Configuration

The configuration of a schedule controls how On-Call Optimizer will generate shifts to assign for the schedule, and any availability information sourced from other schedules that should be taken into account when generating assignments.

In addition to the schedule configuration described on this page, other aspects of the how the schedule behaves throughout its lifecycle are controlled via:

• The list of members and their roles and properties on the Members tab
• The assignment settings accessible by clicking the wrench icon beside the “Next Shift Assignment” heading on the “Overview” or “Assignments” tabs of the schedule.
• Any destinations that are configured for the schedule.

Basic Configuration

The basic configuration for a schedule includes its Name and the Time Zone in which it operates.

For schedules linked to an external On-Call Product the basic configuration is not editable and will be automatically synchronized from the external schedule.

Shift Configuration

The shift configuration describes how On-Call Optimizer will generate future shifts for the schedule. Up to 10 shifts may be configured on a schedule. The available configuration fields for each shift are:

• Day: Required. One of the normal days of the week (Mon-Sun) or one of the wildcard values Daily, Weekdays, Weekends.
• Hour: Required. In 24-hour notation, 00 - 23.
• Minute: Required. 00 - 59
• Primary Assignee: Optional (but at least one assignee is required across all shifts).
• Secondary Assignee: Optional.

Valid values for the assignee fields are:

• Any of the assignable members of the schedule (creating a static assignment).
• A reference to a role in another schedule (creating a nested assignment)
• One of the following special directives:
  • Best Member to request automatic assignment between all assignable members of the schedule.
  • Best Member for GROUP_NAME to request automatic assignment between the members of a specific assignment group only.
  • Last Primary to request assignment of the member assigned to the primary role in the previous shift.
  • Last Secondary to request assignment of the member assigned to the secondary role in the previous shift.
  • [Not assigned] to request that no member be assigned to this role in the shift.

The Day, Hour and Minute fields describe when each new shift will start. The Primary/Secondary Assignee fields describe who, or how On-Call Optimizer will choose to, assign to each shift.

The [Not assigned] keyword is typically used in the secondary field when only a single assignee is required for the shift, however it can also be used in the primary field when you wish to configure a schedule with non-continuous assignments (e.g. only create shifts for business hours Monday to Friday). The only restriction is that at least one of the shift configurations must contain an assignee - there’s no point asking On-Call Optimizer to manage a schedule to which no-one is ever assigned!

Use the example configs to further understand how shift configurations can be combined to achieve a variety of different schedule types and configurations, or for detailed information consult the extension logic, and assignment algorithm reference.

Cross-Schedule Availability

The cross-schedule availability feature can be used to automatically generate availability information for a schedule based on the assignments that are present in another schedule.

The availabilty information generated by cross-schedule availability configurations will be used with the same weight and purposes as availability information that has been individually supplied by members from their calendars.

Configuring cross-schedule availability requires 3 pieces of information:

• Action: The type of availabilty information to create (Block or Prefer).
• Source Assignee: Which of the assignees from the source schedule to create availability information for.
• Source Schedule: The schedule from which to source the assignments used to generate the availability information.

Configuring cross-schedule availability creates a dependency on the source schedule which requires that it has been assigned prior to the schedule that is depending on it. Attempts to assign new shifts for a schedule which has a cross-schedule availability dependency on a source schedule which does not yet have assignments covering the dates of the requested assignment will fail as the source shifts needed to generate the availability entries required by the configuration do not exist.

Therefore when configuring cross-schedule availability you need to double-check that the horizon and schedule window settings for the source schedule are appropriately set to ensure it is always assigned before the schedule depending on it.

Assignment Groups

Assignment Groups provide a way to limit the members eligible to be assigned to a shift to a subset of the members in the schedule.

To add and configure assignment groups click the “Configure assignment groups” link below the Shift Configuration section which will display the assignment groups sidebar.

Default assignment group

Every schedule has a default assignment group called members that is automatically maintained by On-Call Optimizer to contain all of the currently assignable members of the schedule. You cannot remove or directly modify the default assignment group. The default assignment group is used when the standard Best Member directive is selected as the assignee for a shift.

Custom assignment groups

Schedule members or admins can create additional assignment groups by clicking the add icon at the bottom of the assignment groups sidebar. Custom groups are configured with:

• A name, used to uniquely identify the group when selecting it as an assignee for a shift.

• Whether or not to automatically add members to the group.

  By default this setting is enabled - the group will be created with all currently assignable members of the schedule as members of the group, and new schedule members will also be added to the group at the same time they join the schedule in future.

  Disabling the setting will create an assignment group containing no members initially, and will require members to always be explicitly added to it.

To edit a group, click the pencil icon to the right of the group’s name in the assignment groups sidebar to place the group into edit mode.

• Toggle the membership of each assignable schedule member in the group by clicking on the tick or cross next to their name.
• Turn the Auto-add new members setting for the group on or off using the toggle button.

To confirm any changes made, click the tick icon to the right of the group name, or to delete a group click the trash can icon to the right of the title.

Assignment groups that are in use (referenced by at least one shift) cannot be deleted and must contain at least one member.