Preferences form

This form can be opened from the Settings task group or by selecting FORM | OTHER FORMS | PREFERENCES from the menu.

Purpose of the Preferences form

The Preferences form allows you to customize ESP to accommodate differences in location, manpower, manager preferences, and computer equipment. This enables ESP to schedule more efficiently in each location.

The Preferences form is divided into two tabbed screens:

1. General settings
2. Rule settings

Access to some information on this screen is restricted under some configurations.

GENERAL SETTINGS

The General Settings screen, shown above, is divided into five sections:

1. Sales or transactions settings
2. Sales adjustment
3. Schedule
4. Employee ratings
5. Weighting factors

Sales or transactions setting

Use the Sales or Transactions setting to specify if you wish to base your staffing requirements on sales or transaction counts. Select the appropriate setting from the drop-down list.

Although you may switch preferences, you must do so with caution. If your volume information is imported directly from a POS that stores both sales and transactions, ESP can be set up to import and store both values on the Volume History form. As well, if you enter both values manually in the Volume History form, you will be able to switch between these options. It will not be so easy, however, if ESP imports only sales OR transactions from your POS or, if you manually enter only one value each week because when you switch to the opposite option, the values will be missing. In these instances, at the time of switching you would need to go into the volume history and enter the last few weeks of the missing values in order for ESP to generate an accurate volume projection.

Sales adjustment

In some jurisdictions the sales information imported into ESP from the cash management system contains value added tax. In this case, you may prefer to have this tax removed when calculating your labor cost on the statistics report. If this applies to you then you would enter the adjusting factor in this field. For example, if your value added tax rate is 5% and your gross sales include this tax, then you would enter 1.05 as the sales adjustment factor. ESP will then divide your gross sales by this number before calculating your labor percent on your statistics report.

Schedule

The setting in the Schedule section tells ESP whether or not you will allow employees to have two shifts in the same day. The two shifts must still be separated by the minimum spacing defined in the labor category. For example, if the labor category says shifts must be 10 hours apart, then it might be possible for an employee to work 6:00am - 10:00 AM and then come back 10 hours later and work 8:00 PM to midnight.

Check the box if you want to allow this or leave the box unchecked if you do not want ESP to allow employees to work two shifts in one day.

This setting primarily affects how ESP handles overnight shifts. For example an overnight employee might work from midnight (12:00 AM) to 8:00 AM one day and then 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM the next day. Technically both those shifts appear on the same day since midnight and 11:00 PM are in the same 24 hour day. If this setting was not checked these two shifts would not be allowed.

Employee ratings

The Employee ratings section allows you to specify how you use the station ratings. If you consider a 1 rated employee to be the best and a 4 to be the least experienced then select the first option Low rating number used for better employee rating. If you consider a 4 rated employee to be the best then select the second option instead.

Weighting factors

In the Weighting factors section you can customize how shifts are assigned to your employees.

For each option, rate its importance from zero to one hundred using the sliding scales. A setting of zero indicates that you do not consider the option important; a setting of one hundred indicates that it is critically important.

The rating is displayed at the left side of the slider. You can change this by clicking on the slider and then using either your mouse or the arrow keys on the keyboard to move left or right.

The weighting factors are:

• Rotate weekly shift assignments: Specifies how important it is that your employees get scheduled at different times and on different days each week. A low number will result in a more stable series of shifts for each employee; a higher number will result in greater shift variability.
• Maximize employee station rotation: Specifies how important it is that employees who are qualified to work a variety of stations be assigned to work these different stations during the week. Some operations may prefer rotating stations for their employees to keep morale and interest high. Others may wish to reduce station rotation and concentrate on scheduling properly-rated and experienced employees.
• Distribute work hours evenly: Specifies how important it is for ESP to attempt to provide all employees with a similar number of hours.
• Assign employees closest to desired average ratings: Specifies how important it is that ESP achieves the required rating for each Station when assigning shifts.
• Optimize schedule labor cost: Specifies how important it is that ESP take into account labor cost when assigning shifts.

RULE SETTINGS

Access to this screen is restricted under some configurations.

When ESP creates a new schedule it adheres to all the rules and restrictions you have defined. Under no circumstances will it create a shift that violates any of these. However, there may be times when you wish to allow yourself to temporarily or manually override these rules and restrictions while editing a schedule.

Manual overrides generally fall into two categories:

1. Overrides that are permitted because they do not violate any laws in your jurisdiction. The on-screen status of a shift that has an error that is permitted is classified as an Error.
2. Overrides that are forbidden by law. Overriding some violations is considered a violation of your local labor regulations and doing so could result in fines or other legal action. The on-screen status of a shift that has an error that is not permitted will show both Error and Violation.

The Rules settings section allows you to specify the rules, shown in the screen below, that you are permitted to override manually and the rules that may not be overridden under any circumstances.

A check mark in the box beside the rule allows manual override. Leave the box unchecked if you do not want the rule to be overridden. Any attempt to create a shift that breaks one of the unchecked rules results in a violation, with the offending shift being displayed in dark red. Printing of the schedule is disabled until you correct the problem.

The rules settings are divided into two sections:

1. Employee rules
2. Labor category rules

Employee rules

Rules that can be found in each employee's individual file:

• Exceed employee maximum hours: controls whether or not you may assign employees over their maximum hours.
• Exceed maximum employee shifts: controls whether or not you may assign employees over their total shift limit.
• Exceed maximum employee closing shifts: controls whether or not you may assign employees over their closing shifts limit.
• Employee not available: controls whether or not you may assign employees to a shift when they are not available.
• Employee not qualified: controls whether or not you may assign employees to a Station that they are not qualified to work at.

Labor category rules

Rules that can be found in the labor categories forms:

• Exceed labor category maximum hours: controls whether or not you may assign an employee past the maximum hours defined on their LABOR CATEGORY form.
• Exceed maximum labor category shifts: controls whether or not you may assign an employee over the total shifts limit defined on their LABOR CATEGORY form.
• Exceed maximum labor category closing shifts: controls whether or not you may assign an employee over the closing shifts defined on their LABOR CATEGORY form.
• Insufficient time between shifts: controls whether or not you may assign an employee to a shift that is closer to their last shift than defined on the LABOR CATEGORY form.
• Primary site shift requirement not met: this option is for those locations that schedule using our multi-department (location) feature. If this box is NOT checked the manager will not be able to edit someone to work exclusively at the secondary location; each person must work the required number of shifts at the main location as defined in their LABOR CATEGORY form.
• Exceed labor category assignment limits: controls whether or not you may assign an employee over or under the restrictions defined on their LABOR CATEGORY form.
• Exceed school night restrictions: controls whether or not you may assign an employee over the school night restrictions defined on their LABOR CATEGORY form.
• Weekly rest period not scheduled: for those locations in jurisdictions that require each employee be given a consecutive number of hours off each week; this option controls whether or not you may assign an employee in violation of this. If this does not apply to your location then leave this option set to zero on all the LABOR CATEGORY forms.
• Maximum work in a 24-hour period exceeded: for those locations in jurisdictions that require employees not work more than a certain number of hours in any 24-hour period; this option will control whether or not you may assign an employee over the number as defined on their LABOR CATEGORY form.

Although checking these rules gives the scheduling manager greater flexibility when assigning shifts, for maximum employee satisfaction these should all be left unchecked. It is better to define your employees' information accurately and specify appropriate limits on their assignments, rather than break rules when editing the final schedule.