Shift Templates and Schedule Types Overview
Shift templates and schedule types in inContact Workforce Management v1 act together to specify the labor rules governing work activities and hours. This
Schedule types specify rules for weekly and daily total work time and for types of shifts that can be assigned during a week. The rules set on the schedule type define the number of regular hours in the schedule, the maximum allowable overtime, and so forth. For example, you may have a schedule type named "Normal 40" that is assigned to all full-time employees who work a standard Monday-Friday work week. Schedule types can be edited, but they can only be deleted if they are not assigned to any employees.
Shift templates are assigned to schedule types to further define the shifts within the schedule, specifying the activities included and the rules governing those activities. For example, you may have a shift template named "Normal 8" that defines the shifts in a "Normal 40" schedule. Shift templates can be edited, but they can only be deleted if they are not assigned to any schedule types.
Within a shift template, you can use shift activity types (for more information, see Shift Activity Types Overview) and set time guidelines for each activity within a shift. Multiple instances of the same shift activity type can be used in a template. For example, the Break activity might be used twice in a template—once with a start time that occurs between one and two hours after the shift begins, and once with a start time that occurs between six and seven hours after the shift begins.
One shift template can be used by multiple schedule types. For example, you might use the "Normal 8" shift template in both the "Normal 40" schedule type and in a "Normal 30" schedule type assigned to part-time employees.
You can assign multiple shift templates to the same schedule type. For example, you might have some employees who are assigned the "Normal 40" schedule type but who work 10-hour shifts. Therefore, you might assign both the "Normal 8" shift template and a "Normal 10" shift template for use with that schedule.
To create shift templates and schedule types, you must understand and incorporate any applicable corporate and government labor regulations. The automated scheduler uses this information to determine what shifts to give an employee. The number of schedule types and shift templates needed can vary based on an organization’s needs.
General Considerations
Keep the following considerations in mind when creating shift templates and schedule types:
- Employees must be associated with a schedule type to be included in manual or automated inContact WFM v1 schedules.
- An individual employee can be associated with only one schedule type.
- There is no automated way to assign employees to specific shifts. However, careful planning and implementation of schedule types and shift templates can allow for fairly specific results.
- The Minimum minutes between shifts setting prevents users from being scheduled on a mixture of day and night shifts during the same week. If users rotate shifts from one week to another, this change must be made manually after a schedule is created.
- The more complex your organization's schedule is, and the more flexibility you need to accommodate, the greater the chance that you will need to incorporate some manual editing into building your schedules.
- The inContact WFM v1 scheduling algorithm automatically handles Daylight Saving Time changes. However, schedules that include the hour of the change (2:00 AM) may display some anomalies. For more information, see Schedule Tab in the "Employee Profile Reference" section of the inContact Workforce Management v1 User Manual.
Sample Scheduling Scenarios
Scenario 1: Three Eight-Hour Shifts
A company has three shifts: 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM, 4:00 PM – 12:00 AM, and 12:00 AM – 8:00 AM. Staffing is seven days a week. Employees do not rotate shifts and work either Monday – Friday or Saturday – Sunday.
In this scenario, create one basic shift template (for example, an eight-hour shift with a 30-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks) and assign it to the following schedule types:
- Weekday Morning
- Weekday Evening
- Weekday Night
- Weekend Morning
- Weekend Evening
- Weekend Night
Scenario 2: 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM Hours
A company is staffed from 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM, Monday through Saturday. Employee shifts can change (for example, morning, afternoon, or evening) and can be four, six, or eight hours. Employees work no more than 32 hours a week over five days. In this scenario, create one schedule type and three shift templates.
Schedule settings should be:
- Minimum minutes between shifts: If an employee can work until 8 PM and then work another shift at 7 AM, this value would be 660 (11 hours * 60 minutes).
- Maximum hours: 32
- Maximum hours per day: 8
- Schedule shift days: All days except Sunday
Create a shift template for each four, six, and eight hour shift. These templates may require different activities based on labor regulations.
Scenario 3: 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM Hours, Rotating Saturdays
This scenario is the same as Scenario 2 except employees are required to work only one Saturday per month. In this case, create the schedule type and shift templates described in Scenario 2, but exclude Saturday and Sunday from the shift templates. Then create three Saturday-only shift templates, one for each time block. Assuring employees work only one Saturday per month would require manual schedule editing.