This article provides a quick overview of the major changes of the more commonly used functions in HosPortal. There are more detailed explanations of some of these changes for roster administrators on other help pages.
Navigation and the Dashboard
The main menu is now on the left-hand side and it is collapsible (click A).
HosPortal is no longer restricted to just Call and Allocations. You can have many roster groups (B)
The Notify page, where you send SMS and Emails to your colleagues, is now called the Direct Message page (C)
Your roster administrator can configure the Shifts of Today panel (D) to show different rosters and present them in different formats.
Your calendar can show your staffing patterns/templates, in pink (E)
The colours of your shifts might be different to what you are used to: they can be defined by your facility and could be different for each roster group and at each facility. Note that HosPortal still standardises some colours across all facilities, similar to the old version of HosPortal:
Template shifts are pink
Events/meetings are purple
Market shifts are orange
Leave is green
If your facility turns on shift approval rules, then your Dashboard will show a panel for all shifts that have not yet been approved/declined, as well as showing an icon on the shift itself.
Viewing rosters and shifts
You and your roster administrators can define and name different views for you to use later (G), and manage the views and their order.
The highlight button can assist you find your own shifts (H). Some highlight options (e.g. show conflicts) will not work unless you have administrative rights.
There is no distinction between the functions available to Call and Allocations shifts.
Allocations shifts now adopt some of the features previously only available to Call rosters. They can:
be grouped and displayed by roster (e.g. Orthopaedic surgery sessions) and have colours associated with them.
be open to swapping and transfer between users
be placed on the market
be staffed by using HosPortal's improved self-rostering functions, such as preference- and selection-based rostering
Call shifts can now adopt some of the features previously only available to clinical Allocations. They can:
have locations associated with the rosters or individual shifts
have complex team-based staffing, e.g. a Consultant and a Registrar
have irregular shift patterns
be included in user templates in a more powerful way
There is a sophisticated menu to allow you to customise your views (I). In this menu you can now do such things as:
Filter by roster, roles and locations (J1), including by role and roster tags. You now have complete flexibility about the locations you show, and the ordering of those locations, in every view.
Have your layout based on location or roster, no matter if you are looking at Call or Allocations or any other roster group (J2).
Decide what information to show about the shift (J3).
Decide what information to show about the staffed users (J4) including to shw their full names (rather than just the shortname), their role and phone number. Or not show users at all if you just want to show the shift labels.
Save any changes to your views (J5) to be able to select from the view dropdown (G).
The market
The shift market is now visible to all users, including roster administrators.
The filter and search tools have been improved (K).
Direct messages
The Track function (L) is more powerful, in that it keeps a record of all email and SMS communications, the transmission status and (for emails) the open/read status.
On the administration page, roster administrators can now review an audit log of all transmissions to all users, not just the ones they have sent. This includes HosPortal's automated messages (such as reminders) as well as direct messages sent from this page.
You can now send to people who are on a particular roster or roster group on a particular day (M).
The phone book (N) keeps a record of non-HosPortal users who you might want to send regular communications to.
All emails can be formatted and have hyperlinks, and are no longer constrained to plain text (O).
Staff page
A new hierarchical 'teams' structure can be used to group staff and define qualifications for shifts (P)
There is an enhanced 'skills' structure, with start and optional end dates for qualifications and skills (Q)
Staff are listed with their skills and teams (R)
Staff can have positions, such as 'Head of Department' or 'Roster administrator', listed on the staff page (S)
Your profile
There are separate pages to manage your profiles at each site, and your overall personal account settings (T1). So you can have different emails and mobile numbers for each site.
If you are at multiple sites, you can review your different profiles under your Master Profile (T2).
It used to be that your 'HosPortal Shortname', the name you appear as on the roster, was defined when you first signed up to HosPortal and was then applied to every facility you work at even if that did not suit them. Each facility can now define its own Shortnames (T3) - so you may now have many of them. Only roster administrators can edit your Shortname.
User templates are now more flexible, with better colour-coding, the ability to define templates/staffing patterns for all roster groups (e.g. Call and Allocations), and easier ways for you to define 'Available' and 'Unavailable' templates outside your normal working hours.
Skills and teams can be used to define staffing requirements. You cannot edit these yourself.
Communications mutes are now more comprehensive and easier to use. You can elect to mute certain types of communication to reduce the emails and SMS messages you receive. Your roster administrators now also have more power to override these mutes on occasions when they need to.
Communication history tracks all the system and direct messages you receive.
Invoicing is now more flexible and powerful. You can define your own billing frequency, and all shifts in the same billing period are now consolidated into a single invoice.
Account settings
Under the separate Account settings page you can now:
Elect to turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA), using either an SMS code or a separate authenticator. Note that your site administrators can also elect to turn on MFA for the whole site, in which case you will not be able to turn it off.
Change your timezone, which will change the time that you receive your notification and alerts (it will not change the time of the shifts on the roster - they are always shown in the time of the facility).
Subscribe to iCal, to sync with your other calendars such as Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar.
Manage your communication digests. Rather than HosPortal's standard digest being sent at 07:00 and 19:00 Sydney time each day, you can now define your own digests in your local timezone, or delete them altogether.
Leave and Events
Improved leave analysis when applying for and approving leave
Leave analysis considers non-working days for part-time staff and VMOs
Events no longer have QR codes for check-in and automated attendance recording. We may bring those back later.
Security and privacy improvements
HosPortal V2 is based on a more robust security platform to meet the increased expectations of users and our customers:
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is available for all users, using either SMS or an authenticator app
Site administrators can insist on MFA for all users
Data for all Australia and New Zealand customers is now stored in Australia. Customers in other regions can request their data to be stored local to their region.
HosPortal now keeps a robust change log of almost all changes made to rosters and all communications sent to users. Most of these change logs are visible to roster administrators for auditing and incident review.
Historical communications records are now kept for the life of the contract.
HosPortal has undertaken a robust third party penetration and cyber-security audit, with a clean audit report.
Other things to look out for
In addition to the features above that are visible to all users, there are some new administrative functions that may affect your experience if your facility decides to use them:
Shift swaps and transfers can now be sent to administrators for approval before they are finalised. You will see pending requests on your home page.
Roster administrators can define rules to identify rostering conflicts. For example, these might include restrictions on working consecutive shifts, or restrictions on doing work after a night shift. These rules will be applied when swapping and transferring shifts, which may limit your ability to make changes with particular people, or for shifts on particular days.
Similarly, they can define more complex rules about what shifts can be placed on the market, or picked from the market.
There are now more powerful self-rostering features, that can be used to populate many rosters at the same time. Preference-based rostering has been improved, where you express preferences for shifts rather than just pick shifts.