Creating a Holiday Group

‘Holiday groups’ allow the user to define the absence booking rules that staff members assigned to this group are associated with. Users should assign staff to the relevant Holiday Group using the ‘Clipboard’ functionality. All staff must be a member of a ‘Holiday group’ to be able to book any type of leave via self-service or for any managers with access to the rota to manually assign them absence bookings.

Holiday Groups are found under Staff Admin

To create a new Holiday Group click the + icon on the bottom right corner

Click the 'Create Button'

Step 1 - Select the location where the holiday group will be accessible from.

Step 2 - Give the Holiday Group a name

Step 3 - Press OK to save the record and close by click the cross in the top right corner

The new Holiday Group will then show on the group screen - we now need to configure the Holiday Group set up.

Go back into the Holiday Group by clicking the three dots.

The ‘Configuration’ tab is where users can set the rules by which a staff member can book absence, as per the example below:

Configuration details can be deleted from a ‘Holiday Group’ by deleting data added to the fields and saving the record; however, it is NEXTRA’s recommendation that records are NOT deleted for audit history purposes and to ensure that the system allows and prevents leave booking requests within the correct parameters accordingly. If there is a change to details, a new ‘Holiday Group’ should be created to maintain a history.

Configuration

Holiday Group Configuration Tab Guidance

Ratio/Slots Desc. – Description boxes for the ‘Holiday group’. Free text field for information purposes only.

Slots – The user can either select the number of staff who are assigned to this ‘Holiday Group’ that will be allowed on absence per day or select ‘Time zones’ for the ‘Holiday Group’ to operate by. Please note each ‘Holiday Group’ must have at least one ‘Time zone’ allocated on the ‘Time zones’ tab to operate correctly.

Max Consecutive Days – The maximum number of consecutive days that absence can be booked by a staff member assigned to this group.

Max Booking Period – The maximum number of months in advance for which staff members assigned to this group can book absence.

Min Booking Period – The minimum number of hours’ staff assigned to this ‘Holiday Group’ need to give notice to book absence in the system.

Auto Approve – This field is fixed with the option of ‘False,’ you will not be able to amend it.

Max Historic Booking Period (Months) – The maximum number of months into the past that absence can be booked in the system for a staff member assigned to this group.

HANDY HINT 1: If you need to control the number of staff that are allowed on absence by time periods of the day, rather than the number of staff in any one day, you can use the Time zones tab to control this and should select the option of Time zones in the slots drop-down menu if this is required.

HANDY HINT 2: The controls on the configuration tab will prevent staff from continuing with the request via self-service, however if a manager tries to book absence where the criteria set on this tab is not met, they will receive the appropriate warning on the rota, however they will be allowed to proceed with the booking if they choose to override it.

HANDY HINT 3: You can choose to control the number of staff allowed on absence for certain ‘Absence Types’ only, e.g., holiday by using the Holiday group Includes tab.

WORKING EXAMPLE 1: If, in the min booking period field you have 72 hours, the first day of the booking must be a minimum of 72 hours in advance to pass validation. If you were requesting or making a 3-day booking and only 2 of the days were more than 72 hours in the software the software would still prevent/warn you that the limit has been breached.

WORKING EXAMPLE 2: If, in the max booking period field you have 12 months for example, the entire booking requested must fall completely within 12 months for the software to allow the booking.

WORKING EXAMPLE 3: If, in the max consecutive days field you have 14 for example, and the booking was for 15 days, but the staff member was only assigned to the ‘Holiday Group’ for ten of those days, the validation will still apply.

Timezones - The user can select the ‘Time zones’ tab to view and configure the number of absence bookings allowable by number of staff within the ‘Holiday Group’ between particular times in any one day.

Every ‘Holiday Group’ must have at least one ‘Time zone’ entered to operate correctly, therefore if the configuration required is for 3 staff within the group to be allowed absence on any one day, a ‘Time zone’ must be set up from 00:00 to 23:59 for the ‘Holiday Group.’

To add a timezone click the 'Add timezone' icon

The following information is required to be added.

Holiday Group Time zones Tab Guidance:

Start Time – Enter the start time of the slot within a working day that you need to control absences for.

End Time – Enter the end time of the slot within a working day that you need to control absences for.

Type – Select the relevant option for the members of this ‘Holiday group’, for example, Starts Within Zone = if a staff member is on a shift that starts within the time of the slot (i.e., between the start and end time you have chosen), and they book holiday, this will take a slot for this time zone. Other available options for selection are as follows: End Within Zone, Majority in Zone, Over Midnight.

Number – Enter the number of slots available for staff members to book off in this ‘Time zone’.

Priority – Enter the priority of the ‘Time zone’ where more than 1 has been set in the ‘Holiday Group’. Select from 1 to 5. For example, there is more than 1 ‘Time zone’ crossing the same time in the day. A ‘Time zone’ with a priority of 1 would use up a slot first, where a ‘Time zone’ that crossed the same time but had priority 2 assigned would not have a slot taken as it will be assigned to the ‘Time zone’ with priority 1.

HANDY HINT 1: The controls on the time zones tab will prevent staff from continuing with the request via self-service, however if a manager tries to book absence where the criteria set on this tab is not met, they will receive the appropriate warning on the rota, however they will be allowed to proceed with the booking if they choose to override it.

HANDY HINT 2: You can choose to control the number of staff allowed on absence for certain ‘Absence Types’ only within the time zones you are creating, e.g., holiday by using the Holiday group Includes tab.

'Shifts'