Working hours, leave and skills

Every clash warning and suggested time depends on knowing when people work and what they know. This page covers the roster behind the calendar: working hours, teams, skills, leave, public holidays and office closures. Allowances, sickness and overtime are in Leave allowances, sickness and overtime.

Working hours for the whole team#

Settings > Scheduling, the General tab holds the defaults for everyone.

Under Visits:

• Travel each way: used when a site has no travel time of its own.
• Default length: how long a new booking lasts unless its type says otherwise.
• Time slots: the step bookings snap to when dragged, and times are offered in (5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, or 1 hour).
• Calendar shows from and Until: the hours the calendar shows without scrolling.

Under Buffers, Buffer before a visit and Buffer after a visit keep time free around each booking, on top of travel, so nobody is booked back to back. A booking type can have its own.

Under Booking statuses, you can give each status its own name and colour, for example call Tentative "Pencilled in". Left alone, each uses the default for the install.

Under Working hours, Use the ticket business hours makes the team's hours follow the Business hours tab of Settings > Ticket setup and change when they do. Turn it off to set scheduling hours of their own. Press Change business hours to edit the ticket hours.

People and teams#

Settings > Scheduling, the People and skills tab lists everyone with their team, whether they take bookings, their working hours, whether they are Expected to log time and their skills.

Teams#

Scheduling uses your staff teams, for example Field and Service desk, so you can filter the calendar and the dispatch board by team. Settings > Scheduling, the People and skills tab lists them with their people. Teams are added, renamed and filled in Settings > Teams by an administrator. A person can be in several teams; their Home team is the one the calendar and dispatch show them under. See Teams, invitations and handover.

Each person can also have their own public holiday region, so someone based in Scotland gets Scottish bank holidays.

Who takes bookings#

Turn Takes bookings off for anyone who should never be booked on visits, such as an office manager. They drop out of suggestions and booking them raises a clash warning.

Turn Automation account on for a sign-in that is not a person, such as the account an integration uses. It is left off the roster, capacity, suggestions, timesheets and payroll, and its time is left out of utilisation figures.

Expected to log time decides who is nudged about missing time and shown short on timesheets. It starts on Follow the rule (the rule for their team, else their role, set on the Dispatch tab) and says which rule applies; choose otherwise for one person. See Timesheets.

Someone's own working hours#

People without their own hours follow the MSP's hours from General. To give someone their own pattern:

1. Click their working hours in the People table.
2. Turn off Use the MSP's working hours.
3. Choose their Time zone. The hours are in that zone.
4. Switch each day on or off and set its start and end. Copy to weekdays copies Monday to the other weekdays.
5. Press Save working hours.

Leave, public holidays and office closures are taken off these hours automatically.

Skills#

Skills are what your people know, such as Microsoft 365, networking or printers. Dispatch uses them to suggest the right person for a ticket.

1. In the Skills section, press Add skill, give it a name and a short description of what it covers, and save. Use ... on a skill to change or remove it.
2. In the People table, click someone's skills (or Add skills).
3. For each skill choose None, Working knowledge (can do the everyday jobs), Confident (can do most things alone) or Expert (the person others ask).
4. Press Save skills.

Under Skills each ticket type needs, set the skills that every ticket of a type needs, for example networking for a "Site survey" type. These add to any skills set on the ticket itself when it is flagged as needing a visit.

Leave#

Team > Leave is where people ask for time off, approvers answer, and everyone sees who is away.

• Waiting for you lists requests you can answer, each with the dates, how much allowance it uses, the note, and any visits already booked for then. Press Approve or Decline; the person is told straight away. Leave requests also wait in the Approvals inbox with everything else.
• The calendar shows everyone's leave and the public holidays for the month. Leave waiting for approval is dashed.
• Your balance shows what you have left to ask for this leave year.
• Your leave lists what you have booked or asked for, with Change and Cancel.
• Approvers and managers also see the team's leave coming up and everyone's Balances.

I'm off sick records sickness straight away and tells your manager. See Leave allowances, sickness and overtime.

Ask for leave#

1. Press Ask for leave.
2. Who is you, unless you approve leave, in which case you can book it for someone else.
3. Choose the Kind of leave. The note underneath says whether it needs approval or is booked straight away, and how much of your allowance it uses.
4. Choose All day or Part of a day, and the First day and Last day (or the times).
5. Add a Note if you like. Only you, whoever booked it and the approvers see it.
6. Press Book leave.

If the request breaks a team cover rule or falls in a blackout period, the dialog says so before you send it. Leave shows on the schedule and stops visits being booked for then. Leave waiting for approval raises a clash warning too, so nobody books over it by accident.

Leave settings#

Settings > Scheduling, the Leave tab holds:

• Leave types: Holiday, Sick, Training, Other absence, Time off in lieu and Unpaid leave to start with. Each has a colour, a kind (holiday, sickness, time off in lieu or other), whether it Takes from the allowance and is paid, days or hours, and either Needs approval or is Booked straight away. Press Add leave type for more.
• Who approves leave: administrators always can. Add others in Approvers besides administrators; they are asked when someone requests leave. Approvers can approve their own leave is off by default, so someone else approves an approver's leave unless nobody else can.
• Public holidays: the coming public holidays for your region. Nobody is available on a public holiday unless they book it. The region is chosen in Settings > Regional; see Public holidays and business calendars.
• Office closures: days the whole office is shut besides bank holidays, for example between Christmas and New Year. Add a Date and Name and press Add closure.