The Roadmap to a Completed Schedule
1. Create a New Draft: Begin by initiating a draft for the specific period you wish to plan.
2. Manage Requests: Review and either approve or disapprove any time-off or availability requests that will impact your scheduling period.
3. Targeted Assignments: Adjust or manually assign any specific shifts you would like to handle before filling the rest of the roster.
4. Fill the Schedule: Populate the remaining shifts manually or utilize the Autoscheduler for automated coordination.
5. Review: Conduct a final audit of your schedule to ensure accuracy and clinical coverage.
6. Publish: Make the schedule official by publishing it to the rest of the team.
1. Create a New Draft:
Think of Schedules as dedicated workspaces where you can plan and organize shifts for a specific period of time.
To start building your roster, click the [+] button located on the left-hand panel of your Team Calendar. This creates a "sandbox" environment, allowing you to refine shift assignments privately before they are made official for the entire team.
Once you click the [+] button, a configuration window will appear where you define the parameters for your upcoming clinical period.
Required and Optional Details:
Scheduling Period: Select the specific date range you intend to plan.
Templates: Choose one or more shift templates to automatically populate the draft with your department's standard requirements.
Schedule Name (Optional): Provide a custom title to help you distinguish between different drafts or versions.
Request Deadline (Optional): Set a cutoff date for associates to finalize their time-off or availability requests.
A Note on Data Integrity:
At the bottom of this window, you will find a checkbox labeled "Prevent duplicated shifts". Keeping this enabled ensures the system avoids creating overlapping or redundant assignments during the initial setup.
Once you have finalized these settings, click "Create" to generate your new workspace.
Clicking "Create" generates an unpublished schedule populated with empty shifts derived from your team's specific templates.
Technical Note: Modifying a template after you have created a schedule will not retroactively affect that specific draft in any way.
Visibility and Privacy
As long as the schedule remains unpublished, it serves as a private administrative "sandbox":
Hidden Views: Neither the schedule nor its individual shifts are visible on the "Team Calendar" or any associated views.
Restricted Interaction: Team members cannot view, claim, or initiate trades ("deals") with these shifts until you choose to go live.
2. Manage Requests:
Requests for vacation, "require off" days, or specific availability only impact the scheduling engine if they are formally approved before you begin filling the roster.
To ensure the system generates an accurate and fair schedule, follow these preparation steps:
Verify Member Input: Ensure your associates have indicated the dates they can or cannot work using the appropriate request types.
Finalize Decisions: Before moving to the filling phase, you must review and either approve or deny all relevant requests within the scheduling period.
The Approval Rule: If a request is left in a "pending" state, the system will not account for it during the automated scheduling process.
Pro-Tip: Handling requests first prevents the headache of having to manually swap shifts later because a "pending" vacation was overlooked.
3. Targeted Assignments:
While your team template establishes the foundation of empty shifts, you retain full administrative control to customize the draft. You are not restricted by the initial template and can perform the following actions to ensure the schedule aligns with clinical realities:
Modify Assignments: You can add, edit, delete, or move any shift directly within the schedule.
Handle Exceptions: Manual adjustments are often necessary for holidays or special events where standard templates may not accurately reflect staffing requirements.
Pre-Assignment: This is the ideal stage to manually assign specific clinical leads or "must-fill" roles before using automated tools.
4. Fill the Schedule:
Now that your draft is configured, you can populate the empty shifts with team members. This step is flexible depending on whether you prefer a hands-on approach or automated coordination.
Manual Assignment Methods:
Direct Selection: Click on any specific shift and select the appropriate member from the list.
Timeline Drag-and-Drop: In the Timeline view, simply drag a shift onto a specific member's row to assign it.
Leveraging the Mesh Autoscheduler:
If you want the system to handle the heavy lifting, click "Autoschedule".
Efficiency: The system will figure out the optimal arrangement of members based on your rules.
Timeline & Notifications: A pop-up will provide an estimate of how long the process will take, and you will receive a notification the moment it is complete.
Expert Review: If this is your first time using this feature, a Mesh AI concierge will review your settings first to ensure you get the best possible results.
The Self-Scheduling Approach:
This step is entirely optional. If your department allows members to choose their own shifts, you can leave the schedule empty and skip directly to Step 6 to publish.
Member Pick-ups: Once published, members can claim the empty shifts themselves.
Set the "Rules of the Game": Before publishing empty shifts, it is best practice to send a "Meshage" to the team. Clearly define the expectations, such as "first-come, first-served" or any minimum/maximum shift quotas, so everyone is on the same page.
Further Reading:
For detailed strategies on managing a team that selects its own coverage, see the dedicated guide on publishing shifts unassigned or empty.
5. Review:
Once your assignments are complete—whether done manually or via the Autoscheduler—conducting a thorough audit is essential before the schedule goes live.
Final Audit Checklist:
Verification of Coverage: Confirm that all essential shifts are assigned to a member, unless you intend for them to remain empty for self-scheduling.
Rule Compliance: Scan for shifts marked with a red box containing a number on the right side of the shift. This indicator signifies a rule violation, with the number representing how many constraints are currently being broken (e.g., duty-hour conflicts or qualification mismatches).
Equitability Analysis: Click on "View Schedule Quality" to access high-level analytics.
6. Publish:
Once you are satisfied with the final roster and have addressed any rule violations, you can make the schedule official by clicking the "Publish" button.
What Happens Upon Publication:
Full Visibility: All shifts within the schedule immediately become visible to every team member on both their personal calendars and the team calendar.
Shift Interaction: Members can begin interacting with their assigned shifts.
The Deal System & Mesh Bazaar: Once live, associates can use the deal system or the Mesh Bazaar to trade, swap, or offer shifts to the rest of the team.
Schedule Publishing and Management Options
When you are ready to finalize your schedule, you have two primary methods for publishing, as well as the ability to unpublish if necessary:
1. Publishing Options
Publish Silently: This option updates the live schedule without sending any alerts. It is ideal for minor administrative adjustments or when you prefer to announce the schedule through other internal channels.
Publish and notify associates: This triggers an automated notification (via email or app) to all scheduled staff. This ensures everyone is immediately aware of their assignments and any recent changes.
