Facility Scheduler Feature and Maintenance Releases 2020

Facility Scheduler 3.9.0 Dec 21, 2020 Facility Scheduler 3.9.0 Dec 21, 2020

Enhancements and Fixes

Staffing Dashboard
  - Filters – Users can save and reuse frequently used filters to quickly access selected facilities, service lines, and departments. Filters can be viewed, edited, and set as your default filter from the My Preferences screen accessed by clicking the Preferences icon in the dashboard header.
  - Surge Alerts – The Preferences icon allows users to hide or display the Surge Alert bar in the Staffing Dashboard screen header. To set display preferences, click the icon, choose the ED Surge tab, and choose to show or hide the alert bar.

Facility Scheduler
  - Employee General Info: When cancelling or splitting an assignment on the Schedule Browse or Daily Roster screens, an alert will display when an employee email address is required. Edits to the email address field that occur during scheduling will not overwrite the address stored on the employee’s profile.
  - Offline Reports: Employees who have both a staff and user account are no longer blocked from accessing the offline report portal.
  - Department Staffing Matrix: Updated the error message to display properly when Administrators enter Volume Low and Peak numbers that conflict with existing coverage definitions.
  - Department Notify: The Notify for Second Approvals checkbox now displays as expected for users who are not assigned the Shift Trade – Approve permission.
  - Surge Alerts: (HCA Only) Updated user permission checks to display the correct facilities and COIDs within the market.
  - Daily Roster / PLUS Metrics: (HCA Only) Corrected PLUS Metrics date issue that prevented the Daily Roster from displaying.

Facility Scheduler 3.8.9 Nov 17, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.9 Nov 17, 2020

Generate Open Needs by Shift Code
This feature allows departments that schedule by shift codes, like Emergency Departments, to manage staffing levels and generate open needs based on a Shift Code Template. This template defines the target number of employees by skill and shift code required each day. These shift code targets, like summary period targets, are used in Facility Scheduler as follows:
   - Calculate and display current staffing levels on department schedules.
  - Generate open needs when a schedule is posted or when staffing needs change.

Enhancements and Fixes
  - Permissions – Users assigned the default Charge 1 and Charge 2 roles can no longer edit employee profiles.
  - Department Schedule: Shift codes entered while editing a schedule edit are automatically saved when the user tabs out of the cell.
  - Notifications: Clarify the shift cancellation notification by editing the email subject line from “Assignment Canceled” to “Shift Canceled.”
- Employee General Info – The employee profile screen no longer displays as a blank screen when an employee’s primary department is the same as their secondary department.
  - Open Needs – When an employee end date is entered, open needs are only generated for the employee’s scheduled productive shifts past the end date. Needs are no longer generated for non-productive shifts past the employee end date

Facility Scheduler v3.8,8 Nov 3, 2020Facility Scheduler v3.8,8 Nov 3, 2020

Emergency Department Surge Alerts
This feature provides staffing analysts a snapshot of Emergency Department (ED) surge information so they can make timely staffing adjustments. When an ED experiences surge conditions, color-coded alerts display on the Schedule, Daily Roster, and Staffing Dashboard screens.

Enhancements and Fixes
Facility Scheduler
  - Open Needs: When a staff member requests to fill an open need and the need is deleted before the request is approved or denied, the shift is no longer blocked from scheduling due to the unresolved request.
  - Default Permissions: The default permissions for the Senior Leader role no longer includes Reports – Employee Preferences.

Staffing Dashboard
  - Service Line Names: Service Line (Cluster) names across all divisions have been standardized.

Facility Scheduler 3.8.7 Oct 20, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.7 Oct 20, 2020

Enhancements and Fixes
Facility Scheduler
- Secondary Departments: When creating a new department, the default settings for Secondary Associations are automatically applied.
- Staff Availability: When users and staff right-click on a shift assignment cell on the Schedule, Add Availability no longer displays as an option.
- Shift Trades: When a shift trade request is denied on the Manage Shift Trades screen, the denied request is moved from the Pending Assignments Submitted for Trade section to the Assignments Denied for Trade section.

Staffing Dashboard
- Other Department tab: Only departments and employees within the same cluster as the selected department are displayed on the Other Departments tab.
- SMS/Text Notifications: The Notifications badge on the Dashboard landing page now displays the assignment requests count for the departments to which the staffer has access rather than the entire division.
- SMS/Text Notifications Dashboard: Error messaging was clarified on the SMS Notifications Dashboard to specifically list missing filter data such as correct start and end dates and/or selecting message templates.
- Other Departments Tab: Productive assignments edited in the Department Schedule no longer display as duplicate assignments on the Resource Assignments >Other Departments tab.
- PLUS Metrics: The error messaging displayed on the Daily Roster and Resource Assignments screens when PLUS metrics data cannot be retrieved or displayed was clarified. The new messaging reads: “ Plus Metrics Service encountered an error. Please try again later.”

Facility Scheduler 3.8.6 Oct 6, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.6 Oct 6, 2020

PLUS Metrics
Department leadership often refers to the Productive Labor Utilization System (PLUS) within ISAS when making daily staffing decisions. Reports from this system provide pay-period to date (PPD) and month-to-date (MTD) totals for productive labor usage by department.
With this release, a department’s PLUS metrics data for scheduled and actual productive hours will be accessible to select users from both the daily roster and staffing dashboard screens.

Note: PLUS metrics totals for the previous day are updated and posted daily at 1:00 PM local time. When you view PLUS data today after 1:00 PM, pay period and month-to-date labor totals through yesterday are displayed (today minus one day). Likewise. if you view PLUS data before 1:00 PM, you will see labor totals for the day before yesterday (today minus two days).

Compose SMS Message: Add Comments Field
A new text field allows Staffers to enter additional comments to staffing needs text messages. These comments can be used to provide details about the staffing need such as required competencies, incentives, flexible start times, etc.

Note:Text messages are limited to 320 characters including the shift details, stop instructions, and comments. The number of remaining characters displays above the Add Comments field.

Enhancements and Fixes
Facility Scheduler
  - Open Needs: Approved requests to fill open needs are no longer deleted when a user selects Undo Generated Needs.
  - Staffing Effectiveness Report with Coverage: When viewing the report’s Summary tab filtered by Professional status, the scheduled and target numbers display accurately.

Staff Competencies
  - The Department > Competencies screen was updated to allow more than 20 selected competencies to be displayed.
  - The Competency pop-up on the Department Schedule screen was optimized to load and display faster.
  - An error message is no longer displayed when clicking the Competency button on the Department Schedule screen.

Staffing Dashboard
  - Care Assignment Sheets: The link to print Care Assignment Sheets now works as expected from all tabs on the Resource Assignments screen.
  - Other Departments Tab: Productive assignments edited in the Department Schedule no longer display as duplicate assignments on the Resource Assignments >Other Departments tab.
  - Competencies: Staff competencies now display on the Resource Assignments > Home Department tab.
Facility Scheduler 3.8.5 Sept 22, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.5 Sept 22, 2020

Employee Competencies
Staff competencies are specialized qualifications employees earn by completing a defined number of hours or instances performing a specific procedure. Like skills, competencies indicate a level of experience and do not expire. Both skills and competencies must be considered when creating or balancing schedules and filling open needs.

Note: We are working with divisions to collect staff competencies to be uploaded to the Facility Scheduler application. Competencies for individual employees can be added from the employee’s General Information screen.

Associate Competencies with Departments
The Department > Competencies screen allows Department Directors to associate and manage competencies relevant to their departments. From this screen Department Managers can filter, view, add, deactivate, and reactivate competencies for each department.

Department Competencies Matrix
Once competencies are associated with a department, the Department Director can create a matrix to define competency requirements for each day and each shift summary period. On the Department > Competency Matrix screen, Department Managers can filter and view competency matrices by Facility, Department, and Shift Summary Effective Date.

Competencies selected on the department Competencies screen are listed on the Competencies Matrix along with shift summary times. Minimum scheduling requirements are entered by clicking the day of the week and manually entering the required number for each competency under the summary period.

When a daily competency matrix is complete, click Save before moving to the next day. Competency matrix updates are immediately effective when saved.

Note: Complete all fields in the competency matrix. Enter zero if a competency is not required for a shift summary period.

View Competency Needs on the Department Schedule
To assist Schedulers and Staffers, a Competency button has been added to the header of the Department Schedule screen.
When the Competency button is clicked, a pop-up screen displays. The Scheduler can select a department competency and view current staffing levels for the competency by shift summary period. As with the staffing needs grid, shift summaries that are understaffed for the selected competency are highlighted in red. Overstaffed summary periods are highlighted in yellow.

Enhancements and Fixes
Facility Scheduler
- Notifications: The User Notifications screen (Home > Notifications) allows users to filter notifications by Unread, Read, and Both. When Both is selected, read and unread notifications now display as expected.
- Trade Requests: When employees request shifts available for trade, duplicate requests are no longer generated if the Request Trade link is clicked multiple times.
- Covering Skills: Shift requests from employees with covering skills are designated by an asterisk (*) in the skill column on the Manage Skill Requests screen. For example, if an LPN requests to cover an RN shift, the skill displays as RN*.
- Covering Skills: When a manager approves a shift trade that is filled by an employee with a covering skill, the covering skill is listed on the Daily Roster. The asterisk (*) displayed in the Difference column for the primary skill indicates the covering skill is included in the calculation.
Staff Availability: The Add Availability button no longer displays on the Browse Open Needs screen.
- Competencies: A search field has been added to the Competencies multi select field on the Employee Info screen. Users may search for competencies by the abbreviated name and/or the description.
- Competencies: Employee competencies now display as clickable links on the Department Schedule screen. When clicked, the employee’s - General Information screen opens where users can view the full list of competencies associated with the employee.
- Open Needs: Cancelling a non-productive, other productive, call, or placeholder shift no longer generates an open need for the cancelled assignment.

Staffing Dashboard
- Staffing Dashboard: When viewing the Staffing Dashboard homepage, the OT, C/L and PRN columns display the total count of employees in Overtime as well as the number of Contract Labor and PRN employees scheduled during the selected summary period. If the summary period is overstaffed, the number in the OT, C/L, and PRN columns will be highlighted in red. Note: A shift summary period is considered to be overstaffed when the sum total of all differences for all skills (Target – Scheduled = Difference) is greater than zero.

PCS Census (California Facilities)
- Staffing Dashboard > Actual Census (PCS): Actual census data received from the Meditech import is no longer overridden when the Staff To, PCS Count and/or Rating are updated in the Staffing Dashboard.
- Daily Roster > Actual Census (PCS): Actual census data received from the Meditech import is no longer affected when the PCS Count and Rating are updated from the Daily Roster > Edit Census link.

Facility Scheduler 3.8.4 Sept 1, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.4 Sept 1, 2020

View Staff Competencies
To assist Schedulers, the existing Credentials column on the department and employee schedule screens has been updated to allow users to view either staff credentials (default view) or competencies by clicking the desired option in the column header.

Staff competencies can also be viewed in the Staffing Dashboard. A new column displays staff competencies on the Home Department, Other Department, and Unscheduled Staff tabs accessed from the Resource Assignments screen.

Note: We are working with each division to collect staff competencies to be uploaded en masse to the Facility Scheduler application.

Enhancements and Fixes
Facility Scheduler
  - Shift Trades - When a hospital staff member’s request to fill a shift trade outside of their home department is approved, the assignment is no longer automatically tagged as a floated shift.
  - Open Needs are no longer generated when non-productive and/or placeholder shifts are cancelled.

Staffing Dashboard
  - Unscheduled Staff Tab: Grid column headers display as expected when viewing the Unscheduled Staff tab in Internet Explorer.
  - Dashboard C/L and PRN Columns – When viewing the Staffing Dashboard homepage, the C/L and PRN columns now display the total count of Contract Labor and PRN employees scheduled during the selected summary period. Additionally, counts in the OT, C/L and PRN columns display in red font if the summary period is overstaffed.

Texting Notifications Dashboard
  - Text Message Filters: The date range filters on the Current and Activity Log tabs have been relabeled for clarity: Start Date (Optional ) is now Received From and End Date (Optional) is now Received To. Additionally, a default date range has been added to automatically display received text messages from the past 48 hours. Users may edit the data range and apply additional filter criteria to expand or narrow the search results as needed
  - Activity Log: All actions executed on the Current tab, including no action taken, are captured and displayed on the Activity Log screen.

Facility Scheduler 3.8.3 Aug 18, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.3 Aug 18, 2020Type your expanding text here

Texting / SMS Notifications Dashboard
The Texting / SMS Notifications Dashboard provides a centralized messaging “in-box” from which Staffing Dashboard users can view, sort, and act on employee text message responses for selected facilities or a date range. Users access the texting dashboard by clicking the Alert icon in the header of the Staffing Dashboard landing page.

From the SMS Notifications Dashboard, users can enter filter criteria to view current responses from hospital staff employees who responded they are interested in filling the need, schedule employees to fill the need, or deny requests based on facility scheduling guidelines.

Schedule - Plan Sheet Editing
If self-scheduling is permitted, hospital staff members may only modify or delete the shifts they added during the Schedule Plan Sheet Editing phase. Hospital staff members can no longer modify shifts added during the Pre-Schedule phase, such as shifts required for weekend and holiday rotations. They are also prevented from editing shifts entered or modified by managers or schedulers including approved PTO shifts.

Enhancements and Fixes
Facility Scheduler
  * Shift Trades Approvals - When approving shift trades for secondary staff, both the home and secondary department managers can now approve the trade request.
  * Employee Scheduling Preferences - Users assigned the Employee Preferences - View permission can view theEmployee Preferences screen for both home and secondary department employees. Displayed PTO balances are recalculated whenever previously approved PTO shifts are deleted from schedules in Pre-Schedule, Plan Sheet, and After Plan Sheet status.

Staffing Dashboard
  * Resource Assignments > Unassigned Staff - Resolved issue that resulted in an intermittent error message displaying when the Unassigned Staff tab opens.

Facility Scheduler 3.8.2 Aug 11, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.2 Aug 11, 2020

Secondary Departments - Enterprise Release
The Secondary Departments feature allows department administrators to create secondary associations with staff members outside of their home departments. These staff members may be shared or have skills that allow them to work in multiple departments.
Employee’s with secondary associations, identified by the [S] icon displayed next to their names, can be viewed in the associated department’s schedules, daily roster, and staffing dashboard. A new Secondary Departments filter displays on the employee and department schedules. This filter provides schedulers and staffers additional information to identify qualified staff when filling schedule gaps. It filters the schedule display to view only currently scheduled staff (default view) or both scheduled and unscheduled staff, including staff with secondary associations to the department.

Depending on the department’s configuration settings, home department and secondary staff may also self-schedule, fulfill open needs, and trade shifts in both their home and secondary departments.

For more information, see Overview - Secondary Departments

Enhancements and Fixes: Facility Scheduler
  - Open Needs: When a request to fill an open need is denied, the shift no longer displays on the schedule as a cancelled shift.
  - Alert Message Pop-ups: Alert messages, when configured, will display whenever a user logs into the Facility Scheduler application. The pop-up will continue to display on the first screen that opens and subsequent screens until the user clicks one of the action buttons to acknowledge the message.
  - Daily Roster: When the Assignment Notes Report option is clicked in the Daily Roster navigation menu, the report filter screen displays as expected.
  - Department Schedule: When modifying assignments on the department schedule screen, assignment dates now display in MM/DD/YYYY format.
  - Secondary Departments: Users assigned the Employee Preferences - View permission can view the Employee Preferences screen for both home and secondary department employees. Affected Roles: Charge 1 & 2 plus all roles from Senior Leader higher.

Enhancements and Fixes: Staffing Dashboard
  - The employee’s seniority date is now imported from the Lawson system and displayed on the Resource Assignments Home Department, Other Department, Unscheduled Staff, and Staff Search screens.
  - Assignments are no longer automatically cancelled when the staff member’s skill is changed when editing or modifying an assignment.

Facility Scheduler 3.8.1 Aug 4, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.1 Aug 4, 2020

Employee Scheduling Preferences and Availability
- Saved Scheduling Preferences can now be viewed for both current and future schedule periods.
- Saved Scheduling Preferences now display in both home and non-home department schedules.
- Hospital staff members can click the Legend button and choose to display their saved Scheduling Preferences and Availability on their employee schedule.
- The option to Add Availability no longer displays in the options menu when a user right-clicks a cell on the Schedule screen.
- Availability that spans two schedule periods – i.e., from the last day of the current period to the first day of the next period – now displays in both schedule periods as expected.
- The Cancel button name on the Employee Preferences Edit screen has been changed to Reset. When clicked, unsaved edits are discarded and the screen reverts to the employee’s previously saved preference settings.
- When employees access their Preferences screen, a new pop-up window displays the following message: Employee preferences will be considered within hired-in commitments and weekend/holiday rotation policies. Selecting preferences does not guarantee they will be honored.
- Department Notifications – Removed Pending Preference Changes from the notification types table.

Fixes: Facility Scheduler
- If the daily roster fails to load in the allotted time, a Reload button displays. When clicked, a loading message displays as the daily roster is retrieved.
- Employees can no longer be scheduled for assignments on the daily roster beyond their employment end-date.
- Department information is no longer duplicated in the daily roster header. Additionally, when the Clock-In Details button is clicked in the roster header, the correct department information displays.
- Updated integration between Facility Scheduler and TimeWatch to use HR Department Code in order to retrieve the correct Clock-In Status information.

Pilot: Secondary Departments (East Florida and West Florida divisions)
- Shift Trades - When approving shift trades for secondary staff, both the home and secondary department managers can now approve the trade request.

Facility Scheduler 3.8.0 Jul 28, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.8.0 Jul 28, 2020

Staffing Dashboard - Group Texting for Open Needs
Staffing Dashboard users assigned the Full Access role can now send SMS text notifications to groups of department staff who have elected to receive text alerts for staffing needs. Staff members can respond to the notification if they are interested in filling the need. Staffers can then create assignments directly from the Notifications tab on the Resource Assignments screen.

For more information, see Dashboard: Group Texting for Open Needs.

Employee Scheduling Preferences
This enhancement allows hospital staff employees to enter and save their scheduling preferences for the days and shifts they typically prefer to work or to be off. Schedulers and staffers can use employee scheduling preferences as a guide when filling gaps or balancing schedules.

For more information, see Employee Scheduling Preferences and View Employee Preferences and Availability.

Employee Availability
This enhancement allows hospital staff to enter specific dates and times in which they are available to be scheduled. For example, if a staff member wants to be considered for scheduling in addition to their normally scheduled shifts, they can list themselves as available for a specific date and time. Schedulers and staffers can use employee availability as a guide when filling gaps or balancing schedules.

For more information, see Employee Scheduling Preferences and View Employee Preferences and Availability.

Enhancements and Fixes:
Facility Scheduler
Notifications Pop-up – When staff and users log into the Facility Scheduler home screen, a new pop-up window may be displayed. The window will be used to prompt users to complete an action or to provide additional information about new functionality.

Cancellation Reasons – When cancelling an assignment, the Cancel Reason field now displays a prompt to select a cancel reason rather than the first reason in the list. If no reason is selected, an error message displays instructing the user to select a reason.

A new cancel reason, (Employee Cancel) Lack of Child Care, is now available for use in all HCA divisions.

Employee End Date – When an end date is entered on an employee’s profile, all shift assignments beyond the end date are automatically cancelled AND the employee cannot be scheduled for shifts beyond the end date.

Employee Clocked-In Status – The following fixes are included in this release:
- An error message will display on the Clock-In Details window when clock-in information is not available or there is an interruption of service from TimeWatch.
- The Clock-In Details window now lists all assignments for the day.
- When Clock-In Details is clicked on the Staffing Dashboard > Resource Assignments screen, the details for the currently selected summary period display.

Staffing Dashboard
Facility and Department Assignments – Only the facilities and departments to which the user has access are displayed for selection when creating or editing shift assignments.

Facility Scheduler 3.7.9 Jul 14, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.7.9 Jul 14, 2020

Employee Clocked-In Status
This enhancement utilizes a connection between Facility Scheduler and TimeWatch that allows staffers and schedulers to see employee clocked-in status on the Department Schedule, Daily Roster, and Staffing Dashboard Resource Assignments screens. By displaying current clocked-in status in Facility Scheduler, staffers can more quickly determine whether scheduled staff are present without needing to access multiple applications.

The Clock-In Details window lists all scheduled staff members for the current schedule date, the shift start time, and the time the employee clocked in. If an employee is scheduled and not clocked in, a dash displays in the Clocked-In Time column.

Staff Competencies
Competencies are specialized qualifications that hospital staff members earn based on a predefined number of hours spent performing a specific job, or a predefined number of instances performing a specific procedure. Competencies are like skills in that, once earned, they indicate a certain level of experience and do not have an expiration date.

This enhancement includes the addition of a master competency list from which managers can select and apply competencies to a staff member’s profile. Competencies are managed on the Employee > General Info screen.

Enhancements and Fixes:
Facility Scheduler
  - Employment End Date – Shift assignments cannot be created beyond an employee’s end date.
  - Edit Open Needs Grid – Adjust the table header columns to align with columns in the table body and footer.
  - Staffing Projections Report – The operation no longer times out when running the report for all facilities and departments within a division.
  - Home Page Layout – Facility Announcements will now display above other messages, such as downtime or changes, on the Facility Scheduler home page.
  - Cancellation Reason - When cancelling an assignment, the cancellation reason field now instructs users to select a reason from the drop-down and to not leave the default reason selected.
Staffing Dashboard
  - Default Staff Float Settings –If the default Float setting is edited while creating, editing, or splitting an assignment in the Staffing Dashboard, a message displays alerting the user that an explanation must be entered in the Notes field prior to saving the assignment.
  - Standardize Service Line Names – Update and standardize Cluster or Service Line names across all divisions. (WPC Facilities Only)
  - Staff Search – When creating a new assignment from the Resource Assignments > Staff Search tab, the assignment no longer displays on the dashboard as if the employee was transferred from their home department.
  - Staffing Dashboard Care Assignment Sheet - The following updates have been added to Care Assignments Sheets printed from within the Staffing

Dashboard:
   - The Charge Shift icon displays and prints as expected.
  - Total Scheduled and individual skill counts display in the report header.

Facility Scheduler 3.7.8 Jul 14, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.7.8 Jul 14, 2020

Staffing Dashboard - Print Care Assignment Sheets
This enhancement allows users with Staffing Dashboard access to export and print a Care Assignment Sheet for a selected shift summary period from the Resource Assignments screen. The PDF printout includes employee name, skill, department, shift code, shift times, employee type, and hours. Additional columns are provided to manually enter room / assignment information and additional notes.

New Summary Columns
Two new columns are being added to the All summary section: C/L (Contract Labor) and PRN (As Needed). Along with OT (Overtime), these columns provide information for a shift summary period across all scheduled skills. For example, the number displayed in the C/L column equals the number of contract labor staff scheduled during the shift summary period.

When a cell is clicked in an All summary column, the Home Department screen for the shift summary is displayed. From there, staffers can filter, view, and edit assignments to balance staffing needs.

Actual Census Display
If Actual Census data has NOT been received from Meditech, the value will display as a dash ” – “ in the header of the Staff To / Forecast Census and Resource Assignment screens. Census data received from Meditech displays as a number.

Facility Scheduler Field Names
To provide greater clarity, the following field names have been updated on the Departments > General Info screen:
Dept. Code > Displayed Dept Code
HR Dept Code > HR/Payroll Dept. Code
Legacy Department Code > HOST GL Dept Code

SMS Notifications: Consent
- When an employee enters the activation code and validates their mobile phone number on the SMS Consent screen, all notification checkboxes will be selected by default. The employee can then review and deselect the notifications they do not wish to receive.
- The employee’s mobile phone number is no longer saved when an employee chooses to opt-out of receiving SMS notifications. If the employee chooses to opt-in again at a future date, they will re-enter and validate the mobile phone number.
- Mobile phone numbers entered on the SMS Consent screen when opting in to receive SMS notifications must be unique – i.e. not a duplicate number.

Facility Scheduler Fixes
- Default Staff Float Settings – When adding an assignment from the Daily Roster, the Float checkbox will no longer be automatically selected. The current float definition does not apply to shift creation.
- Daily Roster - The Daily Roster print view now displays rosters in the same order they are displayed in the web view.

Facility Scheduler 3.7.7 Jun 6/23/2020Facility Scheduler 3.7.7 Jun 6/23/2020

Staff Only Float and Cancel Reports
Many facilities are required to provide shift float and cancellation data to hospital staff members when it is requested. This data may be written in logbooks, digitally recorded in spreadsheets, or captured using other homegrown methods. Regardless of the method, the data must be accurate, up to date, and available on-demand for staff members to review.

To better meet this requirement and standardize the process, we are introducing Staff Only Float and Staff Only Cancel reports. Staff Only reports are activated and configured at the Facility level from the Facilities > General Info screen. When activated, access can be limited to users with assigned permissions to view staff reports or granted to all facility staff members.

Cancellation Reasons
This feature allows users assigned the PI Labor Corporate Administrator role to create, edit, and deactivate cancellation categories and reasons at division, facility, and department levels. Once cancellation categories or reasons are created and assigned, they are immediately available for selection when cancelling assignments and running cancellation reports.

Note: Existing cancellation reasons will be maintained and assigned to either the Facility Cancel or Employee Cancel categories.

Cancellation categories and reasons are managed from the Admin > Cancellation Reasons screen. From this screen, PI Labor Corporate Administrators can create new categories and reasons, edit existing reasons, and assign them for use all the way down to the department level to allow area-specific reporting. To protect employee privacy, categories and/or reasons can also be excluded from displaying in reports.

Facility Scheduler Enhancements and Fixes:
Facility Scheduler v3.7.7 includes the following fixes:
·  Open Needs – When reviewing Open Needs Requests, Managers will now see all requests from the current date forward.
·  Open Needs - When a request to cover an open need is denied, the shift no longer displays on the department schedule as a cancelled shift.
·  PTO Requests - Military time entries such as 0800 or 1300 are now supported on the PTO requests screen.
Staffing Dashboard
·  When viewing Staff Search results on the Resource Assignments screen, the employee's Hire Date now displays as expected.

Facility Scheduler 3.7.6 Jun 10, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.7.6 Jun 10, 2020
Staffing Dashboard SMS Notifications
In the past, Facility Scheduler has relied exclusively on phone calls and/or email messaging to alert hospital staff when their scheduled assignments change. With this enhancement, hospital staff can elect to receive one-way, SMS text message alerts when the following actions occur in the Staffing Dashboard:
- A new assignment is created
  - An existing assignment is modified
  - An assignment is cancelled

Like some scheduling emails sent in Facility Scheduler, the SMS messages are automatically generated and sent when any of the above actions are completed in the Staffing Dashboard. Schedule changes executed in the Department Schedule or Daily Roster will continue to rely on phone calls and email.

By default, staff members are opted-out of receiving SMS messages. To opt in or to change your messaging options, click Employees > General Info in the main navigation bar, then click the SMS Consent tab.

Enhancements and Fixes:
Facility Scheduler
- The Facility > General Info screen now displays read-only fields for HR Company and Process Level.
- The Departments > General Info screen now includes an editable Admission Legacy Department Code field displaying the general ledger (GL) number.

Staffing Dashboard
  - When a hospital staff member’s assignment is cancelled, the staff member is now listed on the Resource Assignments > Unscheduled Staff tab for the cancelled shift summary times.
  - The effective census is now highlighted when viewing Census Data in the headers of the Staff To / Forecast Census, Resource Assignments, and Overtime Details windows. The timestamp displayed below the census data is specific to the highlighted value – i.e. Forecast (if no actual), Actual (from Meditech interface) or Staff To if it has been manually adjusted.
  - The Forecast field on the Staff To / Forecast Census popup is no longer editable.
When viewing a Service Line in the Staffing Dashboard, departments are now sorted by department number.

Patient Classification System (California Facilities)
  - The header in the Overtime Details popup window has been updated to include PCS Census data.
The displayed PCS Level in the Staff To / Forecast Census window automatically updates to reflect saved changes to Patient Classification Levels.
  - When a census value exceeds the maximum staffing matrix value, the Daily Roster screen now displays the correct Target staffing value instead of displaying zero.
  - When a census value exceeds the maximum staffing matrix value, the Daily Roster print view now calculates and displays the correct value in the Difference column.

Facility Scheduler 3.7.5 Jun 2, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.7.5 Jun 2, 2020

Staffing Dashboard
The Staffing Dashboard is a web application that provides a summary view of a hospital’s inpatient, acute care staffing schedule. The dashboard displays real-time, Facility Scheduler data allowing users to quickly identify and react to staffing gaps and overages.

The Staffing Dashboard is accessed by clicking the Dashboards tab in the Facility Scheduler navigation bar.

Note: The Staffing Dashboard is being deployed to all HCA divisions. The first time you access the dashboard, the screen may be slow to load. Please be patient. Performance will be noticeably faster the next time you access the dashboard.

There are two roles associated with the Staffing Dashboard:

- Staffing Dashboard - Read Only:Users with this role can view staffing summaries for facilities, service lines, and departments to which they have access. The Read-only role is assigned to selected users in the following roles: Senior Leader, Educator, Admin Assistant, Charge 1 & 2, and Schedule Excellence Administrator
- Staffing Dashboard - Full Access: Users with this role have access as described above, plus they can click within the dashboard to view resource lists, where they can add, modify, and cancel assignments as needed to meet staffing goals. The Full Access role is assigned to selected users in the following roles: Facility Administrator, Facility Coordinator, Director, Director 2, Manager, House Supervisor, and Scheduler.

Important Note: Staff assignment updates made in the Staffing Dashboard are immediately visible on schedules and daily rosters within Facility Scheduler and vice versa.

Feature: PCS Visibility in the Staffing Dashboard (California Facilities)
Patient acuity information entered in the Patient Classification System (PCS) within Facility Scheduler is now visible in the Staffing Dashboard.
- Census and PCS data are displayed in the headers of the Resource Assignments and Staff To / Forecast Census screens.
  - Acuity levels can be viewed, entered, and edited on the Staff to / Forecast Census screen.
  - Staffing grids for low, medium, and high patient acuity levels can be viewed on the Resource Assignments screen by clicking the Staffing Matrix tab.
  - PCS and Census data updates every 15 minutes. A timestamp below the data displays the date and time of the last update.

Staffing Dashboard Enhancements
Overtime Column
The Overtime column now displays as the first column following Patient Census data.

WPC Dashboard
For divisions staffed by the Workforce Planning Center (WPC), users will see two options when clicking Dashboards in the Facility Scheduler navigation bar:
  - Staffing Dashboard is the facility dashboard (Default).
  - WPC Dashboard is the dashboard utilized by the Workforce Planning Center.

Facility Scheduler 3.7.2 May 7, 2020Facility Scheduler 3.7.2 May 7, 2020

The Staffing Dashboard is a web application that provides a summary view of a hospital’s inpatient, acute care staffing schedule. The dashboard displays real-time, Facility Scheduler data allowing users to quickly identify and react to staffing gaps and overages. The Staffing Dashboard is accessed by clicking the Dashboards tab in the Facility Scheduler navigation bar.

Note: The Dashboards tab is only visible to users with assigned permissions.

There are two access levels associated with the Staffing Dashboard:
Read Only: Users with this permission can view staffing summaries for facilities, service lines, and departments to which they have access. The view can be filtered by Shift, Shift Summary, Date and Time Ranges, Facility, Service Lines, and Departments.
Full Access: Users with this permission have access as described above, plus they can view resource lists, and add, modify, and cancel assignments as needed to meet staffing goals. Assignment updates made in the Staffing Dashboard are immediately visible on associated pages within Facility Scheduler and vice versa.

Additional Enhancements:
The EIN field has been expanded to accommodate entries up to 15 characters.

Facility Scheduler 3.7.0.3 Apr 21, 2021Facility Scheduler 3.7.0.3 Apr 21, 2021

Show PTO Balance*
When approving paid time off (PTO) or changing an assigned shift to PTO, the employee’s earned PTO total, previously approved PTO, and estimated future accrual displays, allowing the Approver or Staffer to quickly determine whether the employee has (or will have) enough PTO to cover the request or shift modification.

Users with permissions to view PTO totals on the Employee Info > HR tab, to approve PTO requests, and to edit, cancel, and/or split employee schedule assignments will have access to view this information.

* Note: The PTO Balance grid only displays for HCA facilities utilizing the Lawson HR system.

Skill Groups

When activated, this feature allows Department Administrators to group skills by designating some skills as qualified to “cover” for other skills. For example, in some departments Learning Practical Nurses (LPN) may cover Registered Nurse (RN) shifts. When this feature is activated, and LPNs are configured as covering skills for RNs, LPNs will be able to self-schedule, request to fill open needs, and accept shift trades for RN assignments.

Staffing Exception Approval

Note: Access to this functionality is currently limited to Workforce Planning Center (WPC) users and the facilities they schedule.

On occasion, staffing levels may need to deviate from the department’s staffing grid levels due to patient acuity levels. When this need arises, facility leadership or a designee should be alerted of the deviation, have an opportunity to review the proposed staffing levels, and approve or deny the request.

This enhancement introduces a defined workflow for submitting, reviewing, and dispositioning staffing exception requests. Staffers with assigned permissions can initiate requests from either the department schedule by right-clicking on a cell or from the daily roster. Designated approvers will be notified by email when exception requests are submitted.

Pending and dispositioned requests can be viewed from the Requests > Staffing Exceptions screen. A report is also available for analyzing submitted staffing exception requests, their disposition, and associated notes.

Facility Scheduler 3.6.2Facility Scheduler 3.6.2

WPC Staffing Dashboard
The Workforce Planning Center (WPC) Staffing Dashboard is a web application that provides a summary view of a hospital’s inpatient, acute care staffing schedule. The dashboard displays real-time, Facility Scheduler data allowing users to quickly identify and react to staffing gaps and overages. The dashboard is configured by department and is accessed by clicking the Dashboards tab in the Facility Scheduler navigation bar.

Note: Access to the Staffing Dashboard is currently limited to the Workforce Planning Center (WPC).

Facility Scheduler 3.6.0Facility Scheduler 3.6.0Type your expanding text here

Care Assignment Spreadsheet
This feature allows users with Daily Roster access to print a shift roster for selected dates, parts of day, and departments. In addition to the information displayed on the Daily Roster, printouts also include staff member phone numbers and columns to enter room / assignment and comments. Users can print rosters and manually enter room and assignment information, or they can export the roster in Excel format to enter information into the spreadsheet before printing.

To access Care Assignment Spreadsheets, go to Daily Roster > Assignment Sheet View.

Department Shift Offset
To address departmental needs for greater shift offset times, the maximum offset is increased from 30 minutes to two hours.

Bug Fixes
When a user is on the Department > Groups page and clicks Add Sorting Group, the correct page opens allowing the user to create and save a new group.