HosPortal's location-based rosters are allow you to build more complex rosters, such as when there can be different locations for each type of actitivity, there are multiple people per activity, or the activities are irregular across a multiple week cycle.
If the activities are regular, there is no need to show locations, there is only one person per activity and the location is the same every time the activity happens, then it might be better to use activity-based rosters, explained here.
In hospitals, location-based rosters are often used for theatre and clinical allocations, whereas activity-based rosters are often used for on-call shifts and trainee duties.
Reviewing your roster groups
You should already have created a location-based roster group to manage your location-based rosters. In the older version of HosPortal these would have been called 'Allocations'. You can see your roster groups on the Admin page. You can see the type of roster group in A below.
Before you begin
If you are new to HosPortal, or are only familiar with Allocations rosters under the older version of HosPortal (before February 2022), we recommend that you start with this overview video here.
We also recommend speaking to the team at HosPortal. There are many options and decisions you can make in building these rosters, and we might save you some time by talking through them first.
Define the locations
Once you have done that, it is helpful to first define the various locations you will be using. This can be done on the Admin page on the Roster Locations tab, which will list all your locations in alphabetical order.
If you have not configured any rosters you will see the 'No rosters configured yet' when you come to your roster page (B). To set the location order, click on Templates (C), then the view management cog (D).
Click the Locations button (E), re-order your locations and then save them to a new view.
Management of view settings and the various options you can user are explained in more detail here. It is better to review this further detail once you have entered your first few rosters and so there is data you can see on the screen as you change your preferences.
Concepts
It is helpful to be familiar with the following terminology and concepts when building location-based rosters.
Roster: HosPortal describes any grouping of like activities as a Roster. So it might be that all your general surgery activity is on a General Surgery roster, even though the individual activities might be described as the 'Adams list', 'Bourke' or 'Gen Surg'. Rosters allow you to set common colour schemes, and allow you to easily group and find your activity.
Shift template: A shift template is the pattern of the specific type of activity. So there might be a single shift template for the 'Adams list' (on the General Surgery roster) that happens every Wednesday, and another for the 'Gen Surg' activities that happens every second Monday and Tuesday.
User template: A user template is the pattern of the people who normally do an activity. So it might be that Dr Clarke and Dr Dorian alternate on the Adams list every second week. Dr Clarke and Dr Dorian will each have their own user template, applied to the Adams shift template. This feature allows you to separate the people doing the activity - which might change often - from the description of the activity itself.
Slot: A slot is the definition of the usual staffing requirement for an activity. A slot might specify that the activity requires a Consultant. Another slot might define that the activity requires either a Fellow or a Registrar. You can define multiple slots for each activity, for instance you might define three slots for a shift: a Surgery Consultant, an Anaesthesia Consultant, and either a Scrub Nurse or a Scout Nurse.
Building your shift templates
As described in the video above, we recommend that you first block out your shift templates for each roster, then build your shift templates, and finally apply the user templates.
To build your shift templates, click the Templates button (C) to see the pink templates page. Select one or more similar activities on your roster (F) and click Add shifts (G).
This will bring up the Add shift panel, similar to the one shown below (H). Some of the information may not be shown if you have selected dissimilar shifts. For instance, if you have only selected Monday AM shifts, then you will have the option to edit the day (change Monday to Tuesday) and session time (change AM to PM). But if you have selected shifts across multiple days and sessions the HosPortal will use your selections and you will not be able to edit them here.
The elements of the shifts are as follows:
Location: pick from one of the locations already defined on the Roster Locations tab of the Admin page.
Roster: Either select from a Roster you have used before, or create a new one by selecting '+New roster' (I). This will present you with a panel to create and name a new roster. Select a start date earlier than the earliest shift on the roster. You can add reporting tags, and define a colour for the roster if you want. If you do not select a colour, all the shifts on this Roster will default to the colour of the Roster Group.
Name: The name is how the shift will show on the roster page. If you leave it blank each shift will appear with the name of the Roster (e.g. 'General Surgery'). But you can also name shifts within a Roster, such as 'Adams list'. You can also rename these later.
Tags: if you are using tags for reporting (defined in Roster Tags on the Admin page) you can apply these here.
Time: pick one of your standard session times, or an ad hoc time. Standard session times are defined under the Roster Groups tab on the Admin page.
Start date: the first date of the repeat cycle of this shift.
End date: leave this blank if the shift is expected to continue.
Every: the weekly repeat cycle. If an activity happens every week, select '1'. Every two weeks, select '2' etc.
On: select the days of the week this shift occurs on.
Holiday settings: tick this box if the shift does not occur on designated holidays. Note that there might be site-specific holidays, such as shut-down days, in addition to any government-defined holidays.
Slots (J): define the slots for this activity.
Creating slots
You need a slot for each person regularly expected to be on the roster. It is possible to add additional people to the roster on an ad-hoc basis when you are building the roster if you need more people. You can also leave slots vacant if you are unable to staff them, or delete them if you no longer need to staff them when you are building the roster.
For each slot, define the roles of the users required. If the person could be one of a number of roles, then include all the roles. You can optionally define the Skills and Teams of the users, if you are using these features.
If more than one person is usually required use the '+Add slot' button to create a second slot. You can then also re-order the slots by using the sliders (L). In the example below the roster has 2 slots, and therefore requires 2 people: a Consultant as the first-listed person and either a Consultant or a Registrar as the second-listed person.
Remember to select Save to save your shifts!
Building your user templates and editing shift templates
Once you have built a shift and defined its slots you can edit them and add user templates. Adding user templates is optional: if you do not assign a user then the slot will need to be filled manually each time the roster is built and published.
First make sure you are in Template mode (click C in the screenshot above) and your roster is showing with pink boxes. You need then add your users one shift at a time by selecting the shift and clicking Edit shift (M).
The view shift panel allows you to edit the shift settings (N), edit the requirement for the slot (O), adding a new user (P) or editing the settings for an existing user (Q).
Editing shift template settings
If you edit the shift template settings (N), such as the location or times, then:
the users assigned to the shift will move with the shift
no already-published shifts will be affected - it will only affect the templates and how they are used when you publish shifts in the future.
The only item you cannot edit once a shift is created is the Roster. To change rosters:
If you have not already used this template to build shifts: delete this shift and create a new one.
If you have already used this template to create shifts you cannot delete it. Instead, end the shift by setting an end date. Then create a new shift on the new roster.
Adding user templates
To add a user template, click Add template user (P). In the pop-up screen, select the user (R) and the repeat cycle of the user (S).
Note that the user template repeat cycle needs to make sense for the shift template:
If the shift template occurs every 2 weeks, you can select the user template to be every 2, 4 or 6 weeks, but you cannot choose a user template for every week or every 3 weeks.
If the shift template is every Wednesday, you cannot start the user template on a Tuesday or a Thursday.
Reviewing templates
As you are building your templates they are mirrored on each user's profile page. For more information refer to the templates help files.