A project plan is an excellent tool for staffing, especially when it comes to shift work or shorter projects.
An overview of all project plans can be found in the staffing calendar, and then select Project plan – Month at the top right of the page.
Then, all projects will be listed under the customer they are affiliated with. The display lists all days of the month defined at the top of the screen, and all days are represented as rows/boxes.
The different colors mean:
| White square | No project shifts this day |
| Red Square | None of the project shifts are covered (assigned an employee). |
| Green square | All project shifts on this day are covered. |
| Orange square | With a warning triangle means that there is a deviation. It could be, for example, a double booking, set up on a shift that does not exist, only covering parts of the project shifts, etc. |
The numbers in the square describe how many shifts will or should have been covered.
Click on a square to view all the shifts that day. Here you can, among other things, create new project shifts and easily cover shifts.
You can also click on the show-more symbol (>) to see a more detailed overview of the employees on the project.
Filtering and search in project plan month
The search filters that apply to the project plan month view are:
There is also a filter from the Employee overview filters that can be used in the project plan month.
| 1 | Project plan status | Here, you can filter out covered, uncovered, and partially covered days. For example, you can see what days you do not have to staff. |
| 2 | Requests | Filter status on requests. Whether they are rejected or accepted. |
| 3 | Inquiry no. | Here, you can enter inquiry no. and see project shifts attached to a specific inquiry. |
| 4 | Candidate attributes | Here, you can filter employees who have one or more candidate attributes. |
Overview of employees who have or have been affiliated with the project
When you are at the shift overview (tap one of the squares in the project plan overview), you’ll see which employees have active jobs on the project, as well as those who have previously worked on the project. You also see the availability of the employees.
| Employee tab | Pressing the employee tab gives you a lot of information in a list. Star rating of the employee (editable), salary and invoice price, from and to date (editable), which collective agreement the employment agreement is associated with, the salary matrix the employee is affiliated with and a note field retrieved from employee cards (editable). |
| Calendar | The calendar icon is a shortcut to the employee’s work calendar. Is this red it means that the employee is set up on another shift that day. |
| Suitcase | The suitcase is a shortcut to the employment agreement (collective agreement) for the job. |
| Person | Provides a preview of the candidate card. |
| Telephone | The phone icon shows the employee’s phone number. |
| From date | The date the job started. |
| To date | The date the job is to end. |
| Book | The last symbol is used to book shifts on the employee. |
If the employee’s working period is outside of the date the shift is on, the candidate will be under Previous Jobs. Pressing the tab at Previous Jobs gives you all previous employees and the opportunity to get all information from their employee assignment. You also get an arrow icon, which is a function to extend your assignment to today (the day you are on the project plan) so that you easily get the employee available to assign a shift.
The red Stop icon means that the employee has been placed or made themself unavailable that day.
The green checkmark icon means that the employee has made themself / been set as available that day.
Create a project shift
Here, we go through three ways to create shifts.
- Create a single shift or multiple shifts
- Create a repetitive shift plan.
- Replicate an existing shift plan.
Create a single shift or multiple shifts
To create a shift, you must first tap the square on the day you want to create the shift.
Then press Create project shift.
You will then get this screen, defining the information about the project shift. The different fields are explained below:
Define dates: On the left, you have a calendar, and to the right of the calendar, you get a field for date and fields to define the shift start and end time. If you want to create more shifts, you can tap on more dates in the calendar, and they will be added to the date list.
Allocate project shifts to employees: Under the calendar, there is a field where you can assign shifts to employees who have active jobs in this project. We will return to the allocation of project shifts later in this article.
To the right of this field, you define the shift name (the project name is by default). You can then define whether there should be a break on the shift and its length (e.g., 30 minutes, as in the example above). In Qty, you define how many shifts you need for the defined dates; for example, if you need three people for a day shift, you choose 3 in the field for Qty. The repeat function we explain in depth below. Then, there are three fields for notes: internal, employee notes, and invoice notes. Finally, you can define which subproject the shift should belong to (if you have created a subproject on the customer). When you are done filling out all the information for the shift, just save it. Remember to edit the information afterward by pressing the edit icon in the overview.
Create a repetitive shift plan
If you want to create a shift plan that will go over a longer period of time, i.e., repeat shifts. You can do this (from Add project shift, the other fields you use as in the example above) by tapping in the Repeat field. The default for this field is No repetition, so you only create individual shifts. If you change this field, you can define a repetition cycle, for example, if this schedule is to be repeated every week, every other week, every three weeks, etc.
The next step is to choose which days the repetition should apply. For example, if you want to create shifts for all weekdays but not for weekends (as in the example below).
The final step before making a repeating shift plan is the end date that you define in the Repeat to field.
After saving, there will now be a whole project plan created with just a few keystrokes, and you can now start the job of staffing shifts in this shift plan. The good thing about making these repetitive shift plans is that they are now in the same shift thread, making it easy to delete the entire thread or possibly delete the thread with employee associations.
Replicate a shift plan
For example, if you have set up a shift plan using one of the two methods we have shown above, you might want to copy/replicate easily the shift plan you have created. For example, by extension of the assignment so that you do not have to create a shift plan again.
Instead of pressing Add project shift and creating a new weekly plan, we instead press Replicate.
In the next screen (see the picture below), you get in the left-hand field (Copy period) an overview of the original shifts (date, time, and associated employee). To the right, you will get an overview of the copied/replicated shifts (date, time, and possibly employee association if you want to copy them too). When you press Replicate, this is saved, and you have copied the shift plan.
Note that you can choose between two different period intervals, Week and Period. If you select Week, you can replicate a weekly shift plan (can only replicate one week at a time). If you choose Period, then you must first define the period you want to replicate (can range from one shift to 100). You also define the start date of the period you want to create new shifts.
Settings
Click the Settings icon to add new tags or shift threads:
Booking of employees/assignment of shifts
Assign shift to an employee
You can assign a shift to an employee in the box for a project shift. This is done by the Assign field just below the calendar, where you define the shift dates (see picture below). This drop-down list contains all candidates who have active jobs on the project.
If you have first created the shift and wish to assign them at a later time, this can easily be done by drag&drop from the day overview. Then, you hold the mouse pointer over the name of the employee (must have an active job on the project), click, and drag the name to the shift you want to assign (see illustration below). If the employee is not in this overview, it will mean that he or she does not have an active job here, then he/she must be added first, something we’ll look at a little later in this article.
Book employee on a shift thread
If the project shift is part of a shift thread, you will be able to book the employee to several shifts within that thread when you drag the employee over the project shift. Then you will come to this screen.
Here, you can select the current shifts and press Book. Then, the system goes through the shifts and information related to the employee (employee information and employment agreement) and looks for a violation of any of the shifts (then gets a red warning triangle).
In the example above, you can see that there was a violation of the shift on 09.11.2022. When we then return to the project plan and try to book the employee on this date manually, we get a Notification box where you can read why you could not register the employee on this shift.
Book an employee who does not belong to the project
If you do not have anyone available on the project from before, you can search for available employees by clicking Add employee.
Here, you will be able to search for employees in the employee base, as well as filter on the various criteria you want. For example, you can filter on employees who have previously worked for the company, salary matrix category, and custom candidate attributes. These attributes are the same attributes found in the candidate base, and if you have already filtered specific attributes in the candidate base, then the system will remember and show you the same attributes that you filter in the candidate base. You can “build” a filter by filtering on multiple attributes at the same time to find employees with just the specific expertise/experience, etc., you need. The results of the search are shown to the right in the Employee Overview.
Click Add to put the employee in work on the particular project. If you want to put more employees at work at the same time, just select more and click Create Jobs. Then, you get the Create job screen, which defines the job(s) specifications (salary, price, matrix, duration, etc.).
Then, just drag the employee into the shift you want to cover.
If you want to staff an employee quickly by covering more shifts, tap the link symbol, and you will then be able to click on the various available project shifts that you want the employee to staff.
Click on the blue available project shifts to staff them.
Next step
After allocating project shifts to employees, they will be included in the overview/work calendar of the employee. The next step is to register hours on the shifts. More about hour registration can be read in this article.
Remove an employee from a project shift
In the same way, you can easily create project shifts and assign shifts to one or more employees, and you can also easily remove employees affiliated with a project shift. This is done by pressing the edit icon on the shift to edit.
Then, you get to this screen (picture below). Here, we see that the shift is assigned to Carrie Fox, to remove it, press the trash can icon. If the candidate is affiliated with a larger shift thread, then you have the option of deleting multiple shifts in the thread at the same time.
Note
The system will not automatically send an email to the employee who “loses” the shift. This can be done manually by selecting the employee from the overview in the project plan and pressing the email icon.
Inquire project shifts
In RecMan, you have the opportunity to request employees if they can take available shifts directly in the system. To send out requests, you go to the project shift, mark the employees you want to ask who can take the shift, and then press the Send shift request button.
You will then come to a screen where you can check off the shifts you wish to send a request to. Then press Send.
Accept/decline requested shifts
The requested candidates appear in the work calendar of the employee in their profile (RecMan-page). There, they have the opportunity to press the various shifts (in yellow) to choose if they want to take the shift or deny it.
The list of requested shifts can be found on the project shift by pressing the paper plane symbol. Here, you can choose the employees who have accepted, as you wish to put to work, or you can choose to withdraw the request if you have already found the employee you wish to take the shift.
In the staffing calendar under Project plan – month views, you also have the option to view sent requests by pressing the Show More icon.
Send agreements for a single day
In order to send out agreements in a quick way for a specific booked day, press the Send agreements button at the top right when you’re in one day.
To send the agreements, select Employee and Customer as recipients, as well as a template (for example, it’s smart to use the merge fields we have used to list the shifts).
Then, you come to the screen to send out the agreement. Here, you choose whether the agreement is to be sent by SMS or email, and you also choose a message template that will be the email/SMS that is sent. Tap Send, and you will receive a receipt for the submitted agreements.
In the settings, you can choose the background (picture or neutral), language, and whether agreements can be signed or commented on.
Send agreement (assignment confirmation/order confirmation) for a longer period
Above we went through how to send agreements (assignment confirmation/order confirmation) for a specific day. If you want to confirm a longer period, for example, the entire scheduled period, it can be done in the same way as above but from Offers in the main menu and Shiftwork offers.
Select a customer, project, employee or multiple at the same time, depending on whether or not you want to create confirmation for multiple projects and multiple employees at the same time, and then click Create offers.
Note that in this view, you can also filter on different data, for example, status, period and employees.