How Does This Functionality Help You? 

  • The application requires skills to be entered to enforce employees are only scheduled to stations you authorize them to work.
  • Defining availability and preferred availability times allow you to schedule employees at times they are willing and able to be at work.
Employees Section: Station Skills and Availability 
  • Selecting the employee name in the menu brings up access to the tabs for the employees stations and availability. 
  • Opening these tabs bring up the forms where the data is entered or edited.
Managing Employee Skills at Stations
  • Employees must be assigned a skill level (priority) in order to be scheduled into a shift for a station for both Auto Fill and manual assignment. 
  • Skills for stations can be entered in the Location portal either from the Employees section or the Stations section. For specific instructions on entering skills for stations, see Assigning Employee Skills to Stations.

Managing Employee Availability
  • Employee availability is when employees are willing to work and is normally broader than their scheduled times to work. 
  • The hierarchy of the availability types is listed below in the order that they supersede the types below them.
    1. Granted Leave Day off
    2. Rotations – See Rotations for more information.
    3. Alternate availability
    4. Date-based availability
    5. Local availability
    6. Global availability 
  • It is important to remember that availability entered is honored at the time a schedule is built. If availability is changed after a schedule is built, it does not affect the schedule unless the schedule is re-generated using Auto Fill.
    Note: This is especially important if employees are given access to change their own availability on a continual basis. There is no audit trail of when availability is changed.
  • Current availability is always displayed in the Available Employees list on the shift when re-assigning an employee. 
  • If no availability is entered, then they are assumed to be available 24/7. 

Entering Availability
Note: ScheduleSouce provides tutorials that show the process in action. Go to Tutorials for the Location Portal - Managing Employees and review the video tutorial about Managing Employee Availability (Global, Local, Datebased, Alternate). 

Video: How to View and Update Employee Availability Templates


  • Select the employee name and select the Availability tab.
  • Each of the following types of availability can be edited or deleted using the delete link or red x.
Global Availability
Used for all locations deployed to unless a location has entered a local availability. Entry at one location populates the Enterprise and all other locations.

Local Availability
Used only in the one location where it is entered. 
  1. Select [Add Global Profile] or [Add Local Profile]. The process is the same.

  2. For each day choose On or Off. Rank their preferred days to work with 9 being high. Auto Fill tries to schedule their work on the days with the highest rank. If the day is Off, time ranges and rank are ignored.

  3. Enter the times. Boxes for Avail: (entire time available) and pref: (preferred times to work).
    - Time ranges are entered to restrict the available range.
    - Leave blank for 24x7 availability.
    - Entry format is T1-T2; where T1 and T2 are times like 3:15pm or 4am.


Local Date-Based Availability

Used only in the one location where it is entered.
Important: For the dates entered, this availability overrides local or global entries.

  1. Select [Add Local Date-Based] to open the entry form.
  2. Type the Name, enter Effective dates, and select Save. Saving the date range will add an availability chart for entry. The chart entry is just like global or local availability charts.
    Note: Multiple date-based items can be added and identified by the name.

Single Day Override
One day override to change availability for just that day.
Important: All other availability will be overridden on this day. 
  1. Select the + sign on the calendar. It looks like this:
    The following window displays.
  2. Select the Scope: Global or Local. Enter the Date and select Save. The calendar displays the Singe Day Override.

Video: How to Add and Delete Employee Schedule Overrides




Calendar View Summary
The calendar displays by date which availability is being enforced. An example on how to read it is shown on View Individual Availability Calendar Summary. 

Video: How to View Your Employees' Availability Calendar


  
For instructions on using Mass Update and the tools available for summary views, see Tools for Mass Update and Other Summary Views.