How Do I Prevent Overstaffing?

Scheduling staff is a complicated process, and cross-training staff members while scheduling multiple departments, can make scheduling a nightmare. When working with multiple departments, it is sometimes possible to short staff a single department by over staffing another department. Over staffing one department will create a cascade of problems, from upset staff members to increased overtime.

TimeForge’s short staffing rules allow administrators and management to create daily templates and Normal Week templates, which will be used as a base-level schedule for other schedules and departments. TimeForge will warn management if they exceed the departments, or schedule staff who are listed to work on another schedule or template in an overlapping time period.

Create or Edit a Staffing Template

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Start setting up short staffing alerts by creating a new template, or editing an existing staffing template.

Edit the Template Properties

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Edit the Properties for the staff template.

Set the Day of Week for the Template

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Specify the day of the week for the schedule template, so TimeForge knows which day of the week you normally use the template.

Create a Weekly Staffing Template

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Specify the Normal Weekly Template

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After setting up 1 or more templates, create a Weekly Template which includes all of your necessary templates.

In the graphic above, the Weekly Template uses a template on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Other days of the week did not have a template.

To ensure that TimeForge uses the Weekly Template for short staffing alerts, choose the Normal Week check box.

If you are not using departments, you are done at this point.

Build Another Template, for a Different Department

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Short staffing alerts are triggered when Normal Week templates indicate that there may be a shortage in staff members for a particular department or location, by comparing the departments to the schedules and Normal Week templates of the other departments.

To see the template warnings for short staffing, build templates for the other departments, and make sure to set the day of week.

Create Another Weekly Template for the Second Department

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Make sure to set up another weekly template for this department, and set it to be a Normal Week.

Set Up the Shifts in each Template

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Add shifts to your templates. If the shifts that are added will cause your business to be short staffed, TimeForge will warn you. Additionally, if staff members are placed in conflicting templates or departments, TimeForge will warn you.

Detected Shortages will Trigger Warnings

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A shortage warning will appear if short staffing is likely to occur based on what is normally worked in a work week.

Schedule Staff Shortages Show Alerts Too…

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In addition to Template warnings, TimeForge’s short staffing alerts will notify management when the schedule exceeds or overlaps with Normal Week templates for other departments.

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TimeForge University: Schedule Templates 201

TimeForge Schedule Templates can be used to easily and quickly build labor schedules.  Use schedule templates and weekly templates together to identify upcoming labor requirements and plan your staffing needs.

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Additionally, you can build schedule templates as you build your work schedule, and can create an unlimited number of weekly and daily schedule templates.  Each department can also have their own schedule templates, if desired.

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TimeForge University: Schedule Templates 102

Weekly Schedule Templates are 7-day (one week) periods of time that reflect your anticipated scheduling needs for a single week. A Weekly Template is a combination of TimeForge Schedule Templates, and you can have an unlimited number of schedule templates and weekly templates in your account.

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Use Weekly Templates and Schedule Templates to easily organize your labor requirements for upcoming scheduling needs, and anticipate upcoming staffing requirements.

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How do I use Schedule Templates to Create a Work Schedule?

After creating several daily templates, or weekly templates, you can begin making a schedule using the templates.

Templates allow you to rapidly build a schedule, if you will simply spend some time in advance thinking about your labor needs.

Use Schedule Templates to quickly and easily manage your workforce, and reduce the amount of time that you must spend changing the schedule on a weekly basis.

Add a Labor Schedule

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Navigate to the Schedule tab, then the Schedule sub-tab, and create a new schedule. Choose an applicable start and end date, name your schedule, and if necessary, choose other options such as the department or sales type.

Choose Weekly Templates and Daily Templates

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If you have templates set up at your location or store, you will see a screen prompting for you to use templates to quickly build your schedule. Choose an appropriate Weekly Template, or alternatively, identify specific templates for each day of your schedule.

When you are ready to build the schedule, choose “Assign Employees”.

Review the Created Schedule

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TimeForge will then create your schedule, based on the templates you have chosen. TimeForge will assign employees where they are available, create Open and Bid shifts, and may attempt to run the AutoScheduler if any AutoSchedule shifts are available.

If staff members are unavailable to work, but have been indicated to work in the template, TimeForge will normally run the AutoScheduler to find you a better fit for the schedule. The software will then notify you of any changes it needed to make, based on staff availability or staffing shortages.

Create a Template based on the Work Schedule – Daily View

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Additionally, while editing the schedule, you can create a template, or use an existing template, for a single day. This gives you greater flexibility while managing your work force.

In the TimeForge Daily View, click on the Use Templates link to add shifts from a template to the day, or click on the Make Templates link to create a template based on the shifts you have already created.

Create a Template based on the Work Schedule – Detail View

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In the TimeForge Schedule Detail, click on the header for the day, and you will also be able to Use a Template, or Make a Template.

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How Do I use Weekly Templates?

After creating several templates, you can choose to group templates into weekly templates to mirror your labor needs for any given week.

Use Schedule Templates to quickly and easily manage your workforce, and reduce the amount of time that you must spend changing the schedule on a weekly basis.

Navigate to the Schedules Tab

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To manage weekly templates, navigate to the Schedules tab, and then the Weekly Templates sub-tab, where you will see a list of applicable Weekly Templates.

Choose Edit Weekly Templates

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Choose Edit weekly templates to access the weekly templates.

Add or Modify a Weekly Schedule Template

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You can add a new Weekly template by clicking on “Add New Weekly Template“.

Changing the Weekly Template Information

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Enter an applicable Description, and then choose the appropriate template for each day of the week.

When you are done, click on Save.

Using Weekly Schedule Templates with Departments

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If you are using TimeForge Departments, you will notice that weekly templates are separated into departments.

This allows you to create weekly templates for each department, without worrying about positions and staff members that are not in your department.

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heartWhat some of our clients have to say ...

We are one year into it now, well past being enamored with the newness. We are married to TimeForge. It's as essential to us now as any of our management tools today, and we very happy about that.- Steve @ Hermosa Cyclery
We really like the program so far. I know that it is geared towards restaurants, but we are a real estate company and we love it because it is inexpensive and it is so easy to use.- Nicole @ Exit Premier Realty
The Timeforge scheduling system has not only increased our efficiency tremendously; decreased the errors in what is normally an error prone environment; it has also saved us ten times what it costs us each month.- Michael @ Tiara Cafe
I would highly recommend TimeForge to anyone making work schedules. ... What used to take 1-2 hours, now takes 15 minutes. The reports section is comprehensive and useful.- Lawrence Payne @ Mid Pacific Country Club
I've been really pleased with this latest version of TimeForge. I'm really getting familiar with this program and its become a great time saver! Keep up the good work!- Loren @ Fresh Produce
Before using TimeForge, creating a schedule took 2 hours. With TimeForge, it takes less than 10 minutes.- Gail @ Kerr Drug

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About TimeForge

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