Attending Schedules Getting Started Guide

Attending Schedules Getting Started Guide Contacts Stuart Karon Founder Vermont Office Product Development, Support, Training Email: stuart@amion.com Tel: 802.649.1911 Web site: www.amion.com Carol Philips Cumming Marketing Director Maryland Office Licensing, Sales, Implementation, Support, Training Email: carol@amion.com Tel: 301.767.1675 Download Software 1. Go to http://www.amion.com 2. Click on the Download link at the bottom of the page. 3. Click on the year you wish to download. 4. Run the Install file. 5. When the directory box opens, click the Extract button. 6. Type in the Download Password that is contained in the confirmation email when the software was purchased / renewed. 7. Drag and Drop the OnCall Program onto your desktop. Building a New Schedule 1. Open the OnCall icon. 2. Choose Create A New Schedule 3. Choose Calendar Year for Attending Schedules. Or, choose Academic Year for Residency Schedules. 4. You will then see the General Setup Box (Figure 1). 5. Your General Setup Box is where you will initially enter the specific information that will build the schedule. 1

General Setup Box The first step in creating the schedule is to input information for each of the below tabs: Figure 1 General Setup Box Sites: Optional: This would be any other site that staff would be assigned to. (i.e., a multicampus University Hospital.) If there is only a single site, this can be left blank. Services: These would be the shifts or services you are scheduling. Note, that CME, Sick, and Vacation are already added. Staff Type: These are different types of people you will be staffing; Attendings, Fellows, RN s, PA s, etc. Note that each staff type is color coded. In addition, each staff type s work hour percentage can be selected here as well. Once you enter the Staff Types, you can go back to the Services tab and select the Staff Type that covers each unique service. The default is that each Service is covered by all of the Staff Types entered. Staff: These are the names of your staff. Choose a Staff type from the pull-down menu on the right and then add all of your corresponding staff. It is recommended to enter last name, first initial (for example, John, D.). Choose the next staff Type, and then add these staff names. You can have multiple names for each staff type. Finish: Click Save and name your file with the Department name and the year that the schedule represents. This will make for easier recognition of your file. When it is saved the choose Display Schedule. IMPORTANT TIP: After the initial setup is complete, the general setup box can be displayed again by selecting General setup found within the File Menu. 2

OnCall Default Calendar After you click Display Schedule the below screen will appear (Figure 2) default Calendar view. The first of your Services will be highlighted in the infobox (Figure 3). Figure 2 Default Calendar View Figure 3 - Infobox Footnote Pager Shift Times Staffed by Staffed Every Day Call Pattern Call Slot Day After Rules Infobox In this example, the first box says Labor. This is the Service Name. You can retype the name of the Service in here if you need to make an adjustment. After you have formatted your first service, then click on the next one down and repeat the previous steps for all of your services. 1. Footnote: Optional. A note to appear that describes the service online (will appear at bottom of schedule when printed). 2. Pager: Optional. Group pager for everyone on service. 3. Call Pattern: Variable call or Q-Call: If you have no Q-Call then set it to Variable call. Q1 service everyday, Q2 every other day (used most often for residency schedules). 4. Call Slot: Number of people covering the shift. 5. Day After Rules: An on rule might stipulate that a person on shift A does shift B the next day, two days later, etc. An off rule describes shifts people cannot do on the same day, the next day or on days subsequent to being on a shift. 6. Shift Times: Set your shift times as accurately as possible. This will ensure that your Tally counts come out correct. 7. Staffed by: allows you to filter out any Staff type that may not be assigned to a certain service. Click on the Staffed by button. Simply uncheck the staff types that do not apply to this service. 8. Staffed Every Day: This box will set your service to be accessible for specific days, Weekends, Weekdays, Holidays, etc. This is particularly helpful for calls that only pertain to weekends or weekdays. 9. Tally Weights: You can make tally weight adjustments for different calls where some calls require full attendance and others do not, to make the system fair for everyone. 3

Important Icons At the top there is a toolbar with 12 different icons (figure 4): Figure 4 - Toolbar Table View This changes the view from the calendar to the table view. Calendar View This will open Calendar View. This is the default view. Work Preferences This will show a personalized schedule for all of your staff where personal information (pagers, email, etc.) can be added, as well as Vacation, Sick Time and CME. Statistics This icon will display your Tally Counts for your staff. Schedule Content Viewer - Control what services show up in your sub-set view. Infobox Will hide and show your infobox in Expert mode. Day Range View Span Will set the span of days you can view at one time. Custom Shift Time - If on a certain day, you have a shift that will start or end at a different time, you can change the shift just for that one day. Split Shift Will allow you to split a shift between 2 staff members and adjust the time that that split will take place. Post a Note You can add a notation to any day on your schedule. This note can be viewed by all at Amion.com, or you can set it to only be viewed by you. Highlight Highlights a certain Staff member s name, allowing you to quickly view all of their assignments at once. Help Will bring you to the tutorials window. Arrows - Clicking on the right arrow will advance you ahead through the months. 4

Staff Contact Information, Work Preferences and Special Requests Next you will want to enter your staff s work preferences and any special requests for the upcoming period that you plan to schedule. In the Individual staff infobox you can also enter staff contact information; pager and telephone numbers and email addresses. If you enter pager and phone numbers, these can be displayed at the web site to make it easy for operators and other staff to contact the person on call. By entering email addresses, staff will be able to submit special requests online once your schedule is published. By entering requests before you start your schedule, you cannot accidentally put someone into the schedule on a day they can t work. Step 1: Click on the Work preferences button staff infobox (Figure 5). Step 2: Enter contact information for each person. to bring up a calendar and the Individual Figure 5 Individual Staff Infobox Staff Names: The first pull-down menu will list all of your Staff names. The Calendar will be shown for the person you have chosen in this box. For example, here we are looking at J. Doe. FTE %: The second pull down menu is the FTE percentage. You can set your employees to be part time or full time, depending on their employment status. Abbreviation: The third box is for the Abbreviation that will show up on the schedule. This is automatically done for you, but if you wish to modify it, you can do it here. Target Dates: If you have staff that have to cover a minimum amount of hours, add that number here. This part is not necessary for scheduling, but it is helpful when planning to use the Autoscheduler function. (First box is for monthly targets and second box is for yearly.) Days On/Off: On the second row, you will see a series of 7 boxes (figure 6). These boxes represent the days of the week. (The first box being Sunday and the last Saturday.) If you have a staff member that is regularly unavailable for call on a certain day of the week, for instance, if a staff member has a lab or research day on Wednesday, you would click on the middle box to make them unavailable for most Wednesday s. Click on days in the schedule to make a person unavailable for call. Figure 6 Days On/Off 5

Special requests with notes: Click on the green Special Requests button in the Infobox: In the Special Requests Window (figure 7), click on the + sign to add a request. Figure 7 Special Requests Click on a date in the calendar, or use the arrow keys in this Window to find the date. The request date appears in the white box area (figure 8). Use the up/down arrows to add days. Enter a note to accompany the request the description box. To delete a request, click on the red X icon. Figure 8 Example Request When you begin scheduling, the person s name will be available in the selection, but highlighted in green indicating the request. The note you entered will come up when you move the mouse over the initials (figure 9). Figure 9 6

Create a Call Schedule You are ready to start entering staff into the schedule. First you will learn to quickly populate your schedule for the first month using a simple method to enter staff. Once you ve seen how easy it is to quickly enter staff, you can learn to work with the more advanced tools to complete schedules. Step 1: Click on the Schedule in Calendar format button. For simple schedules, use this format to create your schedule (figure 10). If you have many shifts and services, it may be easier to schedule in Table format, but start with the Calendar format. IMPORTANT TIP: You can change the order in which your services are listed. Click on a service name and drag it up or down the list to the position you d like and release the mouse button. Step 2: Click on a date cell where you d like to begin your schedule. For example, click on the date cell for your first service for Jan 2. Immediately the initials pop up of all staff available to work in this service. Step 3: Select the person who should take the call that day by clicking on his/her initials. Once you ve made the selection, the cursor moves forward to the next cell. Figure 10 Notice your infobox now has a list of your staff names, and there are a set of initials in each calendar day. Step 4: Continue to move from cell to cell, inserting staff for each service, until you ve finished the month. Then go and insert staff names for all the additional services. 7

Using Autoscheduler: OnCall s Autoscheduler (figure 11) is designed to automatically fill call duties in your schedule. You can find Autoscheduler within the Window Menu. It spaces out assignments as much as possible and divides the work up fairly. The Autoscheduler tries to balance the number of weekends vs. specific days of the week each person gets. It also tries to ensure that a person doesn't end up assigned to several Mondays (or any other day) in a row. And it does its best to balance people's total workloads. If you ve applied any call patterns to a service, the Autoscheduler will complete the schedule following your patterns. The Autoscheduler will also reflect any FTE numbers you ve set up for individual staff and staff types. Figure 11 Autoscheduler Options You apply the Autoscheduler one row/service at a time indicating the range of dates you wish to fill. Click on a service name outside the area of your schedule and go to File / Window and select Autoscheduler. In the Autoscheduler dialog box use the "Fill" option to apply the tool to weekdays, weekends and holidays. If, for example, you want to complete holiday coverage manually, uncheck Holidays. Once you have selected all your preferences, click on Apply. If you d like the Autoscheduler to follow patterns, turn on Pattern fill call in the Options menu. After you ve completed your call schedule you ll need to go back and check your schedule and make any adjustments. If you need to change an individual date be sure and turn off Pattern fill call in the Options menu. 8

Using a Template to Create a Schedule: The Template tool fills weeks or months of the schedule with people's standard assignments. It can also use a schedule that you create as a pattern for making future assignments; people you place in subsequent schedules get a set or sequence of shifts as defined by the template but the people need not be the same as those in the original model schedule. The template will store a copy of the template for a pre-existing schedule that you already created. Step 1: Go to a blank part of the year and enter assignments. Fill in 1 week, 2 weeks or however many days/weeks it takes to complete one cycle of shifts. When done, go to the Window menu and select Template. The box to the right will appear (figure 12) Figure 12 Template Options Step 2: In the upper-right of the Template box, select the range of dates to store as your template. In the lower-left, click the button that says Store N-day template, where N is the number of days in the date range you selected (the N will be populated automatically). Each time you store a template, it replaces the last template you'd stored. A template can include any number of schedule rows but the Template tool will only store assignments for shifts that are visible. To create a template for some shifts but not others, use the Content box to hide all but the shifts you want to be part of the template. Note: To keep assignments lined up on the correct days of the week, the number of days stored in the template must be a multiple of 7, 14, 21, etc. A template of weekday clinics that repeats every week needs to run from Sunday through Saturday or Monday through Sunday and be a full 7 days long, even if no one is scheduled on the weekend. In the example to the right, the template was stored using the dates from 1-6-08 through 1-12-08. When it s time to apply the template to the schedule, the assignments will replicate each week for the entire month of February. When you store a template, OnCall records a copy of all assignments in the selected date range. It can compare actual schedules against the stored template and flag assignments that differ from the template. Check the flag switches option in the Template box to use this feature. Step 3: Applying your template. To apply a template, set the dates you want to fill using the date selectors in the upper-right of the Template box. For assignments to line up by day-of-week, set the begin date to be the same day of the week as the first day in the stored template. If, for example, you store a template from Monday through the following Sunday, you need to apply it starting on a Monday. Otherwise, the assignments get shifted to different days of the week. 9

To use the template as a pattern, first store your template as above and then check the Apply as anonymous pattern option. This turns your template into a pattern not linked to specific people. Once you've populated a schedule with a template, you can make whatever changes you need to accommodate vacation and other special considerations. Or you can use the autoscheduler to fill empty shifts around those populated by the template. A template can include any number of schedule rows but the Template tool will only store assignments for shifts that are visible. To create a template for some shifts but not others, use the Content box to hide all but the shifts you want to be part of the template. Publishing on the Web / Amion.com When you have completed your schedule it is time to publish it to the web. Make sure to save a copy to your hard drive before you publish. Publishing to the web will make your schedule viewable to all of your staff. Go to File Menu and choose, Publish on the Web!... : (Figure 13) Figure 13 Figure 14 That will open the Publishing box (figure 14). Type in your administrative password and then your email address, and just click Quick send. You can now view the schedule at Amion.com. 10

Additional Scheduling Features: Once you have created your base schedule, you are ready to take the next step and learn more about additional scheduling features. You can find instructions on how to use these features at www.amion.com in the FAQs section. Call and Shift Patterns Clinics, Conferences Alter Ego Day-of-Week Staffing Holidays Rule Writer View and Tally by Workload Targets Printing Schedules Preferences Amion Display, Amion Options, Amion Paging, Amion Paging 2, Requests, Autoscheduler, Calendar Format, Call Scheduling, Call Tallies, Printing, Shift Schedules, System 11