Shift Maintenance

Shift Maintenance A Shift Pattern defines all the details of shifts on a particular day. Shift Patterns have a name such as “sat” or “holiday”. You can use the same name on different rotas as the patterns are not shared across rotas. Every day has a Shift Pattern defined for it. If there are no shifts on a given day, then an empty Shift Pattern must be assigned to that day. Once a booking has been made, the Shift Details are copied to the booking and even if the Shift Pattern is changed, the booking will not. Thus bookings have primacy.

The Shift Calendar The shift calendar is used to assign a shift pattern to a specific date on a rota. Those shown in red are automatically assigned by the system to any known holidays. Those shown in green have been overridden by a system administrator.

Shift Calendar To change the shift pattern assigned to a day, simply click the day required. If the assigned shift pattern is currently green, you are given the option to delete the assigned shift pattern and revert to the default shift pattern. If the assigned shift pattern is currently white or red, you are presented with a list of shift patterns to choose from.

Shift Calendar The system will not allow the assigning of a shift pattern where the change will compromise an existing booking - so it is best to only make changes to dates on which no shifts have already been booked.

Shift Calendar Use the Previous Month and Next Month buttons to select different date ranges.

Default Shifts The “Default Shifts” page is used to inform the shift calendar which shift pattern to assign to a particular day of the week. This allows the shift calendar to be changed from a particular date.

Default Shifts Use “Change” to change an existing default set. Use “Add New Default Set” to add in a completely new set from a given date.

Which Shiftcode On the rota page, simply hover the mouse over the date on the left or right of the rota and a pop-up will show the shiftcode assigned to that date.

One Day Shift Code Clicking on the date will bring up a menu allowing: Create: Allows you to edit the shift pattern for this date only. Editing this pattern starts with a copy of the pattern assigned to this date. Select: Select an existing shift pattern - this is the same as using the shift calendar.

One Day Shift Code A One Day Shift Pattern is very useful if the changes being made ONLY apply to the date being managed. A One Day Shift Pattern is very inefficient if the same changes are being made to a number of days. If making the same changes to more than one day, then create a new shift pattern and then assign that shift pattern to the required days - otherwise making the same changes to a number of days using the special one day shift pattern means that you are duplicating your own work and the system gets filled up with identical shift patterns; this is inefficient for the system and an increase in your own workload.

Create a New Shift Pattern To create a new shift pattern which can be used in the calendar or the default shifts, use “Administration / Shift Maintenance / Edit Shifts”. Select the location and leave the code as “NEW” and click “Select”. Then enter a new shift pattern code and click “Add Shift”. The system then creates an empty shift pattern.

Create a New Shift Pattern The empty shift pattern can be pre-populated with a copy of an existing pattern or edited from scratch. To pre-populate with an existing pattern, scroll to the bottom of the screen and select the appropriate shift pattern: Then click “Copy Shift Data”.

Editing Shift Patterns Each block on the shift edit page relates to a column on the rota. As you add shifts to the edit page, the number of shifts in the column will increase. Each column is named uniquely.

Editing a Shift Each shift on the shift pattern can be individually edited. The exact fields available on your particular system may differ from the fields shown in the example on the right. Select the number of IDENTICAL shifts Enter a Description for these shifts Select a Start and End Time for the shift Enter the Rate of Pay for the shift Enter the Night Rate of Pay (If available) for the shift If Rate Codes are enabled enter the Rate Code for the shift If the Rate Entered is not an hourly rate but a payment for the whole shift, you should tick this box. If your system uses Bonus Points, enter the bonus points for this shift If this shift is available to Nurse Practitioners, tick this box Enter the rate of pay if this shift is booked by a Nurse Practitioner Enter the number of days that this shift should be held exclusively for Nurse Practitioners. If this shift can only be booked by an administrator on behalf of a user, tick this box The following flags relate to capabilities. Ticking these boxes means that the person booking the shift MUST HAVE the capability ticked in User Capabilities.

Editing a Shift Each shift on the shift pattern can be individually edited. The exact fields available on your particular system may differ from the fields shown in the example on the right. When all the fields are correct, click “Update”. You will need to update EACH BOX as you complete it.

Editing a Shift Each shift on the shift pattern can be individually edited. The exact fields available on your particular system may differ from the fields shown in the example on the right. The “Add Entry” link allows you to add more shifts to this shift column (that is a shift column on the main rota). This allows the addition of more shifts to a rota column where the shifts are not identical. It may be used where shifts start and end times are staggered, or where a different description is needed on each shift, or details like user capabilities or whether the shift is available to Nurse Practitioners. Once “Add Entry” has been clicked, a new shift pattern editing box appears to the right of the existing editing box. To delete a shift altogether, simply set the number of shifts to “0” (zero) and click “Update”. The shift will be completely removed from the system.

Change of shifts or rates of pay It is occasionally necessary to introduce a new set of rates of pay or a completely new shift structure to an organisation. The following pages will outline the steps required to do this. In every case it is best to make the changes BEFORE any shift have been booked for the dates being altered. If the changes are being introduced AFTER shift have been booked, then the changes that can be made are very limited and it is generally best to unbook the effected shifts before making the changes and the rebooking them afterwards. Any fixed shifts should also be cleared from the system before the changes are made, and added back after the changes have been completed.

Change of shifts or rates of pay Use “Shift Maintenance / Default Shifts” to add a new Default Shift Set dated from the 1st date that the new shifts will start. Name the shift patterns to reflect the start date - such as “week0510” and “wkend0510”, creating a shift pattern for each different day required (i.e. week, sat, sun, bhol). Save the new default set and make sure that it is correct in the list of default sets. Use “Shift Maintenance / Edit Shifts” to create and/or edit each of the shift patterns you have named in the default set. When editing a completely new shift pattern, you can use “Copy Shiftcode Information” at the bottom of the page to copy shiftcode information from an existing shift pattern. This is particularly useful if the changes are relatively minor and can save a great deal of time.

Change of shifts or rates of pay After all the shift codes have been edited, go to booking sheet (rota) and select the start date for the new default set. Make sure that the shift patterns entered do correctly reflect the required changes. If there are any problems you can hover the mouse over the date at the left or right of the rota to ensure that the correct shift pattern is being used. If necessary go back and edit the shift pattern to make further changes. If the Fixed Shifts have been removed from the system, add them back in. If booking were removed prior to making the changes, they should now be added back to the system.