Some activities need to be scheduled to achieve a target amount of time, for example, if your team need to do 3 hours of admin a day or if your surfers all need 1 hour of development time a week.
The 'total hours' scheduling method allows you to define how much time you need surfers to spend on an activity across days or weeks. You can also choose whether you want this time target to be applied to each surfer, or shared between a group of surfers.
💡 Individual target is best for activities like development, training or personal tasks, whereas time shared target is best for things like clearing backlogs, admin tasks or shared responsibilities.
1. Add an activity rule
Click 'add activity rule' from the toolbar on the left of your screen.
You'll now be taken to the activity rule form.
2. Choose or create an activity
Select the activity that you want to schedule. You can select an existing activity or create a new one.
🚀 'Total hours' activities can also be linked to ticket groups to track staffing using the coverage bar.
3. Define how this activity should be scheduled
Select the ‘total hours’ option: This type of scheduling lets us set a goal for individual or shared time spent on an activity
Enter the time target you have for this activity: You can set a target amount of time per day or per week.
Now, decide if you want this target to be set for each individual surfer or shared between surfers.
Choose how much time surfers need on this activity at a time: You can split the total time into smaller chunks, or schedule it all in one go. 'Shrink to fill' lets Surfboard fill awkward gaps in the schedule.
Choose how flexible or specific you need to be: If you’re flexible, Surfboard will try to fit slots of time in on this activity around everything else. If you need to be more specific, click 'add time'. You can then choose from the following options:
Between: select a window of time that this activity can happen within.
At: enter a specific start time for this activity, it will then be scheduled for the length of time you entered previously.
At start of a shift: the activity will be scheduled at the start of each selected surfer's shift, regardless of the start time.
The end of a shift: the activity will be scheduled at the end of each selected surfer's shift, regardless of the end time.
Filter surfers: By default, every surfer in the plan will be included in the rule. You can use filters to choose which surfers should be included in each rule. This allows you to create rules for different groups of surfers for different situations. Read more about how to use filters here.
💡 Tip: Many teams use 'at start of shift' to give their surfer's time to go through their replies and personal inboxes when they begin work.
4. Filtering surfers
By default, every surfer in the plan will be included in the rule. You can use filters to choose which surfers should be included in each rule. This allows you to create rules for different groups of surfers for different situations.
The filters you have available are:
Surfer - Include or exclude specific surfers
Surfer skill - Include or exclude surfers based on the skills they have
Shift - Include or exclude surfers based on the shift they have that day
Scheduled activities - Include or exclude surfers based on if they are scheduled or not scheduled on another activity.
e.g Include surfers who have not worked on the Priority calls activity
Shift length - Include or exclude surfers based on the length of their shift.
You also have the ability to use multiple filters within the same rule. This gives you a lot of flexibility over how activities are scheduled. For example you could say:
"include surfers who are skilled on Phones, not on the Evening shift and have not been scheduled on Chat."
5. Review your activity
Take a look at your schedule preview to see how this activity is scheduled across different days.
When you’re happy, hit save!