Schedule Templates are 24-hour periods of time that reflect a single day of a schedule. In some industries, these are called “Master Schedules“, or “Master Work Schedules“.
You can use templates to organize your staffing requirements in advance of making the actual schedule, allowing you to easily and quickly build a staff schedule. Templates can be created for any number of scenarios, and there are no limits on the number of templates in your account.
Templates allow you to rapidly build a schedule by spending some time in advance, thinking about your labor requirements.
In this lesson, we will build schedule templates for two staff members, and then use these templates to build a schedule.
Navigate to the Schedules Tab
To manage templates, navigate to the Schedules tab, and then the Templates sub-tab, where you will see a list of templates for your location and/or departments.
Edit Schedule Templates
Choose the Edit Schedule Templates link.
Add a New Schedule Template
You can add a new template by clicking on the “Add a New Schedule Template” button, and then enter a name or description, and click “Save” to continue.
Add Shifts to the Daily Template
Editing a template is similar to working with a staff schedule in the TimeForge Daily View.
Select the start time, end time, and position for each shift, and then choose the employee you would like to have work the shift. Just like the schedule Daily View, templates can be built by position or by employee, based on your business needs.
You can also build Templates using Work Periods (commonly called Day Parts), if you would like, by clicking on the Work Period icon, next to the start time.
Employee Staffing with Schedule Templates
Shifts on a template can be assigned to an employee, to the TimeForge AutoScheduler, or as a Bid or Open shift.
- AutoSchedule shifts allow the TimeForge AutoScheduler to choose the best fitting staff member, and will replace the AutoSchedule employee with the best fitting staff member when building the schedule.
- Open shifts will allow a manager to specify the assigned employee when building the schedule.
- Bid shifts can be requested by multiple employees, and the manager can choose the best staff member for the job.
There are several options that can be chosen for each shift by clicking on the Properties link, the small pencil, next to the shift. Options include whether the staff member is an Extra or is On Call, the Skill Level necessary to work the shift, and the number of staff members required for the shift.
In this case, we have built a very simple template with a single shift.
We will Save this template, and create a new template for another staff member.
Build a Schedule Template for Another Staff Member
Just like the previous template, we are creating a template with a single shift for another staff member.
Save this template, and then go build an actual schedule.
Navigate to the Schedules Page
Go to the Schedules page and build a schedule.
Create a New Schedule
Click on “Add A New Schedule“.
Choose Dates for the Schedule
Choose the date range for the Schedule, and name the schedule to continue.
Choose One or More Schedule Templates
When building your schedule, you can choose one or more schedule templates for each day.
In this case, we have chosen to schedule Anthony and Daniel on Sunday, using the templates we built previously.
When we are ready to have TimeForge build the schedule for us, simply click on Assign Employees. TimeForge will then copy the shifts inside of your templates to the schedule, and will assign staff members to work if necessary.
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