Defining, designing, checking:
The features of [SPA]

Defining

First of all, central requirements for the shift rota have to be defined:

• Which types of shifts need to be scheduled, including stand-by duties, work stand-by and/or on-call duties
• At what frequency and on which days of the week to fulfil the service requirements?
• What level of reserve needs to be accounted for and how?
• What is the target number for weekly working hours?
• How many full-time equivalents are needed mathematically, how high a number of persons needs to be selected, how do these persons need to be organised into groups?

Designing

People or groups are allocated to specific shift sequences. In doing so, legal requirements (e.g. maximum allowed working hours per week, daily rest hours), ergonomic requirements (e.g. distribution of time off) and economic aspects (e.g. management, costs) are taken into consideration.
For homogenous groups, the [SPA] simplifies this task using its First Class Scheduler module, which suggests optimised sequences of shifts according to your criteria.
Many complex requirements such as seasonal variations or qualification requirements can only be solved by splitting them into various sub tasks. The View Manager is the right tool for success! It allows you to define any sector of a shift rota, and display and design it as required.

Checking

Up to this point, you will have defined, step by step, your rota properties, which are all interlinked with and dependant on each other. However, planning often requires jumping back to steps which are already defined to adjust specific properties. Checking rotas will

• clarify which sketch is to be developed into which direction;
• allow you to select the best of the already available frame rotas.

Checking tools provide you with feedback for the central properties of your rota or sketch.