Scheduling Assistant: User Flow
Purpose
The Scheduling Assistant automatically finds the best available employees for unstaffed shifts based on client familiarity, fair hours distribution, and cost efficiency — while excluding anyone unavailable, on leave, or already booked. All suggestions are staged for coordinator review and approval before being committed to the live roster.
Quick User Flow
Open Scheduling Assistant.
Enter From Date and To Date.
Click Search.
Select one or more shifts.
Click Continue.
Choose optional priorities:
Previously Did Shift
Equal Hours
Lowest Cost
Click View Employees.
Review and apply assignments on Scheduling Board.
Screen 1
Finding Open Shifts
The system searches for all shifts within the selected date range that have no employee assigned and are not completed or cancelled — meaning only active, pending shifts that still need staffing. Results display the client name, service type, day, time range, and shift type. Coordinators select which of these shifts they want the system to fill, individually or in bulk.
Screen 2
Setting Preferences
Coordinators choose one or more rules that control how the system ranks employees for each shift:
Previously Did Shift — Ranks employees by how many completed shifts they've done for the same client. Staff with more history with that client are prioritised, supporting continuity of care.
Equal Hours for Employees — Ranks employees by how many hours they've already been assigned within this scheduling run. Staff with fewer hours assigned so far get priority, ensuring fair distribution across the current batch of shifts.
Lowest Cost Roster — Ranks employees by their calculated expense for that specific shift, not just their base hourly rate. The system factors in shift timing and employee pay rates to determine the actual cost, prioritising the most cost-effective option.
These rules stack — if multiple are selected, the system applies them in order (familiarity first, then hours balance, then cost).
Before ranking, the system automatically excludes employees who are:
Inactive, on hold, or marked unavailable
Already working another shift at the same time
On approved leave during the shift period
The system also checks the service type's minimum staffing requirement and assigns that many employees per shift (not always just one).
Screen 3
Reviewing the Roster
The scheduling board displays all suggested employee-to-shift assignments. From here coordinators can:
Swap an assigned employee for a different one
Remove individual assignments they disagree with
Confirm the roster, which writes the assignments into the live schedule
Nothing is committed to the actual roster until the coordinator explicitly confirms. All suggestions are held in a temporary staging area that can be cleared entirely if needed.