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STAFF-IT! II.1 Tutorial This tutorial will get you up and running with STAFF-IT! The whole tutorial should take less than a half an hour to execute, and it is well worth it. Suggestions on how to make the tutorial easier or more complete are welcome. 1. Installing Staff-It! II.1 ---------------------------- Staff-It! II.1 will run directly from a floppy drive, but will work faster on a hard disk. From a Floppy: 1. Make a copy of the distribution disk, as follows: a. If you have two floppy drives, they are probably called "A" and "B". If not, replace the letters "A" and "B" with the names of your drives in the instructions that follow. 1. Place a write-protect tab on the distribution diskette. Consult your DOS manual for instructions on how to do this. 2. Place the distribution disk in drive "A" 3. Place a blank, formatted, error free disk in drive "B." If you don't know how to format a disk, consult your DOS manual. 4. Type "cd \dos" and hit the ENTER or RETURN key. If you get an error message, try typing "cd \system" and pressing ENTER or RETURN. If you still get an error, try the next step anyway. 5. Type "Diskcopy A: B:" and press enter. If you get an error message, consult your local PC guru. If a message requests that you insert the floppies into the drives, do so and then press ENTER or RETURN. 6. After a pause of approximately one minute, you should see the following message: "Copy another diskette?" Type "N" and press ENTER or RETURN. 7. Place the original diskette in a safe place, and continue with the copy. b. If you have only one floppy drive, it is probably called A. If not, replace the letter "A" with the names of your drive in the instructions that follow. 1. Place a write-protect tab on the distribution diskette. Consult your DOS manual for instructions on how to do this. 2. Place the distribution disk in drive "A" 3. Have a blank, formatted, error free disk handy. If you don't know how to format a disk, consult your DOS manual. 4. Type "cd \dos" and hit the ENTER or RETURN key. If you get an error message, try typing "cd \system" and pressing ENTER or RETURN. If you still get an error, try the next step anyway. 5. Type "Diskcopy A: A:" and press enter. If you get an error message, consult your local PC guru. If a message requests that you insert a floppy into the drive, insert the distribution disk and then press ENTER or RETURN. 6. After a pause of several seconds, you should see the following message: "Place destination disk in drive A". Remove the disk that is currently in drive A and place the blank disk into the drive. After several seconds, you may be prompted to once again place the source diskette into drive "A". Continue to replace the disks until the message "Copy another diskette?" appears. Type "N" and press ENTER or RETURN. 7. Place the original diskette in a safe place, and continue with the copy. 2. Place the program disk into drive A if it is not currently there. Type "A:" and then press ENTER or RETURN. Then type "STAFFIT" and press ENTER or RETURN. 3. Go on with the Tutorial at "Setting up the system" below. From a hard disk: 1. Your hard disk is probably called "C", if not, replace the name of your hard disk for the letter "C" in what follows. 2. Type "C:" and press ENTER or RETURN. 3. Type "CD \" and press ENTER or RETURN. 4. Type "mkdir staffit" and press ENTER or RETURN. After a short pause your system prompt should appear. If you encounter any errors, consult your local PC guru. Type "cd staffit" and press ENTER or RETURN. 5. Place the program distribution disk into your floppy drive (we will assume that it is called "A", if not, replace the name of your floppy drive with the letter "A" in what follows). Type "copy A:*.*" and press ENTER or RETURN. The names of several files should be displayed on the screen. If any errors occur, consult your local PC guru. 6. When the system prompt reappears, type "staffit" and press ENTER or RETURN. 2. Setting up the system ------------------------ In this tutorial, we will assume that you are the manager of 20 nurses in a wing of a hospital with three wards: surgery, maternity, and pediatrics. There are two types of nurses in your employ: LPNs and RNs. The wing must be staffed through three shifts: 7AM-3PM, 3PM-11PM, and 11PM-7AM. In general, the nurses like to have consistent schedules, that is, they like to work always the same shift, and they like their work days to be "clumped" together so that their days off are contiguous. In front of you is the main menu. In order to have the system perform a particular function, you should use the "arrow" keys to move the highlighted line up & down on the menu. When the function that you wish to perform is highlighted, press ENTER. At this point, press the arrow keys until "Type of employee maintenance" is highlighted and press ENTER. The "Employee Types" screen will be displayed. Press the F1 key on your keyboard; you will see an explanation box displayed on the screen. These help boxes are available in almost every area of the system. To make the box disappear, press the ESC (escape) key. Now, since there are two types of employees in our ward, we must let the system know this. Press the "1" key on the keyboard, and then press ENTER or RETURN. The question "Create new type?" appears. Scroll the highlighted area to the "Yes" using the arrow keys and press ENTER or RETURN. The highlighted area has now moved to the "Description" area. Type "Reg Nurse" into this field and press ENTER or RETURN. Press the F2 key to save the values entered. The information that you entered disappears. Now press the number "2" on your keyboard and press Enter or Return. Answer "Yes" to the "Create New Type?" question and type "Lic Pra Nurse" in the "description" area. Press ENTER or RETURN and then press F2 to save the information. Let's check that the data have been saved. Press F4 to make sure that the screen is clear and type a question mark ("?"), which will appear in the "Employee Type" area. Press ENTER or RETURN. A list of "Valid Employee Types" will appear, as you have just defined them. Press ESC. The question "Create New Type?" will appear. Answer "No" by scrolling the highlighted section to the word "No" and pressing ENTER or RETURN. A blank employee type screen will be displayed. Press ESC (escape) to return to the main menu. Scroll the highlighted bar to the "Shift Maintenance" selection and press ENTER or RETURN. The "Shift Descriptions" screen will appear. Type a question mark ("?") and press ENTER or RETURN. A blank screen of valid shifts will appear, since none have been defined. Press ESC. When asked "Create new shift?", answer "Yes" as you did above. The "shift descriptions" screen will have automatically assigned a "1" to the shift you wish to describe. Type "7AM-3PM" and press ENTER or RETURN. Press F2 to save what you entered. Now press the number "2" and press ENTER or RETURN. Answer "Yes" to "Create New Shift?" and type "3PM-11PM" and press ENTER or RETURN. Press F2 to save this shift. Finally, enter "3", answer "Yes", and type "11PM-8AM" (this is wrong on purpose), press ENTER or RETURN, and press F2 to save your work. Assume that you realize that you made a mistake; type a question mark ("?") and press ENTER or RETURN to see the shifts that are defined. Highlight the third shift and press ENTER or RETURN. Now type "11PM-7AM" (the correct description of the third shift), press ENTER or RETURN, press F2, and then press ESC to return to the main menu. Now we will enter information about the departments (in this case, wards). Move the highlighted bar to the "Department information maintenance" selection and press ENTER or RETURN. This screen works in much the same way as the previous two. Press the keys in the following order: "1" - ENTER or RETURN - (Highlight the "Yes") ENTER or RETURN - "Maternity" - ENTER or RETURN - "Smith" - ENTER or RETURN - F2 This will have entered the information about the maternity ward into the system. In a similar fashion, enter information about the other wards, as follows: "2" - ENTER or RETURN - (Highlight the "Yes") ENTER or RETURN - "Pediatrics" - ENTER or RETURN - "Jones" - ENTER or RETURN - F2 "3" - ENTER or RETURN - (Highlight the "Yes") ENTER or RETURN - "Surgery" - ENTER or RETURN - "Hoolihan" - ENTER or RETURN - F2 Now that all of the ward information is in, press ESC (escape) to return to the main menu. 3. Employee Entry ----------------- Now we need to enter the employee data. Move the highlight bar to the "Employee information maintenance" selection and press ENTER or RETURN. The Employee Information screen will appear. As before, you may press F1 to view the help screen (press ESC to stop viewing help). We need to define an employee id for each staff member. The employee id must be a number between 1 and 99 inclusive. It is usually best to number the employees consecutively, but this is not necessary. Type "1", press ENTER or RETURN, enter "Yes" to the question "Create new employee?", type "Alice" (nurse #1's first name), press ENTER or RETURN, type "Apple" (her last name), press ENTER or RETURN. The highlighted area is now on the "Type" field. Type a question mark ("?") and press ENTER or RETURN. A list of valid types appears. Scroll to the "Lic Pra Nurse" selection and press ENTER or RETURN. The number "2" will appear in the "type" field. If you wished, you could have just typed a "2" into this field. Now enter a "5" for "Max shifts per week" and press ENTER or RETURN. In the "info" field, type: "Likes pediatrics." Press ENTER or RETURN, then F2 to save your work. In a similar manner, enter the following data, leaving the "info" field blank (since this is an optional note field). Id First Last Type Max shifts --------------------------------------------------- 2 Bob Baccus 1 5 3 Charles Champion 2 5 4 Debbie Dunkun 1 5 5 Elaine Essie 2 5 6 Frank Floride 1 5 7 Geraldine Gasoline 2 5 8 Harriet Hallow 1 5 9 Izzie Idlandish 2 5 10 Jane Jazzmine 1 5 11 Kathy Kleene 2 3 (part timers) 12 Laura Languish 1 3 13 Mary Mazzola 2 3 14 Nancy Noselbaum 1 3 15 Oliver Oldspice 2 3 16 Paula Pitstop 1 2 17 Quincy Queensland 2 2 18 Raeul Rasputin 1 2 19 Sally Sasparillo 2 2 20 Telly Tattletale 1 2 Once all of the employees are entered, press F4 to make sure the screen is clear, then enter a question mark ("?") into the Employee Id field. Press ENTER or RETURN and a list of the employees will be displayed for you. Move the highlighted bar to "Essie, Elaine" and press ENTER or RETURN. Essie's information will appear. Move the highlighted section to the "info" field, type "Needs Tuesday off every week", and press ENTER or RETURN. Now press F2 to save the change. Press ESC (escape) to return to the main menu. Rule Maintenance ---------------- Since we mentioned that we want the nurses to have a "consistant" schedule, we will need to define some scheduling rules. Move the highlighted section entitled "Rule Maintenance" and press ENTER or RETURN. The definitions of the rule structures are specified in the manual, and this tutorial can only give you a flavor of the possibilities. We are about to enter seven rules which are all of the type: If anyone is scheduled in any department at any time, on any day, then try to schedule them for the same department, at the same time, the next day. By now, you should feel comfortable with the method of entering data into the screen fields. The only difference with this screen is that some fields (the day and the "do/don't" fields) require you to select your entry from a list of valid entries. Enter the following information in the fields indicated (be sure to press F2 to save each rule): Emp Is sched at on of do/ for at on Rule num in dept time day type dont dept time day ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 any @1 @2 Mon any try @1 @2 Tue 2 any @1 @2 Tue any try @1 @2 Wed 3 any @1 @2 Wed any try @1 @2 Thu 4 any @1 @2 Thu any try @1 @2 Fri 5 any @1 @2 Fri any try @1 @2 Sat 6 any @1 @2 Sat any try @1 @2 Sun 7 any @1 @2 Sun any try @1 @2 Mon STAFF-IT! contains a very rich rule syntax which can only be given full treatment in the manual. Just to whet your appetite, however, there are three types of rules: DON'T, which forces the system NOT to schedule an employee in a particular instance, DO, which requires that the system make a schedule entry in a particular instance, and TRY (the type used in the example), which tells the system to try to make a schedule entry whenever a certain situation occurs (although it is not manditory). It happens that the TRY type of rule allows the system to be the most efficient, although certainly there are cases where this type of rule is not sufficient. For example, in some instances there may be a rule which states that an employee who works on Saturday NEVER has to work on Sunday. This would be a clear instance of a DON'T rule. Again, a full treatment of the rule structure is given in the manual. Once all of the rules have been entered, press ESC (escape) to return to the main menu. AS-NEEDED VERSUS ONCE-A-WEEK DATA ENTRY --------------------------------------- The data that you have entered up until now is of the type that only needs tp be updated when the situation changes (i.e., a new department is added, or an employee leaves the organization). What follows is the data entry which would normally be performed every week. SCHEDULE SETUP -------------- Scroll the highlight bar to "Schedule setup" selection and press ENTER or RETURN. It is important to note that all database changes that you have entered into the system are committed to disk (e.g., become permanent) at this point. Within a few seconds, the schedule setup screen appears. First, press the F1 key and read the help message. Press ESC (escape) when you have finished. Using the arrow keys, move the highlighted boxes (the cursors) around on the spreadsheet-like parts of the screen. Notice that you are limited to seven days and five shifts. STAFF-IT! III will allow you to schedule for multiple weeks. The first thing that you must tell the system is what employees each department needs during each shift of the week in question. Lets enter the needs of department 1 (Maternity) first. Press "F3" to select the department, and press "1" and ENTER or RETURN. An error message appears, telling us that we must first enter an employee type. Press ESC (escape) to remove the message from the screen. Press "T", then, since we will first enter needs for RNs, enter a "1" and press ENTER or RETURN. Notice that the lower left half of the screen tells you that you are working with employee type number "1". Now press "F3", then type "1" and press ENTER or RETURN. Notice that the name of the department appears in the upper left part of the screen. Below is a grid of department requirements for the week to be scheduled: Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Move the cursor to the Mon/1st shift box (upper left corner) using the arrow keys. Press "N". The prompt "Needs:..." appears. Press the "2" key, then press ENTER or RETURN. Note that the "2" now appears where the cursor lies. Repeat this entry process for the entire grid as shown above. If you make a mistake, simply move the cursor onto the square that needs to be changed, press "N" and enter the number. No special editing function need be used. You may have noticed that the word "Needs" appears next to the word "Maternity" in the upper left corner. Press the F2 key. The word "Needs" is replaced by the word "Remaining," indicating that the numbers on the screen reflect how many employees are still needed. Since no one has been scheduled, these numbers are the same as the Needs. Press F2 again. The word "Remaining" is replaced by the word "Scheduled", indicating that the numbers displayed are the numbers of employees scheduled for the department. Since we have not scheduled anyone yet, no numbers appear. Press the F2 key to return to the "Needs" display. Now we must enter the RN needs of the other departments. Press F3, then press "2" and press ENTER or RETURN. The display chages to "Pediatrics." Enter the following information as before: Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 Note that no RNs are needed at night. Now press F3, "3" and ENTER or RETURN, and enter the following data for Surgery: Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 That finishes the entry of the requirements for RNs. Now we must enter the requirements for LPNs. Press "T" (for employee Type), press "2", then press ENTER or RETURN. Any entries that are made from this point forward will be related to LPNs (employee type #2). As before, enter the following needs: Surgery (already on the screen): Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 Maternity (Press F3 - "1" - ENTER or RETURN): Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 Pediatrics (Press F3 - "2" - ENTER or RETURN Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 We have now told the system what our requirements are. We now need to tell it what the constraints are (besides max shifts per week and the rules). We do this by entering schedule entries for the employees. As nurse manager, we know that Frank Floride (employee #6) likes to work on Friday nights, since his wife also works then. And, since we know that other employees like to have Friday night off, we want to make sure that he gets scheduled then - this will make everyone happy, and we like happy employees. In order to make sure that Frank gets scheduled for Friday, we must manually adjust the schedule. Press the "F4" key. You will be prompted for the employee number. Press "6" and press ENTER or RETURN. Information about Frank (that you entered earlier) will appear. Now we must select a ward for him to work in. Since he is giving up his Friday night, we will give him Surgery, which he enjoys. First, we must make sure that we are scheduling employees of the correct type. Since Frank is an RN (type number 1), but the screen shows "EMPLOYEE TYPE 2", we must change this. Press "T", press "1", then press ENTER or RETURN. Press F3, then "3", then press ENTER or RETURN. This will display the needs for Surgery. Move the cursor (using the arrow keys) to Friday, second shift. Press "S" to schedule Frank at this time. Note that a "3" appears in the highlighted box on the employee screen. This indicates that Frank is scheduled in department "3" at this time. Now Press F2. Notice that the "remaining" box for Surgery at Friday, second shift is blank, indicating that no more employees are needed. Press F2 again. Notice that there is "1" employee scheduled for Surgery on Friday night, second shift. Now, if you remember, Elaine Essie (employee 5) needs off every Tuesday. Pull up her information by pressing F4 - "5" - ENTER or RETURN. Scheduling her to be off is the same thing as scheduling her for anything else - department 8 is called "off" by default. Since Elaine is an LPN, press "T" - "2" (for type of employee 2) and press ENTER or RETURN. Now press "F3" - "8" (for department 8) and press ENTER or RETURN. The department named "OFF" appears in the left window. Move the cursor to the first shift of Tuesday and press "S" to schedule her. The message "This department is full - override?" will appear, since there are not any requirements for people to have off. Press "Y" and ENTER or RETURN. Elaine is now scheduled to be off on Tuesday. How do we know that she won't be scheduled for 2nd or 3rd shift on Tuesday? Because the system will never automatically schedule someone for two shifts on the same day. You, as the final scheduling authority can do this manually, though, if you wish. Now that you are through with the list of "special requests", you are ready to move on. Press the "F5" key to save your work and return to the main menu. AUTOMATIC SCHEDULING -------------------- Up until now, STAFF-IT! II might seem pretty standard. In fact, there are several commercial systems which perform a similar function (although STAFF-IT! is prettier!). The next step is what separates STAFF-IT! II from the other products. Move the highlight bar to the area named "Automated Scheduling" and press ENTER or RETURN. What you will see is a series of rules "firing"; that is, trying to schedule the employees based on the parameters that you have entered into the rule system. If you wish, you can temporarily halt the display by holding down the control (CTRL) key and pressing "S". The scheduling for this problem will usually take less than two minutes. Why "usually"? Well, for one thing, it depends on what kind of computer you have. The other (more interesting) fact is is that the system will not create the same schedule twice! In order to avoid any biases in the schedule (i.e., lower employee numbers always get better schedules), the system performs a certain amount of randomization. Thus, one will never know exactly what the schedule will look like until it is done. LOOKING AT THE SCHEDULES ------------------------ There are three ways to look at the schedule: (1) via the interactive screen as was done previously, (2) through a "department schedule report", or (3) through an "Employee Schedule Report." Let's look at the schedule interactively first. From the main menu, scroll the highlight bar to "Schedule Setup" and press ENTER or RETURN. After a brief pause, the interactive scheduling screen will appear. Press "T" - "1" and ENTER or RETURN to select RNs. Now press "F3" - "1" and ENTER or RETURN. The Needs of the Maternity department appear on the left screen. Now press "F2". The display changes to show how many RNs still need to be scheduled to fullfill the needs. Press "F2" again, and a screen showing the number of RNs scheduled in each day/shift will appear. Now press "F4" - "2" and ENTER or RETURN. You will see the schedule of Bob Baccus. I'll assume that he is scheduled somewhere, although I have no way of knowing where. Move the cursor to a day/shift where he is scheduled. Read the number in the box to see which department he is scheduled in. If this is not the department (ward) shown on the left part of the screen, change the department by pressing F3, then the number of the department, then ENTER or RETURN. Once the department's information appears on the left side of the screen, there should be a number underneath the cursor which is at least 1. Press the "U" key on the keyboard; you will notice that the number under the left cursor decrements and the number under the right cursor disappears. Bob is now no longer scheduled for that department at that time. Now move the cursor to a box which shows more than one employee scheduled, if one is available. Press the "R" key to see a list of the employees scheduled for that department at that day/shift. If the list is longer than the screen, you can use the arrow keys to see the rest. Press ESC (escape) to go back to the regular entry. You are now done with the schedule changes. Press "F5" to save your work and exit. After a few seconds, the main menu will appear. REPORTS ------- There are two reports available: The department schedule and the employee schedule. These reports show the same information, but from opposite orientations. Scroll the highlight bar down to "R1: Department schedule report" and press ENTER or RETURN. A box appears which asks you to enter a file name or leave the space blank to go right to the printer. If you have a printer connected to your computer, just press ENTER or RETURN. Otherwise, type the name of a legitimate DOS file (i.e., "R1.RPT") and press ENTER or RETURN. If you select the output to go right to a printer, a list of possible printers will be displayed for you to choose from. If the printer you use does not appear on the list, you can either use the "standard printer" option or write your own printer "driver." The manual fully details how to do this, but if you understand anything about printer drivers, you can look in the file called "printers.dat" for information on how to write a driver for the system. If you use the "standard printer" option, the report will be functionally the same, but it won't look as nice. When the main menu reappears, scroll the highlight bar to "Employee Schedule Report" and press ENTER or RETURN. Run this report in the same manner as the Department Schedule Report. If you write the reports to a file, you can look at them through your favorite word processor, TYPE them to the screen, or use the DOS PRINT command to print the file. STORING NOTES TO YOURSELF ------------------------- As a manager, you will often get numerous "special requests" regarding schedules. In order to help you keep track of it all, STAFF-IT! includes a "Notepad" function. Scroll the highlight bar to the "Notepad" area of the main menu, then press RETURN or ENTER. A editable window will appear on your screen in which you may make notes. Press ESC to exit the notepad. MAKING A BACKUP - HARD DISK USERS ONLY! --------------------------------------- With all of the work that you put into setting this up, you may want to make a backup to a floppy disk. Place a FORMATED floppy disk in drive A, then scroll to the "Backup data to floppy" selection on the menu. Press ENTER or RETURN, and answer "Yes" when asked if there is a floppy in drive A. Your data will be backed up to the floppy disk. BEGINNING THE NEXT WEEK ----------------------- Let's assume that a new week is about to begin, and that it is time to set up the schedule. First of all, we need to eliminate the previous week's schedule. To do this, scroll the highlight bar to the "schedule initialize" area (keep pressing the down arrow, or "page down"; you'll get there eventually) and press RETURN or ENTER. When asked "Delete Schedule Data?", answer "Yes" (by pressing the RETURN or ENTER key). You are now working from a "clean slate." Next, you will need to update the department's needs and the employee's availability. Also, if any new employees or departments have been added, you must add those as you did above. By now, you should be an expert at this - go to it! EXITING STAFF-IT! ----------------- As fun as using STAFF-IT! is, you will eventually want to go home or use some other software package on your computer. To save your work and exist, scroll the highlight bar to the "Update Changes and Exit" function on the main menu and press ENTER or RETURN. If you have made changes that you would prefer not to keep, then select the "Quit (Don't save changes)" option. This will exit STAFF-IT! without saving the changes that are in memory. It is important to remember that changes are automatically saved when you select the "Schedule Setup" or the "Backup to Floppy" option.