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After learning how to create a schedule in RecStaff in your first training session, it’s time to think about publishing a schedule.  There are two ways to go about doing this:

• Publish without staff availability
• Publish with staff availability

A)   Publish without staff availability

When you’re in the middle of a session you already know your staff’s availability, so you do not need staff to provide it.   This makes it easier to pick up where you left off and create your next weekly schedule in RecStaff.  In this case, you create your schedule using the default availability, which is that staff can work all time blocks. 

Here are the steps to do this:

1. Create your time blocks for the session dates.  Even though you aren’t going to be using the availability function you must still create time blocks because they also generate the calendar canvas you draw your shifts on.
   
   
2. Send a message to all your staff from your existing email account.  You do not use RecStaff for your first communication because you will be attaching a file to your email:
   
   
   1. Alert them to the change in scheduling platforms 
   2. Send the Getting Started for Staff pdf
      
      
3. Send a request to RecStaff support and ask them to enable messaging for all your staff.  By default, we create accounts with the hold messaging flag enabled so you can practice with the system without involving staff.  
   
   
4. After giving staff enough time to complete the tasks in the Getting Started for Staff pdf you can publish your schedule. This will trigger shift notification emails/texts to be sent to the staff members who have shifts on the schedule.
    
5. Copy your schedule forward one week at a time until your session comes to an end.   We recommend you copy no more than 4 schedules to start until you’re comfortable using RecStaff.
    
6. Once this session is over you will need to get staff availability for the next.   Go over the Publish with staff availability steps below but replace step 2 with a message from RecStaff requesting staff fill out their availability by a certain date.

B)   Publish with staff availability

If you’re at the beginning of a session, you can take the opportunity to collect staff availability before you create your schedules for the session. To do this, you need your staff to login to RecStaff and provide their availability before you create the schedule.

Here are the steps to do that:

1. Create your time blocks for the session dates.
   
   
2. Send a message to all your staff from your existing email account. You do not use RecStaff for your first communication because you will be attaching a file to your email: 
   1. Alert them to the change in scheduling platforms 
   2. Send the Getting Started for Staff pdf to staff 
   3. Request they fill in their availability and add a deadline to complete
      
      
3. Send a request to RecStaff support and ask them to enable messaging for all your staff. By default, we create accounts with the hold messaging flag enabled so you can practice with the system without involving staff.
   
   
4. Check the Staff Availability report a few days before the deadline to see who hasn’t updated their availability and send reminders to those who haven’t.
   
   
5. Once all staff availability has been added begin creating your schedule for the first week of the session.  RecStaff will let you know availability as you fill shifts.
   
   
6. When you’re happy with the schedule publish it.  This will trigger shift notification emails/texts to be sent to the staff members who have shifts on the schedule.
   
   
7. Copy your schedule forward one week at a time until your session comes to an end.   We recommend you copy no more than 4 schedules to start until you’re comfortable using RecStaff.