Schedule templates

Overview

Schedule templates reduce the amount of time required to create consistent, repeating work schedules that an organization delivers and apply them to a calendar period. 

Work within a schedule template is based on accounts, customers, or locations. The work can be permanently assigned to a resource or left unassigned to be allocated when the template is applied to a calendar period.

Schedule templates are also commonly referred to as base rosters or rota templates.

Schedulers can create collections of work (jobs, shifts, and activities) in a template for up to 12 weeks and group work that reflects the common pattern or base level demand for work.

For example, a hospital might schedule staff around a four-week rotating roster. Rather than creating the same work and requirements from scratch every four weeks, schedulers can create a template and apply it to the calendar based on the start date of the new rotation. This significantly decreases the amount of effort required to build the same static set of work over repeat cycles.

Templates provide flexibility to create work as a placeholder for work where the details cannot be defined until closer to the roster period. This can be useful for organizations, for example, that are contractually obliged to provide clients with a specified number of hours of work.

Using predefined templates of work also makes it easier to identify work that was scheduled as part of a template of anticipated work and ad-hoc or reactive work that occurred during the same period.

Template mode

The template mode appears as a scheduling grid for you to create jobs, activities, and shifts over the number of weeks you have specified:

1.  Template mode is indicated in the upper-left corner.
2. Click Exit template mode to return to the grid view.
3. The same filters are available in template mode as are in the grid view.
4. You can display up to two weeks at a time when creating a schedule, and use the navigation buttons to move across the weeks in the template. 
5. Template mode displays the day of the template rather than the calendar date.
6. Create the work you want to include in the template from the cells. Work can be allocated to a specific resource by clicking a cell on the row of the resource and under the day they are to do the work.
   Alternatively, work can be left unallocated by selecting a cell in the Unallocated row.
7. You can select multiple items of work to delete them from the template. A notification confirms a successful deletion. 
   
8. The Actions menu in the upper-right corner includes the options to change the name of the template or delete it entirely.
   
   

How to create a schedule template

Schedule templates are a component of Skedulo's grid view in the web application. See 1.10 Grid View for more information about the grid view.

To create a schedule template, click Schedule > Grid view to open the scheduling grid view in the Skedulo web application:https://<teamname>.my.skedulo.com/console/plan

1.  In the grid view, click Templates in the upper-right corner.
   
2. The modal displays any existing predefined schedule templates. You can edit or apply existing templates from this modal, or create a new template. 
   
   Click Create new template.
   
3. Provide a name for the new schedule template and select the number of weeks (up to 12) you want to be included in the template, then click Create. 
   The example below is for a new template that covers four weeks. 
   
4. Click the cells where you want to create a Shift, Job, or Activity placeholder. 
5. When you have completed your template, you can click Apply in the upper right corner to apply the template. 
   If you do not want to apply the template yet, you click Exit template mode to close the template editor. 
   
   Templates save automatically.

How to apply a schedule template

You can apply a template from the Template mode editor, or from the list of saved templates in the Templates modal.

• To apply a template from the template editor, click the Apply button in the upper-right corner in Template mode.
• To apply a previously saved template, click Templates in the upper-right corner of the schedule grid view, then click Apply on the template in the modal that you want to apply to your schedule.

The Apply template modal appears after you click Apply in either of the above scenarios.

Click inside the Start date box to select the date from which you want the schedule to start. The information below the date box reflects the schedule dates based on the start of the schedule.

Click Apply to confirm the information is correct and apply the selected template.