Shifts and absence cover
What it decides: who covers each shift on each post and, when there is an absence, which combination of changes resolves it best.
Entities
Section titled “Entities”| Entity | Fields |
|---|---|
| Person | Team, main post, posts they are qualified for (skills), whether they accept voluntary covers above their quota |
| Team | A group that follows the same rotation pattern |
| Post | A place or role that has to be covered on each shift |
| Shift | Morning, afternoon or night, with its hours; also 12-hour variants |
| Assignment | A cell in the roster: person, post, shift and day. It can belong to the base roster or be a cover |
| Absence | Person, dates and type. Each type has a priority |
| Reinforcement period | A window in which a team provides a number of reinforcement days (its quota) |
Ways to cover
Section titled “Ways to cover”| Cover | What it does |
|---|---|
| Reinforcement | A person from the reinforcement team covers the shift, within their quota |
| Multi-skilling | A colleague on the same shift with the skill changes post; their post is covered by someone else, in a chain |
| Extending neighbouring shifts | The previous and next shifts become 12 hours to cover the gap |
| Doubling up | A person works two shifts back to back, if the rules allow it |
| Cancelling a reinforcement day | A reinforcement day already planned is reused to cover |
Score and warnings
Section titled “Score and warnings”Each proposed cover comes with a score and plain-language warnings about the rules it strains:
- minimum rest between shifts, with a recommended value above the minimum;
- consecutive working days;
- weekends off;
- 12-hour shifts;
- reinforcement quota.
Several alternatives are proposed, ranked. The person in charge previews them on the roster and confirms one.
Priority between absences
Section titled “Priority between absences”If two absences overlap, the one with higher priority can take a cover that was previously assigned to the other, which is then recomputed.
Traceability
Section titled “Traceability”Each absence records who registered it and which changes were applied to the roster.