Table of Contents

Table of Contents
About scheduling 2

How to use scheduling workflow 3

Start your schedule 3

Add and remove personnel 5

Structure schedules with the Schedule Wizard 6

Do your scheduling 8

Check how you’re doing 9

Changing what you see 9

Publish your schedule 10

© 2006 Intellicate Limited. All rights reserved. Schedule24 is a registered trademark of Intellicate in the United Kingdom and/or
other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

1 Intellicate Schedule24 Standard Edition

 About Scheduling

1. About scheduling
Scheduling is a complex and time consuming business. Using paper and pencil it will take an
average of 40 hours to schedule 30 staff for one month. For a conscientious manager it can
take even longer. Managers also face challenges meeting business requirements with
traditional and less flexible working hours for the longer working day or even 24 hour working.
Change in workforce labor trends has also seen a move away from traditional working hours,
with growth in part-time, shift and flexible working arrangements. Many countries have
formalized these trends and passed legislation in support of what many now feel to be
important work-life balance issues.

Schedule24 Standard Edition is a new employee scheduling solution, designed for budget-
conscious managers struggling with paper and pencil to deliver flexible working strategies in
today’s competitive market place. It is easy to use and understand and no special training is
required. It can be installed without the need for a technical specialist .

There are many scheduling styles, but essentially they fall into one of two categories:
structured scheduling or unstructured scheduling—sometimes there may be a combination of
the two. Schedule24 Standard is designed to support both or a combination of styles.

Structured scheduling delivers significant advantages over unstructured scheduling styles.

The capacity for more complex and large scale scheduling increases with little additional
effort, and higher levels of scheduling automation are achievable. Compliance scheduling is
also easier to put into practice.

Unstructured scheduling may be the only approach possible if the manager has no control
over staff availability, and effectively schedules the business requirement to fit. Unstructured
scheduling does become more efficient when managed in a consistent way, and it is not
unusual to evolve more structured scheduling strategies, with the benefits that offers.

Schedule24 Standard is not just about saving scheduling time, it also improves the quality of
scheduling. It achieves this through structuring and analysis of staff working hours, so that the
manager is able to see the whole business picture with greater clarity.

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How to use Scheduling Workflow

2. How to use scheduling workflow

The scheduling style you use will determine which features and tools you will need to create
schedules. The general workflow for a structured scheduling style involves the following
steps:
1. Creating a schedule using the Schedule Wizard
2. Adding or removing staff using the Personnel Manager
3. Modifying your schedule using the Shift Editor and Schedule Editing Tools
4. Monitoring and analyzing schedule performance using the Staff Cover
Count and Distribution Profile
5. Printing and publishing your schedule to the web

! Tip: The scheduling goal is getting the right cover count and balanced distribution
profile over the correct time.

The general workflow for an unstructured scheduling style focuses more on the Schedule
Editing Tools and Shift Editor. This involves the following steps:
1. Opening a blank schedule
2. Adding or removing staff using the Personnel Manager
3. Directly entering and modifying your shifts into the schedule using the Shift
Editor and Schedule Editing Tools
4. Monitoring and analyzing schedule performance using the Staff Cover
Count and Distribution Profile
5. Printing and publishing your schedule to the web

The difference between the two styles is that the unstructured scheduling style does not use
the Schedule Wizard to automate the bulk of the scheduling process. Unstructured
scheduling allows total control over the schedule but is not as fast and consistent as
structured scheduling.

3. Start your schedule

Your main working document is a Schedule. It can be shared with other team members over
a Windows network. You can view a schedule someone else is working on, but if you wish to
work on it at the same time then you will have to open it as a copy and save it with a different
filename when you have finished.

! Tip: Make sure the View > Navigation Pane is displayed, most of what you need
can be found there without hunting through the menu lists.

3 Intellicate Schedule24 Standard Edition

 Start Your Schedule

Getting started couldn’t be easier. If you want to create a structured schedule the EasyStep
Schedule Wizard is probably the best place to start. You don’t even have to think about
entering staff details to get some idea about the kind of schedules you want. It will
automatically calculate the staff requirements and enter default staff into your Personnel
Manager that can be updated later.

Starting from the very beginning means opening a blank schedule. Scheduling Assistants will
prompt you through the workflow for entering staff details using the Personnel Manager.
That’s the first job you need to do, and once completed the scheduling structure is displayed
ready to enter your shift details and any other kind of scheduling information you need.

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Add and Remove Personnel

4. Add and remove personnel

Anything to do with staff details is managed by the Personnel Manager for recording staff
contact information. Each schedule has a maximum of 25 staff, and you can have as many
schedules as you want. Entering staff details is the first job you need to do to start
scheduling, except when using the Schedule Wizard which will automatically calculate default
staff requirements if not defined.

! Tip: If you work with more than one schedule to develop your schedule ideas,
you can import existing staff from another schedule. There is no need to enter
personnel details more than once.

You don’t have to enter all your information about staff in order to schedule. The most
important pieces of information used by the schedule include name and title, which can be
used for salutation or job role. This information can be used to sort information in the
schedule.

You can also use descriptions in these fields to identify vacancies that still need to be
included in the schedule.

! Tip: You can change how much personnel information is displayed in

Schedule24 Professional using the View Checkboxes in the Tools > Options dialog.
These include Title, First Name and Last Name.

5 Intellicate Schedule24 Standard Edition

 Structure Schedules with the Schedule Wizard

5. Structure schedules with the schedule wizard

The fastest way to produce structured schedules is to use the EasyStep Schedule Wizard.
The EasyStep Schedule Wizard takes you through eight straightforward steps that manage
the complexity of scheduling including:

⇒ Calculating the staff and team requirement for the schedule you create
⇒ Multiple shift types including split shift working
⇒ Fixed or rotating schedules
⇒ Work-day to day-off ratios
⇒ Day-off staggering to maximize rest periods
⇒ Staff distribution for each shift
⇒ Direction of rotation for healthier shift working; and
⇒ Speed of rotation to reduce the effects of unsocial hours working and sleep
deprivation on night shifts.

The Wizard applies scheduling best practice, which for some schedules may not be what you
want. One example would be ‘orphan’ or isolated days-off in a schedule. Most managers try
to avoid them, and the Wizard always keeps days-off grouped together. For these kinds of
schedules you will need to create your schedule by entering data directly into the Schedule
Work Area using the Schedule Editing Tools.

The Schedule Wizard will calculate a schedule using defined staff, or automatically calculate the default
staff or team requirement for the schedule you create.

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Structure Schedules with the Schedule Wizard

As you progress through the Wizard information is dynamically updated in the feedback panel about total
and average hours for both work and rest periods.

Fixed schedules, or rotating schedules with fixed days-off are easier to manage than rotating
schedules. Other factors involving multiple shifts, and the direction or speed of rotation can
make any schedule more complex. With the Schedule Wizard all this is taken care of.

If you want a rotating schedule that uses the same shift but want to rotate days-off, then enter
the shift for each week of the rotation cycle e.g. if it is over 4 weeks then enter the same shift
4 times and use the Wizard rotation options to get the day-off pattern you require.

When you have completed your schedule all you need to do is click finish and your completed
schedule pattern will be displayed in the Schedule Work Area for further information about
assignments and unavailability.

! Tip: Using the zooming feature and Schedule Editing Tools in the Schedule
Work Area, you can quickly repeat the schedule structure over many weeks and
months.

7 Intellicate Schedule24 Standard Edition

 Do Your Scheduling

6. Do your scheduling
You will have started your schedule either by using the Schedule Wizard or by opening a
blank schedule. When you have entered information about staff, either by the Schedule
Wizard or the Personnel Manager, your Schedule Work Area will be displayed. You are now
ready to add more detail to your schedule including shift changes, assignments, unavailability
and just about anything else using Memo. You can quickly access common scheduling tools
from the “Do your Scheduling” section of the navigation pane displayed on the left.

! Tip: You can import personnel information from another schedule to create a new
schedule. You do not need to enter personnel information more than once.

Structured Scheduling— Shifts

The fastest way to structure your scheduling is to use the EasyStep Schedule Wizard. You
can also apply structure to your scheduling by using the Schedule Editing Tools to rapidly
copy your schedules, including other information such as assignments, in one go using the
Copy & Paste Special feature.

Unstructured Scheduling—Shifts
This gives you total control over your schedules, but is not as fast as structured scheduling.
You enter shift information directly into the scheduling area using the Shift Editor including
shift descriptions.

Scheduling Activity—Everything else

Once you have your shift information displayed you are ready to add more information into
your schedule:
⇒ Assignments. You can schedule multiple assignments to staff. These can
be jobs or tasks they need to know about during their shift. Use Types that
categorize assignments so they can be used again for other staff.
⇒ Unavailability. Vacation, sickness and training can be recorded, and you
will get a warning where this will remove a staff shift or assignment.
⇒ Memo. This is for any information you wish to communicate to staff, or
yourself, whilst scheduling.
⇒ Shifts. Use the Shift Editor to modify a shift or range of shifts including split
shift working. Remember to add a shift description to view shift names.

! Tip: You can map and turn color on or off for all this information in Tools >
Options > Color including shifts, days-off, assignments, unavailability, weekends and
defined public holiday dates. Use the Hours view, Cover Count and Distribution
profile to analyse both structured and unstructured schedules.

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Check How You’re Doing

7. Check how you’re doing

You can show or hide information about how your schedule is progressing as you work. You
can also change how calculations are made to display exact, average or projected summary
totals about working hours. You can also customize displays to change what you see. These
are the most important ones:

⇒ Cover Count is displayed at the bottom of your schedule and tells you the
availability status of your workforce, the total working hours, and scheduling
costs by shift and job title for each day. You can customize this list.
⇒ Distribution Profile displays a line graph showing the distribution profile of
available staff over the dates you have highlighted in your schedule. Time
ranges zoom from days down to 15 minutes.
⇒ Working Hours. You can display staff working hours using View > Hours to
display a dynamic total as you work through your schedule.

8. Changing what you see

You have a range of options in the Tools > Options dialog to change what you see including:
File lists, time formats, color mapping of shifts, weekends and public holidays. You can also
customize the calculation for displaying working hours.

9 Intellicate Schedule24 Standard Edition

 Publish Your Schedule

9. Publish your schedule

There are two main schedule formats, the Weekly Schedule and the Daily Schedule.

The Weekly Schedule Format.

This is the same grid format you see in your Schedule Work Area. It is designed for forward
planning with scope to display assignment and unavailability information.

The Daily Schedule Format.

This is much more detailed and designed for operational scheduling for staff and line
managers. It contains all the information about shifts, breaks, assignments, unavailability
status or any other information as a Memo communication. All the information is automatically
cross referenced.

Personnel and Contact Information

You can also publish detailed staff records including training and service records. It also
includes vacation tracking that automatically totals vacation taken, and vacation scheduled to
be taken, and displays the balance against the vacation entitlement.

Scheduling Content
You control all scheduling content and formatting options in File > Page Setup. In addition to
page layout options, and customizing header and footer information, you can customize the
content of schedules and personnel information before it is published. You also set the staff
and date ranges for the schedule you publish.

Easy, Accessible, and Fast

Publishing weekly schedules
to the web, using the Web
Wizard, means your team
can access scheduling
information and is a great aid
for forward planning.

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