Roster Wizard User Guide

Initial Configuration

When Roster Wizard is initially installed, its database is empty. Below is a quick summary of the procedure to create a roster. Please note that it is essential that steps 1 and 2 be completed first.

1. Set number of days in roster period eg. 10 days. Click Day Groups, Set Number of Days.
2. Create day groups. Click Day Groups, Create New Day Group.
3. Create roles. Click Staff, Create New Role.
4. Create staff. Click Staff, Create New Staff Member.
5. Create shifts. Click Shifts, Create New Shift.
6. Create skill mix rules. Click Skill Mix, Create New Skill Mix Rule.
7. Create shift sequence rules (if any). Click Shift Sequences, Create New Shift Sequence.
8. Create leave allocations (if any). Click Leave, Create New Leave.
9. Create staff requests (if any). Click Staff Requests, Create Staff Requests.
10. Generate a roster. Click Roster, Generate New Roster.

Unsuccessful roster generation is usually due to specifying rules and constraints that are impossible to adhere to. See the "Successfully Generating a Roster" section below for guidance.

Roles

These are staff designations / skill levels. For example SRN could mean Senior Registered Nurse.

Day Groups

These are used to specify which days are relevant to particular shift sequences. This is useful for specifying rules such as no night shifts on week days. At the very least you need one day group. This could include all the days in the roster period. Day number 1 is the first day in the roster period and so on. For example, if you had a 14 day roster that starts on a week day, a day group that contains week days only would include the following days: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Note that days 6, 7, 13 and 14 have been excluded as they correspond with the weekends.

Shifts

Some examples are Early, Late and Night.

Skill Mix Rules

These are used to specify the staff roles required for each shift type. You need to specify at least one valid option for each shift but you can specify as many as you wish. For example an Early shift might require 3 x SRN and 2 x RN roles or 2 x SRN and 3 x RN roles.

Shift Sequence Rules

Shift sequences are optional. They are used to specify sequences of shifts that can not be worked by staff ie. invalid shift sequences. For example, staff may not be allowed to work an early shift the day after a night shift. Different invalid shift sequences can be applied to different staff. The procedure for creating an invalid shift sequence is as follows:

1. Create a new shift sequence with a logical name eg. "No early shift after night" and add the relevant staff to which it applies.
2. Find the new shift sequence in the shift sequence list and add shifts to it.

Shifts have a relative position number associated with them. Typically you would start with position 1. So to specify staff not working an early shift the day after a night shift, you would specify a night shift in position 1 and an early shift in position 2.

Here are some more examples:

Staff can not work three days in a row (shifts: Early, Late and Night):

• Early: 1, Late: 1, Night: 1, Early: 2, Late: 2, Night: 2, Early: 3, Late: 3, Night: 3

Staff can not work two night shifts in a row:

• Night:1, Night:2

No single day off:

• Early: 1, Late: 1, Night: 1, <blank>: 2, Early: 3, Late: 3, Night: 3

No late shifts:

• Late: 1

Leave

This is used to specify staff unavailability due to rostered recreation leave etc.

Staff Requests

This is used to specify staff preferences ie. to work (or not work) a particular shift on a particular day. Roster Wizard will grant these requests so long as it can be done without breaking the other rules.

Settings

Settings can be found under the Roster menu. Here you can customise Roster Wizard. For example you can set the name of the roster which appears in the navigation menu. This is useful if you have multiple instances of Roster Wizard installed and you need to see at a glance which roster you are working on.

Successfully Generating a Roster (Very Important!)

In most cases, the number of staff available will not conveniently match the number of shifts that need to be filled. Typically there are less staff than required and temporary or casual staff may be needed to meet the shortfall.

Case 1 - Not Enough Shifts, Too Many Staff

If there are not enough shifts to allocate to staff, then a roster can not be successfully generated. If this occurs, some staff need to be assigned leave or have their shift allocations reduced.

Case 2 - Too Many Shifts, Not Enough Staff

If there are too many shifts to allocate to staff, then a roster can not be successfully generated. To solve this problem, you should create one casual staff member for each role. Each of these should have the "Enforce Shifts Per Roster" and "Enforce One Shift Per Day" options set to False. This ensures that casual / temporary staff are only scheduled on shifts that otherwise can not be filled.

Staff Access

Staff who are not roster administrators can access Roster Wizard to view rosters and update their own shift requests. You must configure a password for a staff member to enable this. The procedure is as follows:

• Click on your username in the top right hand corner.
• Click Database Admin.
• Click Custom Users.
• Click the relevant staff member.
• Configure a password and email address.
• Advise the staff member of the URL and password. Their email address is used to login.
• Recommend that the staff member change their password as soon as possible.