Adding a Shift on a Service Planner

Adding a Shift to an existing schedule is very easy to do, right on the Service Planner. When you add a Shift directly on the Planner, it only adds the Shift for that week; the following week will be back to normal. If you want the new Shift to be part of the ongoing schedule, you can simply go into Times for Service and copy this week's pattern forward.

There are two ways to add a Shift on a Planner:

1) Click on the Planner’s Shift Menu and select “Add new Open Shift”. You will be prompted for the date: choose the date you want the Shift to start on. This can be any date at all. If it is not a date on the current Planner, you will be taken to that week as soon as you have added the Shift. Then you will be prompted for  the times. Fill them in using the same format as you would on the Times for Service screen (e.g. 9-1 or 9a-1p). Note: this is the only way to add an additional Shift on an existing 24 hour case.

2) Click on the Service Summary Line (right underneath the days of the week), where you want the Shift to start. A red block will appear. Right-click and a menu of possible Shifts will appear (see the figure below). These all start on the hour closest to where you clicked, and end either 1, 2, 3 or 4 hours later.

Figure 86: Adding a Shift directly on a Service Planner

If you press and hold the mouse button, you can drag the red block around until it’s where you want it. Note that, as you drag it slowly around, it jumps in one-hour increments. This makes it easy to put it on the specific hour you want; for example, if you want the shift to start at 1:00p, you can click near noon (the large tick mark in the middle of the day), then drag to the right until it hops one time.

What if you don’t want the Shift to start on the hour? In that case, choose Add Shift at the top of the menu, or Other at the bottom of the menu. You will be prompted for the times of the new Shift. Fill this in (just as you would in the Times for Service form) and hit Enter. For example, by clicking anywhere on the day you wish to add a shift, selecting Other from the menu and entering “1230-5” at the prompt, you would be adding a new Open Shift that goes from 12:30 pm – 5:00 pm on that day.

You can also use the right mouse button to add a Shift, in the same way outlined above. This eliminates a click, as the Add Shift menu will appear immediately upon releasing the right mouse button.

After you add a Shift, you may want to click on it and verify that the times are correct before Assigning it. If the times are not correct, simply open the Shift form and adjust the times there.

Note that you can add a Shift onto any Planner, even if the Status of the Service is Inactive or Deactivated. The Scheduling System will simply change the Status of that week for you, and change it back on the following week.