Advanced confirmation options

Most assignment confirmations happen without anyone being asked: a scheduled assignment extends the schedule, or a swap or reassignment replaces one shift.

Some combinations of shifts are riskier, because confirming them could change the schedule in unexpected ways. In these cases On-Call Optimizer asks the person confirming for more guidance.

How confirming combines shifts

Confirming a draft merges its shifts into the schedule:

• Role by role, within the draft’s period. For the time the draft covers, each role the draft assigns replaces the schedule’s assignee for that role. Roles the draft leaves empty keep their current assignees: for example, a draft that only assigns primary assignees leaves every secondary assignee as it was. A swap or reassignment of a single shift changes only that shift.
• Later shifts are kept. Shifts after the end of the draft stay in the schedule, unless you choose to truncate the schedule horizon.
• Completed shifts are kept. Shifts that have already ended aren’t changed, unless you accept reassigning them.

The sections below describe the choices the Confirm assignment dialog offers when a draft could change the schedule in a way you might not expect.

The Confirm assignment dialog

When you click Confirm on a draft assignment and there is something to review, the Confirm assignment dialog opens. (When there is nothing to review, the assignment is confirmed straight away. The Confirm button shows a question mark when a dialog will open.) The dialog lists warnings at the top, for example:

• “Reassigns 2 completed shifts.”
• “Assigns 5 shifts without availability information.”
• “Assignment ends before existing schedule horizon.”
• “Using alternative #2 rather than best assignment!”

Below the warnings are the toggles that apply to this assignment, each described in a section below. Choose the behaviour you want, then click Confirm.

If an assignment can’t be confirmed at all (for example, it failed), Confirm is disabled. Point at it to see why.

Reassignment of completed shifts

Changing the assignee of a completed shift unbalances the schedule, creating more work for later assignments to resolve. In the short term that often means a less even result: more shifts, closer together, for members who are well under their target, while the schedule moves back toward balance.

The other rules still limit how much extra work one assignment can give someone. The more completed shifts you reassign, the longer it will take for later assignments to bring the schedule back to balance while honouring the other rules.

So an admin sees this before it happens, Accept reassignment of completed shifts? has to be turned on to confirm any assignment that includes shifts which have already ended.

If you leave the toggle off (the default), those past shifts are ignored and the history stays as it is.

Truncation of the schedule horizon

If the assignment ends before the schedule’s current horizon (the end of the last assigned shift), you might want either of two things:

1. Replace just those shifts in the assignment being confirmed, leaving any later shifts in the schedule untouched.
2. Replace all future shifts in the schedule with those from the assignment being confirmed, removing any later shifts not in the assignment.

On-Call Optimizer defaults to the first (no truncation). Turn on Truncate schedule horizon? to opt in to the second.

When an assignment is confirmed with the toggle enabled, all existing shifts in the schedule ending after the end of the last shift in assignment are removed. The standard schedule lifecycle will then resume to re-assign out to the configured horizon as required.

You can’t truncate the horizon while accepting reassignment of completed shifts. The Truncate schedule horizon? toggle is greyed out while Accept reassignment of completed shifts? is on.

Shifts assigned without availability

Member availability information is not always available for the full duration of a requested assignment when:

1. A cross-schedule reference points to a schedule with a shorter horizon and/or assignment window than the schedule being assigned.
2. The requested shifts extend beyond the availability import bounds.

In these situations, On-Call Optimizer still assigns every requested shift, but keeps track of the limit of availability information provided by each source and, by default, does not confirm shifts after the earliest limit. That avoids confirming a shift assigned without knowing a member’s availability.

When you confirm a draft yourself (for example, a custom assignment), you can turn on Accept shifts assigned without availability? to confirm the shifts past that limit.

An assignment with shifts past an availability limit shows a Missing availability badge in its header. Point at the badge to see the limit of each availability source.

Scheduled assignments are confirmed automatically, so they use the default behaviour: only the shifts ending before any availability information limit are confirmed, and the shifts after the limit are assigned again by later scheduled assignments once availability information covering them is available.

Shifts are never truncated or partially confirmed when availability information limits are enforced. Only shifts fully within the limits of availability information are confirmed under the default behaviour.

Other warnings

These situations show a message in the dialog. Once you’ve read it, click Confirm. Nothing else is required.

Alternative assignment

Shown when you confirm an assignment taken from an alternative rather than the best one, so you don’t do that by accident.

Empty confirmation

Attempting to confirm an assignment containing only completed shifts without accepting reassignment confirms an assignment with no shifts and makes no changes to the schedule.

New configuration version

When you confirm an assignment created from a customized configuration, its configuration is saved as a new configuration version automatically. You don’t need to do anything extra.