A person or vehicle. A tangible thing that can be scheduled.

Resources are placed into shift Slots. 

An item within a shift that must be filled with a Resource.

A slot has requirements, or constraints, that define what Resources are qualified to be in the slot.

Slots can range from simple to quite complex: 

A simple slot might be called "Ambulance", and might have a single constraint
    "Vehicle of type Ambulance". 

A complex slot might be called "Advanced Paramedic", with multiple constraints:
    "EMT Level is EMT-P"
    "Has mountaineering training = True"
    "Date of CPR certification is within the past 12 months"

When a Resource is placed into a slot, the Resource is said to be Qualified if all of the slot constraints are satisfied, and Not Qualified if one or more constraints is not satisfied. 

A single block of time that is scheduled.

A shift contains one or more Slots.

A shift has the following properties:

• Start Time - the normal start time of the shift. This default time can be changed, if desired, when the shift is built up into Rotations.
• Length (in hours and minutes)
• Break Time (in minutes). Break time is unpaid time, and is included within the Shift's length. 

  Examples of Break Time: 

  An 8-hour work period with a one-hour lunch break would be defined as a Shift with a length of 9 hours, with 60 break minutes. 

  A 4-hour work period with 2 fifteen-minute breaks would be defined as a shift with length 4 hours, 30 minutes, with 30 break minutes.
  

When a Shift is scheduled, it can be in various states of completeness, measured by a Shift Status indicator. Some examples of Shift Status are: 

Full - all Slots are full and qualified

Empty Slots - one or more Slots is empty

Incomplete Constraints - one or more Slots contains an unqualified Resource

Time Conflict - one or more Resources is not available for the Shift. 

The diagram below shows a 12-hour shift called "12-hr Standard Crew ", containing three Slots:

A Rotation is a repeating cycle of Shifts.

A Rotation contains one or more Shifts, and the Shifts may be all of the same type, or of different types.

Rotations may contain special rules on certain shifts, such as "Never on Sunday" or "Every other Saturday". 

 

The diagram below shows some example Rotations:

A Shift Template is a group of Rotations. 

Shift Templates have Resources (People, Vehicles, etc) assigned to them.

A Shift Template can range from simple, containing just one Rotation, to very complicated, containing multiple instances of many different types of Rotations.

When a Shift Template is "scheduled" (placed onto the calendar) for a given period of time, all rotations are cycled over the time period, and shifts are scheduled where they fall within the rotation. When a shift is scheduled, the Resources assigned to that shift are also scheduled. 

The diagram below shows the Shift pattern resulting from Scheduling the above Shift Template for 2 weeks. Note how the offset Rotations produce continuous coverage of 24-hour Shifts. Note also that without the individual Rotation names (Green, Purple, Gold), the shifts would not be distinguishable from each other. 

• A Location is a place associated with a Shift.
• The Location is either the place where the Shift takes place (an office, or building), or it may be the place where a person initially reports for a Shift. 

• A Region is an area which is handled by a single scheduler.
  
• A Region contains a set of People, Resources, Locations, and Shifts that make up a scheduling area. 
  

• A Division is a group of Locations.
  
• Divisions are the middle layer between Regions and Locations:  A Region contains Divisions, and Divisions contain Locations.
  
• A Division might pertain to a County, a Parish, or any desired subdivision of a scheduling area.
  

• Add a new Division/Location that's not currently in the database. 
  
• Edit the attributes of an existing item. For example: a Location has moved to a different address. 
  

An offset day pertains to Rotations within a Shift Template. An offset day is the number of days a Rotation is offset from the beginning of its Template. 

Example:  I have a Shift Template called "Green/Purple/Gold". Inside the template are three Rotations: 

Rotation Name - Rotation Type - Offset Day 
Green - 24on/48off - 1 
Purple - 24on/48off - 2 
Gold - 24on/48off - 3 

By offsetting each rotation by one day, I've created full coverage, where there is a 24-hour shift scheduled at all times. 

Let's say I schedule the above Shift Template, for the period April 1st to April 14th. The resulting scheduled shifts would be as follows: 

Date - Shift 
April 1 - Green (offset day is 1, so it goes on the first day of the period. 
April 2 - Purple (shift with offset day = 2 goes here) 
April 3 - Gold (offset day = 3) 
April 4 - Green (cycle repeats) 
April 5 - Purple etc, out to April 14th, the last day of the desired period. 

A Shift Template is a collection of Rotations. Once Rotations (which contain Shifts) have been added to a Shift Template, you can assign personnel to those shifts. This is the only point inthe(Shift->Rotation->Shift Template) chain where personnel are assigned. 

A Shift Template can range from simple, containing just one Rotation, to very complicated, containing multiple instances of many different types of Rotations. 

The intent of a Shift Template is to hold patterns of a single type of Rotation, where the Offset Day is used to juggle the Rotations into a desired pattern of continuous shift coverage. See FAQ question M2 above for an example of this.