What's New
On-Call Optimizer is continuously improving. Get the details on the latest changes and updates.
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in November 2024.
Product Improvements
- Support for importing calendars from any product capable of generating an iCalendar (ICS) feed. More details
- The badges displayed beside the name of a schedule linked with an external system (e.g. Pagerduty) have been improved to better represent the configuration of the
link, in particular whether it is used to import configuration, export shifts or both. Additional documentation has also been added to explain the concept of a
linked schedule.
Certifications
Significant progress has been made in On-Call Optimizer’s certification journey during November:
- Advantage Partners has been engaged to complete a SOC2 audit of On-Call Optimizer.
- Capture the Bug has been engaged to complete a black box penetration test of On-Call Optimizer.
Bugfixes and minor changes
In addition to the changes described above, the following bug fixes and minor changes were also released in October 2024.
- The “retain events” setting on individual calendars has been removed to simplify the product. User feedback showed this feature to be both confusing and
infrequently required. Removing or deselecting a calendar will now cause all events imported from that calendar to be removed and unavailable for use in
future assignments.
For more details on older changes, please select a month from the list below.
1 - November 2024
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in November 2024.
Product Improvements
- Support for importing calendars from any product capable of generating an iCalendar (ICS) feed. More details
- The badges displayed beside the name of a schedule linked with an external system (e.g. Pagerduty) have been improved to better represent the configuration of the
link, in particular whether it is used to import configuration, export shifts or both. Additional documentation has also been added to explain the concept of a
linked schedule.
Certifications
Significant progress has been made in On-Call Optimizer’s certification journey during November:
- Advantage Partners has been engaged to complete a SOC2 audit of On-Call Optimizer.
- Capture the Bug has been engaged to complete a black box penetration test of On-Call Optimizer.
Bugfixes and minor changes
In addition to the changes described above, the following bug fixes and minor changes were also released in October 2024.
- The “retain events” setting on individual calendars has been removed to simplify the product. User feedback showed this feature to be both confusing and
infrequently required. Removing or deselecting a calendar will now cause all events imported from that calendar to be removed and unavailable for use in
future assignments.
2 - October 2024
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in October 2024.
29 Oct 2024 - Add/modify members on linked schedules
Membership options for schedules linked with an on-call product are now more flexible:
- Additional members not present in the on-call product can now be added to the schedule in order to grant administration of viewer privileges. Members added
directly to On-Call Optimizer in this way are not eligible for assignment in schedules.
- Members sychronized from the linked on-call product schedule can be marked as ineligible for assignment in On-Call Optimizer to temporarily or permanently
exclude them from generated assignments.
Both capabilities can be accessed from the Members tab of a schedule. Please refer to the Schedule Members docs for further details.
16 Oct 2024 - Auto-invite configuration
A new setting to control whether On-Call Optimizer will automatically send invitation emails to newly added members of a schedule has been added.
Previously On-Call Optimizer attempted to allow the user to choose behaviour in real-time by providing several different action buttons during the creation
or modification of a schedule.
For more details regarding the operation of this setting (which defaults on), please refer to the documentation.
15 Oct 2024 - Tabbed UI for schedules
The schedule pages and configuration have been re-organized into separate tabs to improve the usability, navigation and discoverability of the various
aspects of a schedule.
Please take some time to explore each of the tabs and let us know what you think.
Notable relocations:
- The members of the schedule are now configured and managed on a top-level page accessed from the Members tab.
- Settings related to automatic assignment are now on a separate page accessed by clicking the wrench icon beside the Next Shift Assignment heading on the Overview or Assignments
tabs.
- Destinations for the schedule have been promoted to a top-level tab, rather than being hidden at the bottom of the previous edit schedule page.
Bugfixes and minor changes
In addition to the changes described above, the following bug fixes and minor changes were also released in October 2024.
- The case of the admin of a schedule configured to synchronize from a source schedule being removed is now correctly handled by marking the member as un-assignable in On-Call Optimizer,
but leaving them as the admin of the schedule. Previously the synchronization failed as it attempted to remove them from the schedule entirely, leaving the schedule without an admin!
- The ability to change the roles and assignable status of schedule members is now present on the Members tab of a schedule.
- Fixed import of Pagerduty schedules containing references to users that no longer exist in Pagerduty.
- Improved UX for schedule member role modifications to only show options available to users based on their current role.
- Fixed a bug preventing the addition of Schedule destinations in certain circumstances.
- Fixed bug preventing recognition of
noc as a valid availability block keyword. - Fixed an issue where the import of historical shifts prior to the auto-assignment start date could overwrite confirmed assignments in On-Call Optimizer
if one of the imported shifts spanned the start date itself.
- The previous validation requirement that the auto-assignment start date and shift configuration days must much has been removed. This means the first assigned
shift may occur on a date after the configured start date (e.g. if the start date is a Monday and the configuration only has shifts starting on Wednesday).
3 - September 2024
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in September 2024.
4 Sep 2024 - Schedule balance and assignment quality statistics
On-Call Optimizer now provides detailed statistics on the balance and assignment quality of a schedule to assist in the understanding and management of a schedule.
Schedule balance is calculated and managed over the mid to long term timeframe and ensures that each member of the schedule is assigned a proportionate share of the
total number of shifts.
Assignment quality is calculated and managed for each individual assignment and takes care of ensuring that member’s availability information is respected, shifts are
not too close together and many other related factors.
More details regarding schedule balance…
More details regarding assignment quality…
Balance improvements for schedules with partial shift swaps
In conjunction with the new balance statistics now being reported, the handling of partial shift swaps has been improved to ensure that the balance of the schedule is
maintained even when partial swaps are required.
Prior to these improvements balance was calculated by counting the number of shifts of each type assigned to each member, with fractional swaps resulting in many
different types of shifts of varying duration being created and balance being managed within each type individually.
The improved approach maintains a record of the original shift type any partial shift originated from so the
appropriate fractional share of the shift can be accounted to the member in the balance calculation.
4 - August 2024
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in August 2024.
28 Aug 2024 - Blocked swap requests are deferred not declined
When a swap is requested On-Call Optimizer previously automatically declined the request on behalf of a member if their availability information
contained a block covering the shift being swapped. Based on customer feedback, this behaviour is now changed to only defer the swap request so that
the member has the opportunity to accept the swap if their circumstances have changed.
Please refer to the swap documentation for more details on the differences
between declining and deferring a swap request.
02 Aug 2024 - Organization Support and Schedule Permissions
Organization Support
On-Call Optimizer now recognizes the organizational metadata provided by Google and Microsoft when authenticating from
a Google Workspace or Microsoft Work account and places the On-Call Optimizer account into a corresponding organization.
The organization can be used to manage permissions for users and schedules across the organization.
More details…
Schedule Permissions
Schedule members can now be assigned a role which determines the permissions they have within the schedule. The three available
roles are Admin, Member and Viewer.
Historically members had permissions equivalent to Viewer, but based on feedback and collected experience all new members added to
schedules will default to being assinged the Member role, allowing them to configure and manage the settings and assignments of the schedule.
This change is being gradually deployed to Schedules and may not yet be visible in your schedule.
More details…
5 - July 2024
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in July 2024.
30 July 2024 - Notification improvements
Notification for new assignments and new swap requests
On-Call Optimizer now generates notifications when a new assignment is confirmed for a schedule, and when a new swap request
is created. These notifications can be received via email or Slack (via the new integration described below).
New assignment notifications are enabled by default and are sent to:
- Each member of the schedule: containing the specific shifts newly assigned to that member.
- Any linked Slack channel: describing the full set of shifts that were confirmed.
New swap request notifications are only enabled by default for Slack channels linked to a schedule. Individual members are able to
opt-in if desired, but are not opted-in by default to avoid created unwanted duplication between notifying upon creation of
the request, and the point at which the member receives the existing “swap response required” notification (which cannot be disabled).
More details…
Slack app
On-Call Optimizer now has a Slack app which can be used to interact with
your schedules from within Slack to view current information and receive notifications for events such as new swap requests.
This feature is available to users with an organization linked account and requires installation
of the On-Call Optimizer Slack App into the organizations Slack workspace.
Additional app functionality and notifications are planned in future releases.
More details…
6 - June 2024
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in June 2024.
26 June 2024 - Swap Requests for partial shifts
Ability to request a swap for a partial shift
Swap Requests can now be created for partial periods during an assigned
shift (e.g. one day during a week, or one hour during a day). To initiate a partial swap request, click the
Edit start/end time button to the right of the Shift to Swap line when creating a swap request.
When responding to a swap request for a partial shift On-Call Optimizer attempts to identify equivalent partial
shifts from your assignments to present as
swap candidates.
More details…
Support for swapping the current shift
On-Call Optimizer now supports the ability to request a (partial) swap for the remainder of the current shift.
This change means swap requests now remain active and do not expire until the end of the shift being swapped,
where previously they would expire at the start of the shift if a response had not yet been received.
More details…
Availability information will now only be imported from events which you have
either organized, or explicitly accepted.
Prior to this change, any event on a configured calendar which matched the filtering criteria
would create an availability entry in On-Call Optimizer - including events created by other users on shared/team calendars and events you
have been invited to (but have not accepted) from any user. The inclusion of these types of events almost always resulted in unwanted
availability information being present in On-Call Optimizer which is prevented by this change.
This change will also remove any existing availability information that had been previously imported but does not match the new criteria to
ensure consistency between On-Call Optimizer and the configured calendars.
More details…
Availability information sourced from a calendar that is no longer connected can now be removed by clicking the red cross shown to the right
of the entry in the availability list shown on the home page.
More details…
On-Call Optimizer’s default behaviour of retaining any previously imported availability information for future use when a calendar is
disconnected can now be disabled.
When disabled, any previously imported availability information is removed and will not be used in future assignments from the point when
the calendar is disconnected.
More details…
12 June 2024 - UI improvements
Navigation Breadcrumbs
To assist with navigation and understanding of where you are in the application, On-Call Optimizer now provides navigation breadcrumbs
at the top of the main content area.
To reflect their central importance to On-Call Optimizer the external integrations for Calendar and On-Call Products have been
promoted to top-level items in the side menu on the left of the page.
Pointers to this new location from the previous links within
the user profile and schedules pages have been maintained while users adjust to the change.
Dark Mode
On-Call Optimizer now supports light and dark themes. The default theme will be chosen based on your operating system settings as
reported by your web browser. To override the default theme use the selector to the left of the user menu in the top-right of the page. Your selected theme will be persisted in your account settings and will take effect across all logins.
5 June 2024 - Support non-continuous shifts
On-Call Optimizer can now support assignment of shifts that are non-continuous (e.g. contain gaps in coverage) which are typically
used in situations where a schedule is desired to provide business-hours only coverage.
To use this feature, create a shift configuration for the time
period where no assignee is desired and select the [Not Assigned] placeholder as shown in the example config.
More details….
7 - May 2024
The following changes were released to On-Call Optimizer in May 2024. For more recent changes see the current changelog.
Two new ways to view the availability information associated with a schedule have been added.
Member availability summary
From the main schedule page, click the View member availability link under the list of members to view a summary of member availability
matched to each shift of the next assignment planned for the schedule (top of page), as well as a list of the individual availability
events that have been imported for each member of the shift (bottom of page).
The information on this page reflects the live view of future availability and will change over time as availability information is added,
removed and updated from connected calendars for each member.
Assignment availability history
The availability information that was used when constructing each assignment is now displayed alongside the assignment for any pending
or confirmed assignment.
The availability information shown on an assignment page is a snapshot of the actual data used in the assignment and is unaffected by any
subsequent additions, removals or changes to the live availability data used for future assignments.
28 May 2024 - Require manual confirmation setting
Automatic assignment is now enabled for all schedules by default. The previous setting to disable automatic assignment has been replaced
with a new setting to require manual confirmation of new automatic assignments.
The configuration of existing schedules is unchanged, by once automatic assignment is enabled it will not be able to be disabled again.
More details…
20 May 2024 - Assignment algorithm improvements
The assignment algorithm has been significantly improved to fix issues identified with providing balance between members when large
imbalances are present in the historical schedule.
14 May 2024 - Swap Functionality
On-Call Optimizer’s long awaited swap functionality is now live!
When unexpected changes happen after the schedule has been confirmed users can now simply let On-Call Optimizer know which shift they
are no longer able to perform and let On-Call Optimizer handle the logistics of finding an appropriate member or take or swap the shift
with, saving time and hassle.
More details…