The GENERAL IDEA behind scheduler is to be able to arrive quickly at a template for making your schedule.
This means that the schedule you get from Scheduler is not going to be perfect. There are bound to be shifts that can't be filled because of multiple requests people have for days off, or combinations of limitations you set for the maximum number of days in a row to schedule/weekend limits etc.
What Scheduler gives you is the best fit for the data you supply it. Subtleties, like knowing that someone would rather work a thursday than a friday, but will work that day (thursday) if no one else will, aren't handled by Scheduler --- That's what managers are for.
The shifts that it can't handle are indicated by a double asterik '**'
You can always 'cut' or 'paste' your modifications of the schedule
in the Calendar that is provided.
Probably the best way to use Scheduler is to think of it in the way it functions. You supply it with 2 lists.
The first list is for those people who request certain days that they specifically want to work on. This might apply to people who are part time and only work a few selected shifts per month, or to the most senior people you schedule who always work certain shifts each month (e.g. you may have 3 managers at a fast food restaurant that, while they may rotate duty on those shifts , there is always one of the managers present on each shift.) It's may be much easier to put those three people on selected shifts for certain days for each month (or for every month for that matter). On the stack for REQUESTS ON - you add a card for each employee that you want to put on for a certain day and shift during the month. You don't make a card for employees that don't you don't want to be placed on specific days in the schedule. However, if you don't want to erase their card from this stack, but don't want them to be 'placed on' for a current month - simply clear the field that stores the days requested on for that employee.
The Second list is a stack of cards that contains the rest of the employees to be scheduled. Here you enter the employees and specify which days they can't or don't want to work. As well, in the lower half of the card you specify how many shifts they should be allotted to work. Now, you have to realize, that if you are scheduling 3 people and say they can work 30 shifts each, and there is only 2 shifts per month, someone will get short changed - you've got 60 shifts to assign and people allotted for 90 shifts (3 * 30 ). In a like manner, if you have 60 shifts to fill and you only have enough available shifts from people in this stack for 50, then 10 shifts by definition will be filled with '**' indicating Scheduler could not find anyone to fill them.
Soooo. In a nutshell... To Make a Schedule
1. Fill out the stack for Requests On
2. Fill out the stack for Requests Off
3. Set the number of shifts per day
4. Set the number of people per shift
5. Set the maximum number of days in a row you want
employees to be schedule for.
6. Set whether we should restrict how the employees are
scheduled for weekends.
7. Put people in the Schedule that Want certain Shifts
8. Make a Schedule (Scheduler will keep track of people
already Scheduled on Specific Days
Each of these steps is described in more detail in this help stack
NOTE: All of the different cards in Scheduler are all in the same stack. They merely have different backgrounds. So if you scroll through the stack using the arrow keys on your keyboard you'll see the different backgrounds as you go from one group of cards to another. To scroll through cards without having to worry about which group your in - use the menu items on the far right of the menu bar that are unique to Scheduler. That way, when you get to the last card of the group, Scheduler will roll over to the first card of the same group.
In general it will be safer all around to use Schedulers Menu options for deleting and creating new cards etc. than using HyperCards menu items. Scheduler will check to make sure you don't destroy critical cards.
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