Quick Start for Scheduling

This topic is designed to get you started scheduling quickly with the most basic features.  We have intentionally left out many of the advanced features to get you up and running right away. Also for simplicity we have chosen to show scheduling only one week at a time, but you can schedule several weeks at once using these same basic steps.

Before you get started, please take a quick moment to understand what a time block is in WSDN.

You build a schedule by adding time blocks. Generally, a time block is a block of time that a single employee, who may or may not be specified, is scheduled to work. Each time block also specifies the start and end times of the shift, and the department to which the time block belongs. In addition, a time block normally also specifies the task being performed, the general time of day when the work will be done (day, evening, overnight, etc.), and can hold notes as well.  All of these details are called the properties of the time block. Some of these properties may or may not be present, depending on what options you chose in your setup wizard. In cases where several employees work simultaneously, you would add a time block for each of those employees.  This is not as much work as it might seem at first, since WSDN gives you many quick and easy ways to add many time blocks all at once in different ways, so you can get your schedule entered in no time.

There are four major steps to create and post your first week's schedule in WSDN:

The recurring schedule is your typical weekly schedule. Once the recurring schedule is created, you can use it as a "starter" schedule for future weeks. You might also call it a default schedule or a master template. Even if only some of your schedule is the same from week to week, you still want to create a recurring schedule for that portion of it that is typical. In your case, you may already know for the most part, which employees work when. If you already know this, you can add assigned time blocks into the recurring schedule. But you might want WSDN to automatically determine which employees should be assigned to perform the various tasks and your set times. If so, you should add open (unassigned) time blocks into your recurring schedule. That tells WSDN that you want the auto-scheduler to figure out who should be assigned to these time blocks, in a later stage (STEP 3).  Also, you have a mixture of assigned and open (unassigned) time blocks together in the recurring schedule. Whatever you leave open, WSDN can automatically assign for you later.

How to create your recurring schedule.

Go to the current schedule and click the icon. This starts you with your typical week. From the current schedule, you can click a button, and import or "pull in" all the time blocks or "shifts" into the current week in one simple click. This defaults the current week to what is typical. In the next step, you can make any necessary changes to the current week.

How to initialize your current week.

After initializing your current week, you can do any necessary changes to your shifts. For example, if you started your schedule with open "unassigned" shifts, you can assign employees to your shifts. You may also want to add new shifts, copy shifts from one employee to another, or add information "like a specific task" to many shifts at the same time.

How to manipulate time blocks.

Posting your schedule will allow your employees to view it online once they login to their WSDN account.  Upon posting your schedule employees receive a notification that their schedule is posted if you entered their emails.

How to post the schedule.

Congratulations! You have scheduled your first week.  Now you can start exploring all the powerful features of WSDN. 

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