Recurring shifts are a new way to schedule in RecStaff. The following table defines some of the new terminology and concepts in scheduling.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Recurring Shift | A recurring shift that repeats from week to week and is connected across those weeks. Whenever you edit a recurring shift, you have the option to make the change to the current shift or to certain instances of the shift across all weeks. Recurring shifts are indicated throughout the system by a little chain link icon. "I'm going to edit that recurring shift but only for this week" |
| Shift Series | All the instances of a recurring shift are called a series. Whenever you open a detailed view of a recurring shift there is a new tab called "Series" which shows you all instances of the shift across the weeks. A series can be posted to the shift board just like a single shift; when staff request to pick up the series it shows all the dates and they are committing to taking all of them. "I'm going to edit that shift series to replace Robin with Terry for the rest of the year" |
| Lesson Set | A lesson set is a special kind of recurring shift; it has a first date when it begins and a last date when it ends. Lesson sets can be multiple shifts from the same week so a lesson set could include a Tue and Thur shift from 4-8pm. The shifts don't have to be at the same time; you could create a lessons set for a Wed shift 4-8pm (soccer practices) and a Sat shift (9-11 am games). Lesson sets give you options to add additional information to the shifts like a catalog ID. "I'm going to assign that lesson set to Chris so he will be working Tue/Thur for the next 8 weeks" |
| Schedule Set | When schedules have recurring shifts, they link to the same shift on the previous and next schedules; this chain of schedules with recurring shifts is called a set of schedules. When schedules are part of a set they will have a little chain link icon showing in the schedule listing. When you create a new schedule or copy an existing schedule, you have the option to continue the set, linking the new schedule into the chain, or to starting a new set. "I'm going to copy our current front desk schedule to next month and start a new set" |
| Session | This is the same idea that you probably already use in your own scheduling - a session is a span of time that usually maps to a season (ie. summer) or to your program calendar. In RecStaff, a session has a span of dates, a schedule type, a template to use as the basis for schedules and a location. If you schedule using sessions you can have RecStaff auto-generate schedules for the entire session. You also need to use sessions if you want to create lesson sets. "I've create a new session for Bayside aquatics for the coming winter session" |
| Auto-generation | If you schedule for a session, you can have RecStaff take your template and roll it forward for all the dates in the session. The process will handle weeks at the start and end of the session that might be only partial. "I've finished my template now so I can auto-generate my schedules for the Winter session" |