The Rota Company's blog

Day Print for Events

2009-11-18T06:15:00.000-08:00

NEW FEATURE

A new day print has been added. This enables any user to print all his work details for a given day. This is especially important for event organisations as details of the event (as it pertains to staff) and the location of the event are included in the printed details.

To access this printout, level 3 and 4 users will obtain it directly from the calendar. Simply click the printer icon for the given day. All users can access it from the hyperlink (DayPrint34) that is shown on the Day Notes page.

For further details:
http://www.therota.info/wiki/DayPrint34

Change to user level 3 calendar view

2009-10-12T01:04:00.000-07:00

ENHANCEMENT

A small but useful change has been made to the way level 3 users view the calendar. Previously they would see themselves plus whoever was working at their default location. Now they will see themselves plus whoever is working at the location of each of their shifts.

We think the above will be more useful and practical, but please contact us if you have any difficulties with this.

Colour-coded shifts

2009-03-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

ENHANCEMENT

The calendar and weekly view screens now show shifts with colour coding. This is designed to give your staff a more colour-guided view of the schedule.

SETTING UP
From the menu, go to Shift Names, and edit a shift.
You'll notice that you can select a colour for each shift. Once that is done it will be reflected in the various calendar displays.

Invite

2009-02-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

ENHANCEMENT

The email that accompanies the invite notification now includes hyperlinks for the recipient to instantly accept or reject the shift. This brings it into link with the swap feature.

If you administer your shift invitations, please send yourself an invite to a shift so you can see what the new process looks like.

Notice Board: Adding Pictures

2008-11-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

ENHANCEMENT

Users can now upload an image to any post. Simply select the image from your computer and upload in the normal manner.

Staff Record: More fields including home phone

2008-10-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

ENHANCEMENT

Due to popular request, more fields have been added to the staff record. These are:
- Home phone
- 4th user-defined field
- 5th user-defined field

All relevant areas have been updated.

WHAT TO DO
Where an existing rota has been using a user-defined field for home phone number, then we have transferred that data to the home phone field.

If you want to use the additional fields, go to Set Display where you can label them as required.

Notice Board

2008-06-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

ENHANCEMENT

A few new features have been added to the internal Notice Boards.

1) You can now specify which level 1 staff are your 'moderators'
2) These users will have the ability to lock and pin topics.

For more information read the wiki help file at:

http://www.therota.info/wiki/Notice_Board

Online Documents

2008-04-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

NEW FEATURE

This feature enables the administrator to hold useful documents and forms on the rota. Staff at remote locations always have access to current version of these documents.

Examples of usage are application forms, expenses, requisitions, contracts etc.

WHAT TO DO

Choose Online Documents from the left hand menu (it's in the reports section).

Your staff can view the documents as part of the Contacts area.

For a full write up, visit our wiki manual
http://www.therota.info/wiki/Online_Documents

Programmer's to-do list

2008-03-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

This is the programmer's current to-do list, in order of time priority.

Form repository - store regular forms online for staff to access and download.
Payroll Reports (NNN)
Skill Sets - Enhance this function (OAK)
Notify invites by SMS (MOR)

Recent changes

2008-03-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

1) Payroll summary

A new page accessible to users with access to account details. Staff can be set to an hourly rate and this report will calculate payroll amounts. Further enhancements are in the pipeline. If you would like to help us develop the payroll module, please get in touch.

2) Leave chart

Now has a feature for showing past as well as future.

3) Sign in page

You can now print for a whole week, or for all locations on one page.

Security settings for user level 1 shift editing.

2008-02-28T04:57:00.000-08:00

ENHANCEMENT

Previously, level 1 users could either edit all user shifts, or none of them, depending on the security settings. This has now changed, and there are a couple of important options for administrators to use.

1) Restrict the users that each level 1 user can edit. The 'Edit Own Line Staff' means that this person can only edit staff rotas for whom he is the line manager OR the person shares the same default location.

For example: A retail organisation has shops around the country, and they are largely autonomous in planning their rotas. If the shop manager has user level 1, he can edit staff in his shop if the relevant box is checked (see below). Meanwhile, the regional manager, who is line manager to several shops, also has the ability to edit the rotas of these staff.

2) Past dates: Unless this box has been checked, users will not be able to edit past dates.

NOTE FOR EXISTING USERS:

Review your level 1 user security settings to take advantage of these changes.

Introducing user level 0

2008-01-30T02:47:00.000-08:00

ENHANCEMENT
Some staff who use the rota might not actually appear on it! For example, somebody who handles the invoices, or perhaps the general overseer of the rota.

You can set these people as user level 0. This means they will have the same functionality as user level 1 but will NOT show in any of the pages concerning the allocation of people to the rota.

Extract from a staff record

What to do

To amend a user level, go to a staff record.

Chart View, sorting

2008-01-14T04:10:00.000-08:00

ENHANCEMENT

Until recently the chart view could only be sorted by Name. There is now a dropdown option enabling you to sort by Job or Location.

Employee Availability

2008-01-14T03:12:00.000-08:00

REVISION

The main screen for Availability updates by casual staff has been revised and simplified.

Fixed Day off now shows as NOT Available
Available and Part-Available now show as I CAN work, with Part-Availables having timings with it.
The Calendar view reflects these new terms.

There is now another way for staff to update their availability. It utilises the edit diary popup window. It's very simple to use.

WHO DOES THIS AFFECT?
Rotas with casual staff who update their availability.

Employees available for overtime

2008-01-12T04:01:00.000-08:00

NEW FEATURE

Do you sometimes have overtime shifts to fill? Not sure who wants to do them? Now your staff can signify they are willing to work overtime on days they specify. They do this with a new item in the staff's Personal Diary Edit window.

If an employee checks the box, an entry for Part Available is created for that day, regardless of whether a shift has been given to them or not. For example, it could be a weekend day, that would otherwise be a rest day.

NOTE: This option is specifically designed for permanent staff. The availability of Casual/Contractor staff is handled separately. See other entries in this blog.

Calendar - Just me!

2008-01-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

ENHANCEMENT

To see only your own working schedule in the calendar, simply check the Just Me box.

(Unchecking it will revert to the full group calendar.)

Group notes in Calendar

2007-10-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

NEW FEATURE

In addition to Company-wide and Personal notes, the Calendar can now show Group notes.

Here's an example:

You're using groups for 'Admin' and 'Operations'. If a person is in one of those groups he will see their notes in his calendar. (They're in Green - Green for Groups!)

Editing group comments:

This is done by clicking a calendar date. If a person is permitted to alter group comments, an edit box will appear.

You can determine which user levels can add/amend group notes. By default, this is user level 1 only. To change this go to the group edit page and you'll see the option.

Week View

2007-09-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Week View is now available to level 2 users. The information is limited to view only and without the broadcast and other feature.

WHAT TO DO:

Nothing. Level 2 users will see the Weekly view on their tab of views.

Suggestion Box: EWTD report

2007-08-23T03:16:00.000-07:00

A report to show possible violations in EWTD (RB).

This is in programming right now.

Sending Emails

2007-07-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

Enhancement

The Send Emails page has been redesigned to be more versatile. Now, in addition to the usual selections by group, location or job title, you can select any staff just by checking their box.

Additionally, if you want to send an email only to staff who are working on a given day, there is a link on the Day View page. Click that and it will redirect you to the Send Emails page, and all the working staff will be checked. (Hope you like that!)

To read more about this, visit our Wiki manual at:
http://www.roster123.com/wiki/index.php?title=Send_Emails

Unfilled-Invite page

2007-07-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

Suggestion Box

"Add an option to speed up the closing of open shifts."

Yes. We'll add it to the 'multi-open' function so that it can be multi-close also.

"Speed up the page."

We're aware that the unfilled positions list has the potential to be very large and therefore slow to load in some situations. We will add a 'paging' function to it, so that only a section of data is shown at any time.

Reports-Journal

2007-07-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

Enhancement

Made a couple of requested changes to the report generator.

1) In the layout area, you can include the person's default job or location and (or) the actual worked one.

2) In the Report Journal there's an additional specifier for jobs and locations, where you can compare the person's default job and location to the ones they worked. For example, by choosing 'other' you can get a list of all incidences where the person was required to work a different job and/or location to their normal one.

The full details of the Reports manual have been written in our Wiki manual at
http://www.roster123.com/wiki/index.php?title=Reports

Calendar printout

2007-07-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

New Feature

In addition to all the other printouts we now have a full calendar month printout.

WHO IS THIS FOR?
Anyone who wants to print a full calendar month. The options are for 'This Month' and 'Next Month' and is available to all users on the Calendar page.

Caution: Always be careful when printing a rota as the details on it are liable to change!

Unfilled page. Can we create a filter option?

2007-03-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

Suggestion box
"Would it be possible to filter the unfilled section? I only look after ops and crewing,and it becomes visually difficult when I can see all the unfilled positions,which I don't deal with."

MF: Sounds reasonable. I'll look into this.

Erlang calculations

2006-10-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

New Feature

Erlang formulas enable call centres and such places to calculate how many staff are required for given times of day, based on various traffic inputs.

For example:
Number of calls per hour
Time taken per call
Target service level (% of calls answered within x seconds.)

WHO IS THIS FOR?
Rotas that already use the Min By Time.

WHAT TO DO:
Previously the Min by Time was a manual entry. Now the entry can be made by using Erlang calculations.

Chart View

2006-06-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

ENHANCEMENT

Following user requests, the chart view has been changed to a full calendar month.

From here you can also select a useful printable report that shows hours and shifts worked.