Name

Identifies the item.

Code

Assigns an alternate identifier for the item. This code will appear on most reports.

Defines a tolerance range for acceptable variances between projected hours/scheduled hours or standard hours/actual hours.

• Projected. Defines the tolerance range used when comparing the percentage of projected hours to scheduled hours. Any variance that falls outside the range you specify is noted in the Weekly Forecast Exception Report. For example, if the acceptable variance is from -5 to +7, you would enter 5 in the From field and 7 in the To field. 
• Standard. Defines a tolerance range to be used when comparing the percentage of standard hours to actual hours. Any variance that falls outside the range you specify is noted in the Hours Variance Analysis.  For example, if the acceptable variance is from -5 to +7, you would enter 5 in the From field and 7 in the To field.

An entry in these fields overrides the entry you made in the Configure Property/Labor-Scheduler tab.

Determines the work rate associated with this job. For example, how fast can a job be accomplished, how many of X can be produced when performing this job, etc. This information is used  for the Labor Productivity Report.

• KBI. Determines which KBI is used in the calculation.
• Units. Determines the type of measurement used in the calculation.
• Goal. Allows you to enter the number you are striving to achieve in this job. For example, assuming that this is the Houseman job and you selected Minutes/Unit in the Units drop-down, you may enter 12 in the Goal field, meaning you expect one room to be cleaned in 12 minutes.

Job Rotation

Allows you to determine what criteria is used to prioritize scheduling.

• By Job Schedule Order. Denotes that you wish to have an employee's Home job scheduled first, and then schedule other jobs they are authorized to work. The order is determined in Employee Maintenance.
• By Seniority. Allows you to have the system create the schedule using employee seniority as the base.
• By Employee Set. This option is only used by specific clients and should only be chosen if directed to do so by your System Administrator.

Allows you to determine how you want to schedule if you have too few employees to cover the projected work.

• Flat. Creates a schedule with an equal number of hours. For example, if you have 560 hours of available staff but your forecast is for 700 hours, Watson will schedule 80 hours per day as opposed to the 100 hours needed (560/7 = 80).
• Percent. Creates a schedule based on volume. This selection lets you provide optimum staffing for both high-volume and low-volume days based on percentages. In other words, if you only have staff to cover 80% of your work requirement, Watson will schedule up to 80% of forecast hours for each day.

Allows you to determine how the Shifts are sorted before scheduling takes place. Each of the methods produce a different weekly schedule. The choice you make is particularly important if the job is typically understaffed.

• Default. Creates a schedule that starts at the beginning of the week. If there are not enough available employees, you will be short-staffed at the end of the week. Use this choice when there are a sufficient number of employees to schedule.
• Peak. Creates a schedule with more hours on higher-volume days and fewer hours on low-volume days. The result may be that high-volume days are covered well, but low-volume days are not. Use this choice often used when there is a shortage of employees to schedule.
• Modified Peak. Schedules the days that are hardest to fill, first. For example, you may have a lot of employee restrictions on Tuesdays and therefore, fewer employees available on that day. Therefore, Tuesdays would be scheduled before any other days even though Tuesdays may not be your busiest days.
• Cascade. Begins each iteration of the schedule passes on successive days of the week. For example, if your schedule week starts on Sunday, the first schedule pass will cover Sunday - Saturday, the second schedule pass will cover Monday throug Sunday, etc.
• By Day. Creates a schedule that starts on the day you specify, and at the top of the list of employees. If you select By Day you will have access to the Day Order list.This scheduling method is similar to Peak, however, you choose the day order rather than having the system automatically order the days.
  • Day Order. Allows you to prioritize which days get scheduled first. By default, Sunday is the start of the work week. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place the days of the week in the priority order you want. Use this choice if you are short-staffed but want to be sure that certain days are fully-staffed. Note that this option is only available if you chose By Day as the Scheduling Method.

Defines the scheduling order for this job. The order you specify determines which employees get scheduled first and how they are chosen. For example, let's say you set the sort order to: 1) Hire Date, 2) Skill Date, and 3) Skill Rank. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place the days of the week in the priority order you want.
If you have two employees with the same Hire Date, Watson will progress down the order you specified until it finds a difference and creates the schedule accordingly. If every piece of criteria for two employees are exactly the same, Watson will look at the full-time status of the employees and schedule them before part-time employees. If there are no differences found, Watson will ultimately default to an alpha sort.

• Full-time. Schedules full-time employees in this job first, and part-time employees second.
• Job Rank. Schedules employees in this job by skill level. Higher-skilled employees (1 being the highest and 100 the lowest) are scheduled first. Skill is the most common Sort Order, and gives the most hours to the most highly-skilled employees.
• Job Date. Schedules employees in this job by the date the employee was trained for the job. Employees who have worked in this job the longest will be scheduled first.
• Hire Date. Schedules employees in this job by hire date/seniority. Employees employed the longest will be scheduled first.
• Alpha. Schedules employees in this job alphabetically. Seniority issues are disregarded.
• Assignment Rank. Schedules employees in this assignment by skill level.
• Employee Type. Schedules employees by Employee Type during the scheduling process.