Staff Allocation Assistant
The staff allocation assistant is designed to give you a visual indication of staff requirements for an individual room on a single day. The page is split up into four components.
#1 – The date calendar and room sector
Select the date and room that you wish to allocate staff. The staff list will display all of your current staff along with the number of hours that they are working on the day selected. Note: The number of hours worked is not specific to the room that is currently selected, it is the total of all shifts allocated to that staff member.
#2 - Current Staff List
Use the buttons to the right of the staff list to allocate the selected member of staff to the selected room. The staff shift hours dialog will be displayed when adding staff to the room allowing you to specify the shift hours.
#3 - Child Count & Staffing Levels Display
The child count and staffing levels display provides a visual colour coded display of your staffing requirements throughout the day for the room selected. Split up into 30 minute segments, the display indicates at the top the number of staff required for each 30 minute period followed by the number of staff allocated to the selected room and finally the number of children.
The display is colour coded RED for not enough staff during the period, BLUE for the required staff level and GREEN for over staffed.
The staff required calculation is dictated by the staff to child ratio as defined on the Staff tab of the application options form. The default settings adhere to the OFSTED staff to child ratios.
As staff are added or removed to the room the staffing levels display will be updated accordingly.
#4 - Graphical view of staff allocated to selected room
The staff allocation view displays a list of the staff currently allocated to the selected room as well as the shift(s) times that each staff member is working.
The staff allocation grid can be used to update the shift(s) worked, in the image below the hours 10:00 through 12:00 have been selected using the mouse, when the mouse button is released a popup menu is displayed giving you the option in this case to reduce the shift hours for the selected staff member.
If the selection includes hours that the staff does not currently work then you will be given the option to extend the shift or create a separate shift. NB: These shift(s) will be reflected in the staff hours reports.