Objective: Track cover accurately when shifts overlap.
When shifts overlap by more than is needed just for hand-over of work, it can be useful to count cover in the overlap period. It is specially useful when more than one sequence of shifts can make up a longer working period. For example, a day shift followed by a twilight shift might be equivalent to an early followed by a late. This section of the tutorial is based on that example.
In very complex shift patterns, it may be worthwhile just to divide the day into fixed length cover periods and map the shifts onto the cover periods.
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: Make sure you are logged in as admin, and Your users & rotas is selected in the top menu.
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 9a: 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: Set the entries in the Count as column as follows, putting spaces after the commas if you prefer:
| * | Both Early and Early requested entries to be EARLY(G+F+H,...). |
| * | Both Day and Day requested entries to be EARLY(G+F+H,...),AFTERNOON(G+F+H,...). |
| * | Both Late and Late requested entries to be AFTERNOON(G+F+H,...),TWILIGHT(G+F+H,...). |
| * | Both Twilight and Twilight requested entries to be TWILIGHT(G+F+H,...). |
Action: Press the Save symbol edits button.
Result 9b: When you select the View rota menu item , you see the effects of your changes.
You might have to edit the shifts to see the full consequences of your new count requests. You will be able to control cover in each period while having some flexibility in the shifts you use to achieve it.
Congratulations: You have learned how to plan cover accurately for pieces of shifts. You are now ready to finalise your cover tracking methods.
Exercise 9.1: Review the cover periods you have used for your basic rota. If you can gain a clearer statement of cover by using cover periods different from full shifts, alter your symbol definitions to generate the better cover periods. After saving your changes, use combinations of shifts to test your improvements.
Exercise 9.2: If you know the email addresses of some of your users, make sure you are logged in as administrator and give them each a personal entry in your user group. They will be informed automatically and invited to view the rotas you have created. You can also print personal entry cards for them.
Exercise 9.3: Use the Reports menu item on your latest rota to make pdf rota and cover report files on your local computer. Print both, and find out how to use the print controls of your pdf viewer and computer to format the prints as you want them. If you need spreadsheet reporting, make an xls file of your rota and work out how to use it in your reporting system.