grispa-dienstplaner

Software for generating duty rosters

Help

Content

Start program

Configure enterprise

Configure departments

Configure shifts

Configure department-shifts

Configure employees

Configure shift sequences

Working and free time cycles

Day types

Roles

Holidays

Bonus periods

Create a duty roster

Saving and opening duty rosters

Calculation of employees working time

Assign or delete shifts manually

Assign employees manually

View report

Assignement rules

Start program
To run grispa-dienstplaner you must have installed Java&trade on your system. To verify if Java&trade version 1.6 or higher is installed and if it can be found, do the following:
On Windows&trade task bar klick start->run and type cmd. On Linux open a shell (terminal, bash etc.). In the opened command prompt write java -version and press Enter. A version information should appear. If java cannot be found or a wrong version is found, install Java&trade 1.6 or higher. If Java&trade is already installed but cannot be found, the path to the folder containing java.exe (on Windows&trade) or java (on Linux) is probably not contained in your environment variable PATH.
Add the folder containing java to your PATH variable on Linux with command
export PATH=$PATH:<Pfad>, for example export PATH=$PATH:/opt/java1.6/bin hinzu.
On Windows&trade do a rigth click on My Computer->Properties->Advanced and enhance the variable PATH, for example append ;c:\Program files\java\1.6\bin.

Unzip the downloaded zip or tar archiv. A new folder 'grispa-dienstplaner' is created.
On Linux, change into this directory with your shell and execute command ./grispa-dienstplaner.
On Windows&trade click on grispa-dienstplaner.exe in the folder 'grispa-dienstplaner'. If the program does not start, click on grispa-dienstplaner.bat to get error information.

grispa-dienstplaner automatically loads the enterprise configuration of your last session, if the configuration was saved. If not, the program starts with a new and empty configuration.

If you update to a newer version, copy files staffroster.cfg, holidays.csv und barviewsettings.csv from your current folder to the new folder to keep your settings.

Configure enterprise
To start a new enterprise configuration, click this icon in the menu bar: .

Set a name and a description of your enterprise in the opened dialog.

Configure the default working-and-free-time-cycles used for new employees. More information about this you can get here.

Configure the rest period (in hours and minutes), which employees have to keep between working periods.

Configure the maximum working time duration (in hours and minutes), which employees are allowed to work between rest periods. All working periods (shifts) which have a time distance less than the rest period are accumulated.

Configure departments
Click on to open the department dialog for a new department or click on to open it for editing an existing department.
Set a deparment name and a description.

Configure shifts
A shift is a regular time period having a start time and a duration, wheras employees have to work in departments. Click on to open the shift dialog to create a new shift or click on to open it for editing an existing shift.

Set a shift name and a description.

Set the start time (in hours and minutes), duration, duration and start time (from start time of shift) of the rest period.

Choose the week days when the shift should be run.

Decide if the shift has to run on holidays. You have to possibilities:
1. The shift has to run only on holidays which hit week days on which the shift runs anyway.
2. The shift has to run on all holidays (in addition to the set week days).

Decide if the working hours an employee fulfils when working in this shift should be calculated or if a fix value has to be used. If you set a fix value, the calculation of working time while bonus periods is still calculated by shift duration minus pause duration.

You can also set day types at which shifts have to run. More information about day types you can take here.

You can also set at which day types the shift must not run.

Configure department-shifts
A department-shift is an assignement of one or more departments to a specific shift with settings for necessary amount of employees and required roles.
Example 1: in a department three employees are needed, one of them has to be skilled.
Example 2: some departments need a night watch of two persons.
If a department-shift contains more than one department, only those employees can work which are assigned to all departments (see employee configuration). Click on to open a department-shift dialog to create a new one, or click on to edit an existing one.

Set a name and a description.

Add one or more departments.

Set amount of required employees and required roles and their amount.
The role amount can exceed the employee amount because one employee can have more than one role.

Configure employees
An employee works in one or more departments and has one or more roles (look here for more information about roles).
Click on to open the employee dialog to create a new one, or click to edit an existing one.

Set a name and a description.

Set number of hours the employee has to work per week.

Set number of current overtime hours and number of overtime hours to increase or decrease while next duty roster period.

Set the maximum amount of hours by which the hours the employee has to work in a duty roster period can be exceeded, to be able assign the employee to further shifts. Example: an employee has to work 40 hours per week. In a duty roster an employee was already assigned to shifts with 38 working hours. To be able to assign the employee to a further shift with 5 hours, the value has to be at least 3 hours to allow 43 working hours. If the value is less than 3, the employee cannot be assigned to this shift.
Set this value greater than zero if you expect that the summary of your shift working hours will normaly not reach exactly the employees working hours per week, which should be reached and which are allowed to be exceeded.
Set the employees working-and-free-time-cycle (more about this you can find here). If you want to use the enterprise default setting (set in the enterprise dialog), please click on the 'use default' button.
Set when and by which amount the working hours an employee has to work in a duty roster period has to be decreased if a vacation day or holiday occurrs.

Assign the employee to one or more departments and decide if the employee is allowed to work only in those department-shifts which contain all departments to which the employee is assigned to. This can be useful if you create department-shift with more departments where only employees should work which should not work in deparmtment-shifts with only some of these departments. Example: a department-shift 'night watch' contains two departments. Only employees which are occupied as night watchers are allowed to work in this shift, and they must not work in other department-shifts containing only department 1 or 2.

Set the roles of this employee.

Set vacation periods.

Set absence periods, regular days and day types of absence (here you can find more information about day-types).

Set shifts the employee should always work. Assignement of this employee instead of other ones to the selected shifts will be preferred.
It is not assured that an employee is assigned all of those shifts in a duty roster, because of other settings with forbid and assignement.

Set shifts the employee must never work.
This forbids an assignement of an employee to a shift in a duty roster even if the employee is assigned to a shift sequence which contains this shift.

Configure shiftsequences
Shift sequences are periodical sequences of specific shifts at specific days.
Shift sequences can be used to configure for example an 'early shift' in which only early moring duties from monday to friday are running. When assigning employees to shifts in a duty roster, an employee is only assigned to a shift if the shift and the employee are set in the same shift sequence. This is controlled by an assignement rule. So it is possible to assign employees or groups of employees in one duty roster to the 'early shift' and in the next one to the 'late shift' or 'night shift'.
Vacation days and holidays decrease the time an employee has to work in a duty roster period only if they occur at a working day of the shift sequence (this can be configured differently, as descriebed in Configure employees).
Background: normally for holidays employees have not to take an vacation day, and holidays decrease only working time if they occur at a working day.
In an employee is assigned to more than one shift sequence, only the shift sequence which is set as 'main shift sequence' in a duty roster is relevant.
Click on to open the shift sequence dialog to create a new one, or click to edit an existing one.

Set a name and a description.

Set a day at which the shift sequence has to start in a duty roster. It is started only if the start day occurs in a duty roster and if it is not already running. So you have to take care to start a new duty roster at this day or some day before if you want to start a shift sequence from the very beginning of the duty roster.

Set the duration in days of the shift sequence.

Assign shifts by clicking on button 'new' or 'edit' below the list whith title 'Shifts'. An dialog is opened where a shift can be selected and where you can define at which days of the sequence this shift is part of the sequence. By this it is possible to use shift definition in more than one shift sequence at different days. You might have defined a shift which runs at each weekday, but the shift sequence might contain this shift only at monday and friday, another shift sequence from tuesday to thursday.

Assign employees or employee groups which have to work at shifts of this shift sequence in the next duty roster. Employee groups make it easy to switch several employees between shift sequences before creating new duty rosters.

Working and free time cycles
A working time and free time cycle (wf-cycle) starts with a working period at a specific week day, which could be followed by alternating free time and working time periods.
The wf-cycle is not considered for employees which are assigned to shift sequences.
The wf-cycle defines the preferred working days and free time days of employees. It is responsible for an equal distribution of employees to shifts of a duty roster period. It avoids that an employee is assigned (by considering the rest periods) always to consecutive shifts.
Vacation days and holidays decrease the time an employee has to work in a duty roster period only if they occur at a working day inside the wf-cycle (this can be configured differently, as descriebed in Configure employees).
Background: normally for holidays employees have not to take an vacation day, and holidays decrease only working time if they occur at a working day.
Click inside the entrprise dialog (which can be opened by clicking on ) or inside the employee dialog (wich can be opened by clicking on either or ) the buttong to open the wf-cylce dialog.
Set the start day of the cycle (which is always a working day) and the length of the cycle (in days). Set all following days inside the cycle to be a working day or a free time day.

Day types
Day types define some kind of days for which shifts can be configured to run or not to run, or at which employees can be configured to be absent. You can then define days or periods of days in the calendar where the day types are active.
Example: in summer the whole staff of one department has an excursion. While the excursion the shifts normally run in this deparment must not start.
To create a new day type, click in the menu on File->New->Day type. In the opened dialog set a name and a description.
Add one or more periods of days where this day type is active.

Shifts which start at specific day types are only assigned to a duty roster if the day type period contains all departemnts of the department-shift.
Shifts which do not run at specific day types are only not assigned if the day type period contains all departemnts of the department-shift.
Example: the shift 'night watch' must not start only if all departments are 'closed' because of an excursion. If not all departments are closed, the shift has to run.

Roles
Roles can be used ensure that employees with specific abilities are assigned to shifts where these abilities are needed. Roles can also be used to ensure that some employees work only if other employees are present also.
Example 1: in a sunday moring shift drugs have to be ordered, this has to be done by employees which are qualified for doing this (e.g. by defining a role 'drug orderer').
Example 2: temporary employees depend always on a present skilled employee.
Roles which have dependend roles cannot depend on other roles. If role 1 depends on role 2, role 2 cannot depend on role 3.
Click on do open the role dialog to create a new role or click on to edit an existing one.
Set a role name and a description.
Choose roles from which the role depends on. These are alternative roles, that means, if in a shift one employee is present having one of these roles, the dependency is resolved.

Holidays
Click on to open the holiday dialog and add dates when holidays occur.
The holidays you configure are stored seperately from your enterprise configurations, so they can be used for all of them.

Bonus periods
Bonus periods are special regular spaces of time. If an employee works while such a period, he might earn an extra pay, e.g. during night or at holidays.
After assigning employees to the shifts of a duty roster the amount of time employees work in bonus periods are accumulated and can be viewed in the report.
To create a new bonus period, click in the menu on File->New->Bonus periods. To edit an existing one, click in the menu on File->Edit->Bonus periods.

Set a name and a description.

Set start time, duration and the days when the period runs.

Choose whether the bonus period is active at holidays. There a two possibilities:
1. The bonus period has to be active only at holidays which ocur at week days the bonus period is activated (if anyway).
2. The bonus period is active at all holidays (additionaly).

Create a duty roster
After configuring your enterprise a duty roster can be created. Click on to open a duty roster frame for a new duty roster, or click on to open an existing one.
Create your duty roster in following order:

Set start and stop time of the duty roster and for which departments it should be created.

Decide if only department-shifts are assigned which contain all of the selected departemnts.
If for example a night watch shift is defined for more departments, your are able to create a duty roster containing only this night watch shifts, without other department-shifts containing only a subset of selected departments.

Let the program assign the department-shifts. Afterwards it is not possible to change the duty rosters start time, stop time or departments.

Assign or remove department-shifts manually . More about this you can find here.

Set the main shift sequences for employees which are assigned to more than one shift sequence. They are used to define which holidays and vacation days hit working days and how many working hours those days count.

Assign employees to shifts manually, for example if you know about wishes of your employees. More about this you can find here.

Let the program assign employees to shifts, and remove or exchange employees manually afterwards.

As long as there are department-shifts have less employees assigned as required, assign employees manually or automatically after disabling assignement rules (more about assignement rules you can find here).

Format the duty ruster and print it.

Store the new over time hours of the employees to be used as base for the next duty roster.

Before you create a new duty roster the configuration of all objects like shifts, department-shifts, employees, assignement of employees to shift sequences, holidays etc. should be finished.
If you change configuration after a duty roster was created, you can select which parameters to activate in the opened duty roster by pressing the button 'Update duty roster with changed enterprise configuration'. Further information about this you find in the next chapter.

Saving and opening duty rosters
When closing a duty roster frame you are asked if you want to store the duty roster into the enterprise configuration. When you exit the program, your are asked if to store changes of your enterprise configuration and changed or new duty rosters on disk. When you click in the menu on the save icon or on File->Save or File->Save as, changes of your enterprise configuration are stored, but only changes of the duty roster in the foreground, if more than one are opened.

Because objects of the enterprise configuration could have changed or be deleted after a duty roster was stored, the following data which is necessary to calculate the time emplyoees have to work and the time which they worked while a duty roster period is stored together with the duty rosters' data:
Working hours per week, overtime, overtime to decrease, wf-cycle, the time vacation days and holidays decrease the time to work, explicitly set working times and pause durations of shifts.
If this data is not equal to the current enterprise configuration when opening a stored duty roster, you can choose if to take the current values or the values stored in the duty roster for calculations.
If holidays or vacation days were added after the duty roster was stored, they are considered also.
If the start time or the duration of a shift was changed, the values stored in the duty roster are used.
If the departments of a department-shift were changed, the depatments stored in the duty roster are used.
If a department-shifts' number of employees to assing has changed, the minimum amount is the number of already assigned employees
If current configuration of shift sequences differs from configuration used in a duty roster, you can only take either the current or the stored one completely.
Further parameters are taken from the current enterprise configuration, for example colors.

Calculation of employees working time

To calculate to working time an employee has to work in a duty roster period, the number of weeks of the duty roster period is multiplied by the employees' working hours per week..

The end of a duty roster period, which is used to calculate the time employees have to work and the number of vacation days and holidays, which decrease this time, is the configured stop time and not the the time the duty roster exceeds the configured time because of shifts which start before the configured stop time but which exceed it.

Vacation and holidays decrease the time employees have to work according to the settings for vacation and holidays in the employee configuration.

If a vacation day occurs at a holiday, the working time is decreased only according to the holiday settings, because usually no vacation day has to be taken at a holiday.
Example: an employee has taken a half day vacation at a day which is a holiday. A vacation day/holiday counts 8 hours. The working time to fulfil is decreased by 8 hours according to the holiday, not by 4 hours the vacation day counts.
The time employees have to work is decreased by the time a holiday counts, if the day hits a working day inside the working time / free time cycle (wf-cycle) or a shift sequence, or if holidays are considered at all days.
If a day does not hit a working day of the wf-cycle or a shift sequence, and holidays decrease working time only if they are inside, the working time to fulfil in not decreased at all (not by holiday nor by vacation day). Such a configuration (vacation occurs at holiday) is accepted to avoid that two vacation periods would have to be defined if a holiday is in bewteen.
The report does not show such a vacation day.

Assign or delete shifts manually
Inside the duty roster frame change to tab "Bar view" and choose 'All departments'.
To add a new shift click with right mouse button somewhere inside the duty roster area
To remove a shift click with right mouse button on the shift to remove inside the duty roster area.
Select some of the following items from the appearing context menu:

Click on 'Add shift' to add a shift which is defined in the enterprise configuration.
In the opened dialog choose the department-shift. Only deparmtment-shifts are available which contain departments initially selected for the duty roster.
Set the day the shift should run. If the shift is already running at that day, an error message appears.

Click on 'Add custom shift' to add a shift which does not exist in the enterprise configuration.
In the opened dialog set a name, date, start time, duration, pause start time and duration, number of required employees and the departments.

Click on 'Remove shift' to remove the selected shift.

Assign employees manually
Inside the duty roster frame change to tab "Bar view" and choose for which department to show shifts.
Inside the duty roster area you see one bar for each employee required by the department-shift according to its' configuration. If an employee was assigned, the employee name is displayed, otherwise the bar is read and contains no employee name.
With right mouse button click on an employee bar and select some of the following items from the appearing context menu:

Click on 'Assign employee' to assign an employee to the selected shift or to replace an already assigned one.
In the appearing dialog choose the employee. If no employees are available, because all employees are already working or assignement rules would be violated, an error message appears. You can deactivate assignement rules and try again (more information about assignement rules you find here).

Click on 'Unassign emplployee' to remove the employee from the selected shift.

To exchange employees between shifts, press CTRL-key and mark with left mouse button two employee bars having employees assigned. Click with right mouse on one of the marked bars and choose 'Exchange employees' from the context menu.

View report
In the duty roster frame choose tab 'Report'.

Assignement rules
Assignement rules allow or forbid the assignement of employees to shifts.
An assignement is not possible under the following circumstances:

An employee is absent according to configured absence periods, regular absence periods or day types.

The shift is not inside the working time and free time cycle (wf-cycle). If an employee is assigned to a shift sequence, this rule is ignored

The total amount of all shifts the employee is already assigned to, which have a time distance less than configured rest period, plus the duration of the shift the employee should be assigned to, exceeds the configured maximum working time (how to configure max. working time and rest periods you can see here).

The employee is configured to never work in the shift.

The employee is in vacation.

The total amount of all shifts the employee is already assigned to, plus the duration of the shift the employee should be assigned to, exceeds the time the employee has to work in the duty roster period, plus the configured tolerance. The tolerance is the amount of time the working time can be exceeded by, to be able to assign the employee to further shifts. More information about calculating employees' time to work in a duty roster period you can find here.

The number of roles required by the department-shift is not reached through assigned employees which have this roles.

No employees have been assigned yet to the shift wich have roles the employee to assign depends on.

The employee is not assigned to one of the same shift sequences as the shift. This assignement rule allows the assignement if both employee and shift are not assigned to any shift sequence, or if they are assigned to the same shift sequence.

If you want to assign employees to shifts manually, but there are no employees which can be assigned because assignement rules would be violated, you get an error message with information about these assignement rules. You can also see why employees cannot be assigned to shifts by clicking on a shift with right mouse and select the properties in the appearing context menu.
In the duty roster frames' settings tab you can disable the assignement rules for all or specific employees.
If here the assignement rules for all emplyoees are displayed, the hooks for the assignement rules can be black, blue or gray. If a hook is black, the assignement rule is activated for all employees, if it is blue, the rule was activated for all emplyoees, but afterwards deactivated for some emplyoees. If a hook is gray, the assignement rule was first deactivated for all emyployees and afterwards activated for some emplyoees.
Shifts which contain employees assigned with assignement rule violations are marked with one or more exclamation marks.

The assignement of employees having roles which have to be set in a department-shift according to its' configuration has higher priority than assignement of employees which have to work in this shift always.
Example: a department-shift needs an employee having role 'professional'. The number of employees which have to work in this shift is one. An employee having this role is assigned rather than another employee which does not have this role is not assigned, even if he is configured to work in this shift always.

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