Advanced on-call shift recurrence options
You can define the length of a shift occurrence and whether it occurs just once or recurs on a regular basis to create a series. You might want to use a single shift occurrence to cover a particular alert, or use a shift series to represent your employees' shift schedules. This topic describes the shift recurrence options. For more information about locating these options in the user interface, see Adjust shift recurrence.
| Repeat | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Once |
The shift occurs once only. |
Friday, January 31st. |
| Daily |
The shift repeats after a specified number of days. |
Every day. Every second day. Every tenth day. |
| Weekly |
The shift repeats after a specified number of weeks on selected weekdays. |
Every Monday. Every second Friday. Every second week on Tuesday and Wednesday. |
| Weekdays |
The shift repeats every weekday. |
Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. |
| Weekends |
The shift repeats on weekends. |
Every Saturday and Sunday. |
| Monthly |
The shift repeats on a specific day of the month for selected months. |
The 15th of every month. The last Monday of March, June, September, and December. |
| Yearly |
The shift repeats on the same day of every year. |
Every year on January 1st. Every year on July 4th. |
The following sections describe how to use the advanced weekly and monthly recurrence options and explain how to end a recurrence on a certain date or after a specific number of occurrences.
Weekly recurrences
Weekly shift recurrences allow you repeat a shift occurrence on a weekly basis. You can use this setting to configure a shift occurrence to recur on specific days of the week (such as Mondays and Wednesdays), to recur after a certain number of weeks have passed (such as every second week), or to repeat according to a combination of day of the week and weekly interval (such as every second week on Mondays and Wednesdays).
Use a combination of the Repeat Every and On These Days fields to define the weekly recurrence. The following table shows how to configure some common weekly recurrence patterns.
| Description of recurrence | Repeat Every | On These Days |
|---|---|---|
| Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday | 1 Week | Mon, Wed, Fri |
| One week on, one week off | 2 weeks | Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat |
| One week on, three weeks off | 4 weeks | Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat |
| Every second Friday | 2 weeks | Fri |
Monthly recurrences
When you choose a monthly recurrence pattern, the shift occurrence repeats once a month. You can configure the shift occurrence to repeat every month on this date or you can limit it to recur on selected months only.
You can select the day of the month on which the shift recurs by choosing a specific calendar date (such as the 1st, 15th, or last) or you can configure it to occur based on the day and week (such as the third Thursday).
The following table shows how to schedule common monthly recurrence patterns.
| Description | On | Day | On These Months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every month on the 15th | Date | 15 | Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Every month on the third Thursday of the month | Weekly | Third Thursday | Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| The last day of every financial quarter | Date | Last | Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec |
| The last Friday of the month during the school year (all months except July and August) | Weekly | Last Friday | Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
Ending a shift recurrence
Repeating shifts (that is, all shifts except one-time shift occurrences) may repeat indefinitely, may end after a certain date, or may repeat a fixed number of times. You can specify one of the following options for ending a shift recurrence:
- Never: The shift recurs indefinitely.
- Date: The shift series ends by a certain date. Shift occurrences are scheduled to occur up to, but not including the specified end date unless they continue from the previous day (for example, overnight shifts from 10 PM - 4 AM). Occurrences scheduled to begin before 12:01 AM are considered to begin the previous day, and therefore 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM occurrences will be scheduled to occur on the End By date.
- After: The shift series ends after a fixed number of occurrences. An occurrence is counted as any time a shift appears on the calendar, regardless of whether the shift repeats daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. For example, if a shift to occurs weekly on Mondays and Wednesdays and you configure it to end after three occurrences, the shift will occur three times: on Monday, Wednesday, and then again on the next Monday. In this case the recurrence ends before three weeks have passed, even though the frequency is set to weekly.
Example: Create a Weekly shift recurrence schedule
You can use the following steps to create a 9 AM to 5 PM shift that occurs every week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until the end of the year.
Create a weekly shift recurrence schedule
- Click Add Shift.
- Create a new shift named Weekly - Selected Days.
- Adjust the original shift occurrence's Start and End to today's date, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
- In the Frequency drop-down list, select Weekly.
- For the Repeat Every field, specify 1 week.
- Use the On Days selection tool to deselect all days except Mon, Wed, and Fri.
- The default selection includes all days of the week for Weekly frequency, and all months of the year for Monthly frequency.
- For the End By field, select Date. Use the calendar picker to choose December 31 this year.
- Click Save.
- Check the on-call groups Calendar to see if the shift occurs from 9 AM to 5 PM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, ending by December 31.