Setting up a rotating pattern

Many units work a rotating pattern: four on and four off, Pitman, Panama, or DuPont, which alternates nights and days. In this video you'll build a rotation once, put people on it, and generate it into real shifts on the schedule. Open Rotations, under Planning. The top of the page explains when a rotation is the right tool: people who work in shifts across the whole week, in a repeating cycle. Start from a preset. Four on, four off is a simple one: four days, then four off. DuPont is a twenty-eight day cycle that alternates nights and days. The cycle is written as letters: D is a day, N is a night, and O is off. Underneath, it's spelled out in words. To build your own cycle, just type the letters in this box. Because DuPont has nights in it, both sets of hours appear: when a day shift starts and how long it is, and the same for nights. Seven to seven, twelve hours each. The generated shifts get the right hours, not an average. Give the rotation a name, and choose the role its shifts are for. Then press Create rotation. It's listed under Your rotations, with its cycle and hours. You can edit it, or retire it when the unit stops using it. Under Put somebody on a rotation, choose who, the rotation, and the unit, which decides whose clock the cycle runs on. Cycle starts is where in the cycle this person begins. Press Put on rotation. Maya is now on the cycle. Now a second nurse on the same rotation, starting two weeks later. Two people on one pattern, started apart, are the two halves of a floor's cover. Under Generate the rota, choose the dates to cover, up to three months at a time, and which rotation, or all of them. Press Generate. The rotation becomes real shifts in the calendar, each with its person already on it. If a rule would refuse somebody, for approved time off or a lapsed licence, the shift is still made, and left open for you to fill. Added somebody new? Just run it again. Anything that already exists is skipped rather than doubled, and the message says so. On the schedule, the generated nights and days are there, with Maya on her cycle. Somebody who works the same days every week, like Monday, Thursday and Friday, nine to five, needs a regular week on Staff, not a rotation. And call, weekends or holidays shared between people go on the schedule: Add a shift, tick On call, and Repeat it, as a rota. That's a rotation: build the cycle once from a preset, put each person on it from their own start date, and generate it into real shifts. Re-running is always safe, because nothing is ever doubled.