March 16th 2023, Release Note: WFM UK | Scheduling: Template Management

Summary

• Enabled by Default? - Yes
• Set up by customer Admin? - No
• Enable via Support ticket? - No
• Affects configuration or data? - No

Release date:  March 16th 2023

What’s Changing?

Introduction of shift templates.

Reason for the Change

To bring functionality in line with the original user interface. To help save time - reduces the need to create shifts manually.

Customers Affected

All Activity-Based Scheduling users and those using Scheduling with the new user interface. 

Release Notes 

New functionality has been developed so that users can save shift templates and load them into future schedule weeks. 

Saving Templates

• From the Scheduling page go to Manage > Templates > Save Template

Fig.1 - Scheduling > Manage > Templates > Save Template

A save template input field will be displayed.

• Enter a name for the shift template and Save

Fig.2 - Naming a saved template

All employees' shifts from the current schedule will then be saved as a template

Managing Templates

• From the Scheduling page navigate to a future schedule week 
• Go to Manage > Load Template

From here, templates can be loaded and also deleted.

• Load Template - tick the box against a single template
• Delete Selected Templates - select multiple templates to delete if required

Only one template can be loaded at any one time.

By loading a template, all existing scheduled shifts will be deleted and replaced with those from the selected template.

Fig.3 Schedule > Load templates 

Successful loading of the template will be displayed at the bottom of the page.

Fig.4 - Schedule template successfully loaded

Conflicting Employee Unavailability with Shifts when a Template is Loaded

If using the My Schedule app, a setting can be applied which will inform users when shifts loaded templates clash with employee unavailability records.

• In the Scheduling module navigate to the Settings page
• Go to Settings> My Schedule Settings > Organisation Settings
• Tick the box for Warn when unavailability conflicts with shifts when template is loaded
• Scroll down and Save

Fig.5 - Organisation setting - unavailability warning

With this setting enabled, when a template or last week’s schedule is loaded to the current week, a pop-up box will appear, showing if any shifts are trying to be loaded for employees where they have unavailability.

The pop-up contains the following columns:

• Employee Name – Employee Name or preferred name if functionality is enabled
• Date – Date of the unavailability clash
• Employee Unavailability – Recorded unavailability for the employee. Created by the employee in the My Schedule app
• Employee Shift – Shift(s) for the employee that clash, causing unavailability for that day
• Shift Action – The default will be 'Select Action'

All Shift Actions need to be completed

The Shift Actions are:

• Schedule Shift – shift is scheduled
• Remove Shift – shift is not scheduled

Fig.6 - Unavailability conflicts - 'Shift Action' column

When all Shift Actions are selected, the Save Actions button will become available. If there are any outstanding shift actions an error message will be displayed.

The Schedule All Shifts button will schedule all shifts conflicting with employees’ unavailability.

If any Shift Actions have been set, this button will override the Actions and schedule all shifts from the template.
 

Fig.7 - 'Schedule All Shifts' button and tooltip