Use 5 factors such as training and availability to qualify team members as "Recommended" for shifts.
This article is written for users with an access level of Supervisor, Location Manager or System Administrator who schedule team members.
In this article we will cover:
What is a recommended team member?
When scheduling team members, Deputy considers a number of factors about a team member to ensure they are a good fit for the shift they've been assigned.
If any of these factors indicate there's a reason why team members aren't a good fit, then you will get a "Not Recommended" warning when assigning the team member to the shift.
When you review the "Who is working?" list in the example of the shift below, you can see that the team members listed at the top of the list ie. Barry, Ed, Garwa, Grace, Larry and Simone are recommended, which means they fulfil these factors to work this Kitchen shift.
The remaining names lower on the list have a yellow dot under their name to indicate they are not recommended as they do not fulfil the factors.
If you assign a 'Not recommended' team member to a shift you will get a warning just like the one in the example below where Maria is not recommended to work this shift in the Kitchen as she is not trained in the Kitchen.
The five factors of recommendation
There are five factors Deputy looks at to ensure team members are a good fit for the shift they've been assigned to:
1. Overlapping Shifts
The “Overlap detected!” warning appears when a team member who is already working another shift is scheduled, even if that shift is at another location in your organization.
The warning will tell you when and where they’re already working as shown in the example below:
Note: You cannot override this warning, as it is impossible for a team member to work in two places at once.
To resolve this, you may:
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Adjust the length of either of the overlapping shifts so that they no longer conflict OR
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Remove the team member from the original shift
2. Training
The “Not trained” warning appears when the work area for this shift has a Training Module applied (Required Training for this Area), but the team member does not meet the training requirement.
To resolve this, you may:
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Click OK and accept the warning and assign the team member anyway
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Add the training record to the team member's profile OR
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Assign a recommended team member (who has the required training for that Area) to the shift instead as shown in the example below.
Example: Maria is not recommended for the shift as she is not trained for Kitchen but the "Who is working?" list shows that Ed and Larry are recommended so the schedule manager selects Ed for the shift.
Note: If you have multiple training modules applied to an Area, the team member is required to have all of the training, in order to be recommended.
3. Unavailability
Unavailability is a way to communicate periods in which the team member would prefer not to be scheduled to work. This could be a one-off event such as "kids school athletics carnival" or a recurring event such as "weekly Friday university tutorial".
When you assign someone to a shift during a period that they’ve indicated as “unavailable,” you will see the below warning:
To resolve this, you may:
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Click OK, accept the warning and assign the team member anyway OR
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Click Cancel and assign another team member
4. Approved Leave
If a "not recommended - on leave" warning appears while scheduling, it means that they have an approved leave request overlapping the shift period.
While you are able to override this and schedule the team member anyway, the leave was approved by a manager, and so this team member may not be able to work the shift.
To resolve this, you may:
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Click Cancel and assign another team member to the shift
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Click OK and override the warning and schedule the team member anyway
5. Stress Profiles
Each team member has a stress profile assigned to them, which indicates how many hours they should work in a given day or week. If a new shift puts someone’s hours over their limit for the day or week, they are said to be "stressed" and won't be recommended.
In the example below, Binny's Stress Profile is set to indicate she works a maximum of 2 days per week. When a third shift is added a "Not recommended - Stressed" warning is given.
To resolve this, you may:
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Click OK, override the warning and schedule the team members anyway OR
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Change the team member's stress profile OR
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Assign another team member
Overriding the "Not Recommended" warning when scheduling
It is possible to override the "Not Recommended" warning for all factors described above EXCEPT overlap. In the case of overlap, it is impossible to work in two places at once so the schedule will only allow the team member to be added to one shift at a time.
For the other four factors that trigger a 'Not Recommended' warning, schedule managers can override the warning by clicking OK.
If you override a warning, the schedule will still indicate to you that it is 'Not Recommended' using the following icons on the schedule:
Similarly, when you click on that shift you can see the following warnings:
Note: Some users on our Enterprise plan may not have been assigned the ability to override these warnings based on your Access Level in Deputy.
For more information on this permission in Enterprise, read Access Levels & Permissions - Rostering.
What is the difference between preferred Team members and recommended Team members?
Do not confuse "Recommended team members" with "Preferred team members".
Recommended team members are assigned that status based on Deputy's assessment of five factors to ensure they are a good fit for the shift they've been assigned.
Preferred team members is a setting that you as the system administrator or location manager can control to designate specific team members to work shifts in a specific area in front of recommended team members.
Designating people as "preferred" to work in an Area only ensures that they are always first to be scheduled there, and will not limit the schedule to preferred team members.
To learn how to add specific team members as 'preferred', follow our Preferred Team Member Guide