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Get To Know Your Working Time Calendars

Andrew Dotto Updated by Andrew Dotto

Working Time configuration is used to define when workers are available for scheduling, when they are unavailable, and how their working patterns should be applied within DRS.

Configuring your Working Time Calendars

There are a number of options within this area, that you can choose to configure

Configuration Area

Purpose

Day Off Calendars

Define dates where work cannot be scheduled, such as public holidays or company holidays

Working Hours Calendars

Define regular or cyclical working hours for workers

Daily Schedule Types

Define reusable day patterns used within Roster Calendars

Day Off Calendars

Day Off Calendars are used to create a list of dates where work cannot be scheduled into a worker’s diary.

They are commonly used for national holidays, company holidays, or other planned non-working days.

A Standard Day Off Calendar is typically created to hold common dates that apply to multiple workers. Separate Day Off Calendars can also be created where different workers require different non-working dates.

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When adding or editing a ‘day off’, a start and end date is specified along with a relevant comment and/or unavailability reason which will be displayed in the diaries the calendar is associated with. 

Below shows where the day off calendar can be selected within a worker record on the bottom row 

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Working Hours Calendars

Working Hours Calendars define when workers are available for scheduling.

Calendars are linked to Worker records and are used by the scheduling calculation to determine worker availability.

There are two types of Working Hours Calendar:

Calendar Type

Description

Weekly

Used for regular weekly working patterns

Roster

Used for cyclical working patterns or shifts

Both calendar types allow a fixed lunch break to be applied. However, fixed lunch breaks are not always recommended, as some jobs, such as all-day jobs, will not be automatically split around these breaks.

Working Hours Calendars can be managed using the buttons at the top of the page.

Action

Description

Add

Create a new Working Hours Calendar

Edit

Amend an existing calendar

Copy

Copy an existing calendar and amend it as required

Delete

Remove a calendar that is no longer required

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When creating new calendars, you are presented with the following screen where you can populate the name, specify the type, include Quotas (discussed in the Quotas section below) and populate a timetable of the hours that will be worked. 

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Hidden travel time allows you to factor in minutes at the start and end of each day that only account for travel. We have a lot of customers using this to prevent the unnecessary travel at the start and end of each day coming into the diary and impacting on the working day. It ensures that if an operative has up to 30 minutes of travel in the morning for example that he arrives on site for 8am where travel doesn’t exceed this value. If travel was 45 minutes, then only 15 minutes of the travel time would come into the diary/working day. 

Working Hours Limitations allow you to introduce weekly/daily quota limitations surrounding time spent at a Depot. For more information on configuring this please contact your Advanced Consultant

Weekly Calendars

Weekly Calendars are used for workers who follow a regular weekly working pattern, rather than a cyclical shift or roster pattern.

They allow you to define which days are working days and which days are non-working days.

For each day, you can configure:

Field Name

Description

Working Day

Select the checkbox to confirm the worker is available on that day

Begin Time

The start time of the worker’s working day

End Time

The end time of the worker’s working day

Lunch Break

Optional fixed lunch break period

Fixed lunch breaks can be added to Weekly Calendars. However, this is not always recommended, as some jobs, such as all-day jobs, will not be automatically split around these breaks.

Weekly Calendars also allow you to define where the worker starts and ends their working day.

Start and end locations can be set as:

Location

Description

Home

The worker starts or ends from their home location

Agency

The worker starts or ends from their assigned agency location

Hotel

The worker starts or ends from a hotel location

You can also specify whether the worker starts or ends the day at a depot, where this applies.

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Roster Calendars 

Roster Calendars are used for workers who follow a cyclical working pattern or shift-based arrangement. They are typically linked to a start date, which is used to determine where the worker is within the repeating pattern. A Roster Calendar defines both working and non-working days, including the start and end times for each working day.

For example, a 4 on, 4 off roster would allow a worker to work for 4 days, followed by 4 days off, before the pattern repeats.

Roster Calendar timetables use a slightly different format to Weekly Calendars.

Instead of configuring each day of the week, you build the repeating pattern by adding or deleting days within the roster timetable. Each day in the pattern is assigned a predefined Daily Schedule Type. These Daily Schedule Types define the working times and day type used for that part of the roster.

Once the roster pattern has been created, DRS uses the start date and timetable sequence to calculate the worker’s availability.

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Quotas 

Quotas are used to reserve diary capacity for specific priorities of work.

They are commonly used to hold capacity for emergency work that may be raised on the current day. This helps prevent worker diaries from being filled entirely with lower priority work, such as urgent or standard jobs.

By reserving capacity for emergency work, jobs can be booked at the first point of customer contact instead of being passed to a planner to manually fit into already full diaries.

Quotas are configured using a standard Working Hours Calendar.  Duration Fill levels are set (in minutes) against configured Emergency, Urgent and Routine Jobs using configured Attributes.  

The priorities are matched against the Priority Type configured in your PRIORITY menu.

You can set Quotas to calculate Weekly or Daily.  Daily is the recommended configuration for Quotas. 

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Quotas require configuration and consultancy from an Advanced Consultant. Please consult your Advanced Consultant for more information on this. 

Daily Schedule Types 

Daily Schedule Types are used to build Roster Calendars.

Before creating a Roster Calendar, you must first create the Daily Schedule Types that will be used within the roster timetable.

Daily Schedule Types define the timings and type of day that can be selected when building the roster pattern. For example, they may be used to define a standard working day, a late shift, a weekend shift, or a non-working day.

From the Daily Schedule Types page, you can create new schedule types or delete existing ones.

Action

Description

Add

Create a new Daily Schedule Type

Delete

Remove a Daily Schedule Type that is no longer required

Edit

Update an existing Daily Schedule Type

Copy

Copy the configuration of a schedule type.

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When creating/editing a new type, you can 

When creating or editing a Daily Schedule Type, you can define:

Field Name

Description

ID

The unique identifier for the Daily Schedule Type

Name

The display name for the day type

Begin Time

The start time for the day

End Time

The end time for the day

Day Type

Defines the type of day, such as working or non-working

Lunch Breaks

Determines whether lunch breaks apply

Depot Use

Determines whether depot configuration applies

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Once created, Daily Schedule Types can be selected when building the timetable for a Roster Calendar.

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