Shifts

Overview

The Shifts module and its supporting module, Shift Exceptions, allow you to define the working hours of your employees. Shifts represent the hours during which users are available and shift exceptions represent the times when they are not, for reasons like time off or team events. When used in conjunction with SugarBPM's round-robin capabilities, these modules ensure that round-robin assigned records are only given to users who are currently available and have enough time to do the required work.

For instructions concerning views and actions which are common across most Sugar modules, such as creating, editing, and deleting shift and shift exception records, please refer to the Working With Sugar Modules section of this page.

Please note that you will only be able to see shift and shift exception records as allowed by your license type, team membership, assigned roles, and user access type. For more information, please refer to the referenced documentation in the Administration Guide.

Shift Fields

The Shifts module contains a number of stock fields that come out-of-the-box with Sugar. For information on using and editing various field types, refer to the User Interface documentation.

Shift Exception Fields

The Shift Exceptions module contains a number of stock fields that come out-of-the-box with Sugar. For information on using and editing various field types, refer to the User Interface documentation.

Creating Shifts

Shifts represent the working hours of employees in your organization and can be used in various ways to manage your workforce. In particular, the work hours specified on a shift can be used in SugarBPM to assign records only to users who are currently working. See the Process Definitions documentation in the Administration Guide for more details.

Shifts are defined by the working hours set in the Days panel, which are specified in the time zone set on the shift record. In addition, the defined working hours only apply during the time between the start date and end date set on the shift. Therefore, the Time Zone, Start Date, and End Date field must all be filled in when creating a new shift.

The hours on a shift represent which hours of the day users in this shift work. To set the hours, navigate to the Days panel on a shift's record view. First, enable the checkbox next to the days of the week to which this shift applies and then fill in the Start Time and End Time for each of those days. "Start Time" and "End Time" are only required if that day of the week has been enabled.

Adding Users to Shifts

Once you have created a shift record, you can add users to it in the Users subpanel. Relating a user to a shift indicates that this user works the hours specified by the shift. Note that you cannot add users at the time of creation; you must first save the shift and then add the users to the newly created record.

Creating Shift Exceptions

Shift exceptions represent exceptions to users' working hours, such as for time off or a team event. If an admin is using SugarBPM to assign records based on users' availability, shift exceptions are also used to mark users as unavailable for a period of time when they would normally be working. See the Process Definitions documentation in the Administration Guide for more details.

The following are some possible examples of what shift exceptions could be used to track:

• Paid time off (PTO)
• Annual leave
• Paid holidays
• Team events (e.g., training, team building)

To access the Shift Exceptions module, open the Shifts module tab menu and choose either "View Shift Exceptions" to access list view, or "Create Shift Exception" to start creating a new shift exception record. The Shifts list view also has an Upcoming Exceptions dashlet by default in its intelligence pane. 

Shift exceptions are defined by a start date and end date. If the All Day checkbox is unchecked, then the Start Time and End Time fields are also required and are set in the time zone specified on the record. Shift exceptions are only active when the Enabled checkbox is checked; if a shift exception is not enabled, it is not included in availability calculations in SugarBPM. The Enabled field can also be used to indicate if the shift exception has been approved by a manager. To do this, you may wish to restrict the field to only roles that are permitted to approve shift exceptions. See the Role Management documentation in the Administration Guide for more information.

Adding Users to Shift Exceptions

Once you have created a shift exception record, you can add users to it in the Users subpanel. Relating a user to a shift exception indicates that the shift exception applies to this user. Note that you cannot add users at the time of creation; you must first save the shift exception and then add the users to the newly created record.

Upcoming Exceptions Dashlet

The Upcoming Exceptions dashlet is shown by default on the intelligence pane in the Shifts list view. It lists all enabled shift exceptions that do not occur in the past; this offers the ability to see a summary of upcoming shift exceptions that will impact your employees' working hours.

Managing Your Workforce

When used in conjunction, the Shifts and Shift Exceptions modules allow you to define your employees' work schedules with as much granularity as you need. Shifts represent the times when the related users are working, and in the same way, shift exceptions represent the times when their related users are not. As a result, infrequent and irregular exceptions to the shifts you have defined can be easily handled with shift exceptions so that you do not have to update the shifts themselves.

These modules can be used by SugarBPM to consider users' availability, as defined by their shifts and any shift exceptions or holidays that may overlap these shifts, when assigning records. See the Process Definitions documentation in the Administration Guide for more details on how this works in SugarBPM.

Viewing Users' Shifts and Shift Exceptions

There are several ways to see the work schedule of a specific user. First, the Shifts and Shift Exceptions subpanels are displayed on the Employees record view showing all shifts and shift exceptions to which the user is related. This allows you to see all of the working hours and exceptions to these hours in one place. In addition, administrators can see these same subpanels on the Users detail view. See the Employees page in the Application Guide and the User Management page in the Administration Guide for more details.

Reports can also be used to see an overview of your organization's shifts and shift exceptions, including which shifts or shift exceptions a user has. For example, you may wish to create a report that shows users and the shifts they work for a view of the overall shift schedule in Sugar. Likewise, you could create a report to see the historical or upcoming shift exceptions for your employees, or only those that are not enabled and may be awaiting manager approval. Refer to the Reports documentation for details on creating reports.

Working With Sugar Modules

While the Shifts and Shift Exceptions modules have some features that only apply to these modules, they also use the Sidecar user interface that most Sugar modules are based on. The following sections detail menus, views, and actions common to Sidecar modules and contain links to additional information within the page or links to the User Interface documentation.

Shift and Shift Exceptions Menus

The Shifts and Shift Exceptions modules contain various options and functionality that are available via menus in the module tab, list view, and record view. The following sections present each menu type, using the Shifts module as an example, and its options with links to more information about each option in the User Interface documentation.

Module Tab Menus

The Shifts module tab is typically found by clicking the "More" icon represented by three vertical dots to the right of the module tabs on the navigation bar at the top of any Sugar screen. The additional modules will appear on the list and you can click "Shifts" to access the list view. 

Once the Shifts tab displays on the navigation bar, click the triangle within the tab to display the Actions, Recently Viewed, and Favorites menu. The Actions menu allows you to perform important actions (e.g., create a shift or access the Shift Exceptions module). The Recently Viewed menu displays the last few shifts you recently opened. The Favorites menu displays the last few shifts you most recently marked as favorites; for information about favoriting records in Sugar, please refer to the User Interface documentation.

The Actions menu allows you to perform the following operations:

For more information on module tab menus including reasons a module may not be included in the menu, see the User Interface documentation.

List View Menus

The Shifts list view displays all shift records and allows for searching and filtering to locate specific shifts. You can view the basic details of each record within the field columns of the list view or click a shift's name to open the record view. To access a module's list view, simply click the module's tab in the navigation bar at the top of any Sugar page.

List View Mass Actions Menu

The Mass Actions menu to the right of the checkbox option in the list header allows you to perform mass actions on all currently selected records. You can use the checkbox on each record's row to select individual shift records or click the checkbox in the list header to select all records displayed on the current set of list view results.

The Mass Actions menu allows you to perform the following operations:

List View Record Actions Menu

The Record Actions menu to the far right of each record's row allows you to perform actions on a shift record directly from the list view.

The options in the Record Actions menu allow you to perform the following operations:

Record View Actions Menu

The Shifts record view displays a single shift record in full detail including its relevant fields and subpanels of related records. To access a shift's record view, simply click on the shift's name from the list view, dashlet, or report results. The record view's Actions menu appears on the top right of the page and allows you to perform various operations on the current record.

The Actions menu allows you to perform the following operations:

Common Views and Actions

In the table below, the left column contains links to the User Interface page covering topics that are applicable to all Sidecar modules. The right column has links to sections of the current page that cover topics specific to shifts and shift exceptions.