The "By Rotation" Interface

The "By Rotation" interface is one component of the Rotation Schedule Planner (RSP). It is a scheduling tool organized around the staffing requirements of your rotations. This interface uses placeholders, or slots, to represent available staff positions on rotations. To plan next year's schedule, you simply assign people to these slots.

If you have entered staffing requirements for a rotation, they appear as numbers at the beginning of each row. These rows are also colour-coded so you can see your target staffing levels at-a-glance. Targets are shown as dark green rows with an arrow next to the number. If you have not set staffing levels for a rotation, the rows appear white. If a rotation is currently overstaffed (i.e., you've exceeded the maximum staffing level), the overstaff rows appear red.

You can plan your entire rotation schedule for next year using this interface. However, you will likely want to use it in conjunction with the "By Learner" interface. Data entered into either one of these screens is automatically updated in the other one, so you can switch between them as often as you like.

To plan next year's schedule using the "By Rotation" interface:

1 Click the Schedules tab.

2 Click the schedulePlanner link.

3 Click the "by rotation" tab.

Under this tab, your rotations are arranged alphabetically down the left side of the screen. Across the top is the yearly calendar with your rotation block structure immediately below it. To the right of each rotation are one or more rows. Each row corresponds to an available staff position on that rotation as determined by the staffing levels you've already entered into the system. These rows are also divided into blocks according to the block structure at the top of the page.

4 Click an empty staff slot. A People Picker appears.

The People Picker shows a list of all your learners and how many times they've already been scheduled for that rotation in that year (i.e. their rotation "count"). If a learner has already been scheduled for a different rotation in that block, their name will be crossed out, indicating that they are unavailable.

Beside each learner's name is also a link to the rotation history data stored in their eDossiers (Hx). Click the Hx links at any time to see a list of the rotations a learner has already completed or is scheduled to complete this year, as well as the list of rotations you've already scheduled them for next year. Consulting this data as you plan for next year will help you ensure that your learners fulfill all their certification requirements. Normally, you would have to keep track of this data by hand.

5 Click the name of a learner to fill that staff position. Their name now appears in the schedule.

6 Repeat steps 4 and 5 as many times as you need to. As you go, you'll notice that the information in the People Picker is continually updated.

Remember, every time you enter data into this interface, the data is automatically updated in the "By Person" interface as well. Therefore, you can move back and forth between these screens, with all the information you need at your fingertips and without having to keep track of it yourself.

When next year's schedule is complete, it is time to make it available to your leaners through their eDossiers. To learn about this last step of the RSP, click here.