Using the Task Planner

The Task Planner add on module within WhosOffice allows you to go deeper into your everyday working requirement. It takes into account the key elements of WhosOffice including Work, Leave and Events (Bank Holidays).

To use the Task Planner you will need to setup Competencies / Skills that are assigned to certain individuals within your company, these can represent a particular Job Role i.e. Lab Technician, or just a particular skill i.e. Wind Turbine Service Level 2.

Setting and Applying Competencies / Skills

• From the Work Menu, select Work Attributes, then Create New Attribute
• Then change the Type to Competency, Skill Level
• Next, enter the name of this particular attribute
• Click Save.

Now, on the left hand side of the page click on Staff Members.

From here you will be able to assign particular Users who have this attribute or skill level.

Creating your Tasks

• From the Work Menu, select Task Planner.

On this page you have 2 options in the top left corner, these are;

• Date – Selecting which Date to assign Tasks to
• Group – Choosing which Group to assign Tasks for

After selecting your Date* and Group you can use the field on the left hand side marked ***NEW***, by clicking on this field you will be able to create your first Task by using the option that appears on the right hand side.

This Task could represent what certain individuals within this Group have to do on this day, or even where they are supposed to be. You can continue to add more Tasks onto the planner now, or set out your requirement per Task first.

On the Task Planner there is a Timeline for that day represented by the Hours of the day at the top of your screen, you will also see the days of the current month you are in. If you have already created Tasks for this month, for this Group, you might see some colours (Red, Green or Amber), you can find out more information about what these mean in our “Task Planner – The Traffic Light System” article.

Building your requirement

In the timeline bar in line with your Task click on the empty field. On the right hand side of your screen you will see fields appear that allow you to set out your requirement, starting with the Timings.

For example, if you had a Task for staff to work in the Pharmacy between 0800 and 1300 you would do the following under the Timings selections;

Start – 0800
End – 1300

By clicking Add you will now be able to assign your Skillset Requirement, this allows you to state how many of the right sort of people you need to be able to complete this Task.

Using the Skillset drop-down option you can select which Skillset is relevant to this Task (you can add more than one Skillset to a Task), along with how many people with this Skillset you need, by using the Required drop-down. Click Add once you have made your selections.

You can continue to add multiple skillset requirements to each Task where necessary

After adding in your skillset requirement, you will see a list of staff members present below, you will only see staff members who have the required skillsets, keeping the information entirely relevant.

In line with each of the staff members names, you will be able to assign them their specific Skillset for this Task.

This area will also inform you if any member of staff is unavailable for any particular reason, these potential reasons can be seen below, as seen on the requirement builder under their appropriate columns;

• Work (W) - The staff member may not be working, or might not be working the right hours for this Task
• Leave (L) – The staff member may have leave booked during this particular requirement**
• Tasks – The staff member may already be assigned to another Task in the system during this requirement***

Copying Tasks to save you time

Once you have built your requirement for the day you have selected, you can then either move onto the next day and outline your requirement, but if you work roughly the same sort of tasks each day, you might want to use the Copy Day function.

This allows you to copy the current day you are on to another, or multiple, dates within your calendar.

• First you would select the date you would like the data to start from
• Then choose how many days you would like to repeat for, if you want to complete a month at a time, select 31.
• Next you can change any of the days of the week to No, this will exclude these days from being assigned Tasks i.e. if you only work Monday to Friday.
• Then you can click Copy.

*Task planning can only be processed one day at a time, however there is a really useful Copy Day function that allows you to copy a “Template” day to multiple days of the month.

**Remember, leave does not necessarily mean that they are unavailable for work, they could just have a meeting scheduled in on that day

***Staff members can be assigned to multiple tasks on the same day, as they may job share or work with another department to complete their duties.

Title: Using the Task Planner
Category: Work
Posted: Tuesday, 16th Nov 2021
By: Callum Ellis
Direct link: https://www.whosoffice.com/support/knowledgebase/using-the-task-planner

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