one grade of staff or more than one combination of staff grades. There are three straightforward mechanisms in the Self-Roster.co.uk system to track this. All of them use lists inside parentheses "()" following a basic Count as entry:
| * | To define a combination of grades, you join the grade symbols with a plus character. Thus NIGHT(C+D) causes a single count line to appear under the rota, showing a count of all staff of grade C or D. |
| * | To produce separate counts for different grades or grade combinations, you list the grades or combinations for each count, separated by commas. For example, NIGHT(A,B,C) causes a count line to appear for each grade A, B, and C. |
| * | There is a shorthand for all grades not already mentioned in a list. It's the three-dots "ellipsis". Thus, NIGHT(C+D,...) causes two count lines to appear under the rota, one counting the cover of staff in grades C and D, and the other counting the cover of all other staff, including any who have no grade shown. |
Supernumerary staff do not contribute cover in any of these three mechanisms.
Note: The order in which count lines appear below the shifts on the rota is the same as the order in which you mention them in your table of symbol definitions.
If you want to show a total and a selection, just mention them in sequence as you would any other counts. For example, if neither LATE nor LATE(G+F) is mentioned earlier in your definitions, entering LATE(G+F),LATE makes two lines appear, the upper a count of staff with grade either G or F, and the lower a count of all staff.
On the rota, counts for selections of staff grades have a different background from counts for all staff.
Getting Ready: Before starting this lesson, you should first complete lessons 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 "Register and log in", "Set up the basic rota", "Define your symbols", "Set some fixed shifts" and "Start a specific rota".
Action: Make sure you are logged in as admin, and Your users & rotas is selected in the top menu.
Objective: Track the cover of staff who are in any combination of grades you specify.
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 8a: A view of the selected rota is displayed in the window.
Action: At the top of your basic rota select the menu item called Edit symbols.
Action: In the Count as column against the W (Twilight) symbol, replace TWILIGHT by TWILIGHT(G+F+H).
Action: Do the same in the Count as column against Wr (Twilight requested).
Action: Press the Save symbol edits button, then view the rota.
Result 8b: Instead of all W and Wr shifts being counted against TWILIGHT, only those planned for staff of grades F, G and H are counted against TWILIGHT(G+F+H).
Action: Depending on the shifts you planned earlier in the tutorial, you might need to add some more twilight shifts into your rota plan to be able to see the full effect.
Objective: Track cover contributed by different combinations of staff grades, including a "catch-all" combination.
Action: On the Edit symbols, replace your TWILIGHT(G+F+H) entries by TWILIGHT(G+F+H,...).
Action: Again, save your edits then view the rota.
Result 8c: As well as W and Wr shifts planned for staff of grades F, G and H being counted against TWILIGHT(G+F+H), any other staff with twilight shifts planned are counted against a new TWILIGHT(...) line, immediately below.
Action: If necessary to see the full effect, add more twilight shifts into your rota plan.
Note: If you want to track the presence of a combination of grades across all shifts, you must include an item for that combination in each shift symbol's list.
Exercise 8.1: Experiment with different counting structures, viewing, and if necessary editing, rotas to see the effects. Start with simple lists, and build up the combinations gradually.
Note: These mechanisms are simple individually, but care is needed to avoid confusion when using them together across multiple symbols. Plan your strategy carefully, and check what you achieve against your original intentions. Try and keep your methods as simple as possible.
Congratulations: You have learned how to plan grade-sensitive cover for practically any situation.
Exercise 8.2: Return to the symbol table of your basic rota and make it match the skills mixes you need. When you first learned to define symbols, you probably made useful notes about this.