Smart Rostering overview

Who this is for

This guide is written for Owner, Admin, Manager and Rostering Officer.

Before you begin

• Your organisation's subscription or trial is active. An Owner or Admin switches Smart Rostering on for the organisation (Configuration > Rostering rules > Organisation Settings > Enable Smart Rostering), then for each site (the site's Site settings tab > Enable smart rostering automation for this site). See Set up Smart Rostering.
• Smart Rostering automation is on in Account settings > Automation & Capacity Controls. It is on unless an Owner or Admin has switched it off. While it is off, BondiByte does not build rosters by itself.

Smart Rostering in three sentences

Smart Rostering is BondiByte's automatic roster builder for a site, such as a supported independent living (SIL) house, and it lives on the SIL/Smart Rostering screen.

You describe the site's usual shifts once (a template), set the rules, and switch it on for the site.

From then on BondiByte builds each roster by itself, and you review the result.

What BondiByte does by itself

A roster period is the fortnight or month a roster covers. For every upcoming roster period of a site that has Smart Rostering on, BondiByte works through four steps on dates it plans ahead. The four steps together are the automation plan.

1. Create shifts (Shift Creation Task on screen). BondiByte copies the site's template into the new roster period, a set number of days before it starts.
2. Ask staff for interest (Interest Request Task, optional). If your organisation and the site allow it, staff say in the Staff App which shifts they would like.
3. Build the draft roster (Shift Assignment Task). BondiByte assigns suitable staff to every shift, fairly across your whole organisation, and records why each person was or was not chosen. A shift it cannot fill stays open.
4. Publish (Publish Task). If the site publishes by itself, staff see the roster on the planned date. Otherwise the roster waits for a manager to review and publish it.

Each step has a planned date, fixed when BondiByte first plans the roster period. Later changes to the timing settings apply to future periods only. BondiByte checks every few minutes whether a step is due, so nobody has to start anything.

The plan grid under Upcoming Automation Actions shows each roster period as a row, with the planned date of each step and whether it is Completed.

What you do

1. Set it up once. Switch Smart Rostering on, give each site a team and a template, and choose the rules. The Setup checklist shows what is still missing.
2. Keep it current. Edit the template when the house's regular pattern changes. Update the site team when people join or leave. Keep staff availability up to date.
3. Review and publish. Open each draft roster, check unfilled shifts and warnings in the Report, change anything by hand, then publish. Or let BondiByte publish for you once you trust the results.

• Review recommendations
• Assign and publish from Smart Rostering

Which screen is which

Rostering (the Rostering menu item) is the hand-made calendar for clients who are not attached to a site (community clients): you add each shift yourself.

SIL/Smart Rostering (the SIL/Smart Rostering menu item) is for sites (SIL houses): shifts belong to the site, several workers can be on one shift, sleepovers and roster periods apply, and Smart Rostering can build the roster for you.

Smart Rostering works only on SIL/Smart Rostering. You can still add and edit shifts by hand there, and you can switch Smart Rostering on for one site and leave another site off.

• Rostering overview
• SIL roster basics

When you would run it by hand

The automation plan is the normal path. Three items in the More roster actions menu (the three dots) on SIL/Smart Rostering are for exceptions.

Run smart rostering builds a roster period now, instead of waiting for its planned date. Request interest and Undo interest request open or close the staff interest step by hand.

You never need to start the automatic checks yourself. The Automation Manager on the Overview tab shows the Last check and the next one.

• How Smart Rostering builds a roster

What you set up, and where

Organisation Settings (Configuration > Rostering rules). The switch for the whole organisation, when each step happens, staff interest and manager review.

Rules & Weights. What must never happen (hard rules), and what matters most when BondiByte chooses between people (weights).

Sites. Each site's own switch, its team and whether it publishes by itself.

Templates. The site's regular fortnight or month of shifts. On the roster, a padlock beside an assigned person keeps them on that shift in later periods.

Readiness. What is still missing before automation can run for a site.

Generation Runs. The history of what the automation did, with unfilled shifts, warnings and errors.

Recommendations. On the roster, the Report and the Assign staff window show, shift by shift, who was considered, who was chosen and why others were not.

• Organisation settings
• Rules and Weights
• Prepare sites
• Build a roster template
• Check readiness
• Generation runs

Who can use it

Owners and Admins can use every part. Managers can open the Overview, Sites and Templates tabs and the pages of the sites they manage. A Rostering Officer can run Smart Rostering by hand and see recommendations, and by default cannot change its settings. Your organisation can adjust these in its roles.

Important notes

Good practice

• Start with one site. Switch it on, build its template and check its first few drafts before you add more sites.
• Keep Require manager review ticked until you have checked several drafts and are happy with how staff were chosen. Then decide whether the site should publish by itself.
• When a shift is left unfilled, open the Report before you change any weights. It says why, so you change the right thing.

Questions and answers