The Group planner page displays the planned Shifts and planned absences of the selected Group with options to book absences and manage the Shifts and Rosters.

By default, the page opens displaying the grid layout of the Group planner for Employees in the Group selected from the drop-down list at the top of the Supervisor Dashboard.

However, if the Preference: Use extended selection has been set in the Selection options (see Selection options for more details) a Supervisor can use a customised range of Employees in the Group function by clicking on the extended Group drop-down list. See Selecting employees for more details.

To open the Group planner, select Group planner from the Group menu in the drop-down Header pane. It can also be accessed from the Menu and Shortcuts widgets which may be displayed on your Supervisor dashboard. A page similar to the following is displayed and has been annotated with key details:

The Group planner is a calendar that displays the selected Group's planned shifts, planned absences and rosters using the following calendar data types: Out of scope day, Roster, Processed day, Shift and Absence. See Calendar data types for more details.

In the Group planner, the days are in columns with individual Employees in the rows along with their name and Employee ID in the side header. Each cell has blocks of items that cover the entire width and when a cell is highlighted, further details appear in the right-hand pane with additional actions for Shifts, Rosters and Absence. Each cell is colour-coded and below is an example of colour codes for planned working days, planned non-working days, planned absences and days that have been processed:

A planned Shift is displayed as a coloured bar that covers the width of the cell in the grid layout. A planned absence is displayed as a full coloured bar covering the width of the cell when it is a full day absence or, like in the above example, half a bar to represent a part day absence.

The colours define different data types displayed on the planner. In the example these are:

• Working days — e.g. Employee 00006: R Harding on Tue 05 March, has a yellow horizontal band representing the planned Shift

• Non-working days — e.g. Employee 00022: T Murphy on Saturday -09 March, has a grey band representing the planned non-working Shift

• Processed days — e.g. Mon 04 and Tue 05 March, have a yellow background to highlight the days which have already been processed into a Work record

• Unprocessed days — e.g. Wed 06 to Sat 09 March, have a white background or pale blue background for rostered days to represent an unprocessed days
  

The colours used on the Group planner page can be viewed by clicking the colour key icon found at the top-right of the page. The colours can be changed by your system administrator or by a Supervisor with permissions in System preferences > Colours.

From the first example, the 'Employee period totals' are for Planned work , Planned absence, Planned work days, Planned absence days and Planned attendance (%) and shows the totals of each one for the individual employee covering the current period of the planner. Clicking on the Totals headings, Employee ID or individual days will open up details about the Totals of each selection in the right-hand pane.

The additional fields that appear under the Employee name and how the planner is sorted is set in System preferences > Calendar by a system administrator or a Supervisor with permissions.

Details pane

Click on a day in the Group planner to select it or a block of days can be selected by clicking on the first day and dragging the cursor to the end day. The selection will be highlighted with a light blue background and further details of what is happening in the date range are displayed in the right-hand Details pane. Below is an example of a day being highlighted:

The details pane contains the date range summary and a number of actions for Shifts and Rosters to apply to the highlighted day(s).. The action 'Book absence' allows a Supervisor to book a planned absence for the selected Employees highlighted day(s). See Book absence for more details. Details of the planned shift and planned roster appear in colour coded boxes at the bottom of the details pane in date order with a number of actions to apply to the planned shifts or roster.

The Group planner feature or a calendar with Shift and/or Absence data types can display totals based on shift standard hours. There are 5 types of totals that are displayed in the Group planner:

• Planned work — the sum of the standard hours for planned shifts

Note: available on calendars with a shift data type

• Planned work days — the sum of the days that contain a planned shift

Note: available on calendars with a shift data type

• Planned absence days — the sum of the days that contain a planned absence

Note: available on calendars with an absence data type

• Planned absence — the sum of absence hours during a planned shift

Note: available on calendars with shift and absence data types

• Planned attendance (%) — the percentage of work days with no planned absences

Note: available on calendars with shift and absence data types

The totals are based on the current period the planner is displaying. The period of time the planner displays can be changed to a day, a week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks or a month by using the 'Period' quick action found in the top-right hand corner of the page.

Day totals

The totals for a specific day can be viewed by clicking on a day in the top row of the planner. The summary of the day and the totals of the current day will be displayed in the right-hand pane.

Employee totals

The totals for a specific Employee can be viewed on the Group planner underneath the Employee ID or by clicking on the individual Employee ID or name. The summary, actions and totals of the current period for the individual Employee will be displayed in the right-hand pane.

Planner totals

The grand total for the entire planner and the totals for each individual day can be viewed by clicking on the Totals heading. The summary, actions and totals of the current period for the entire planner will be displayed in the right-hand pane. For example:

Note: if more than 100 Employees are displayed in the Group planner view, the grand totals will not be calculated to prevent performance issues.