We have a small LibStaffer update to share this morning, that’s packed with nice to have improvements! From preventing back to back shift scheduling to improved communication via notes and emails, to the new inactive account level, there are lots of little goodies to love!
Prevent Back to Back Shift Scheduling
Are your staff feeling overworked and tired of working shifts back to back? Then we’ve got great news – we’ve added a new setting in the Auto Scheduler to prevent staff from being scheduled for back to back shifts! Plus, we’ve added an optional “grace period” to help avoid shifts that aren’t technically back to back, but that start/end fairly close to each other. For example, if a staff member is assigned to a shift from 9-10am, and you assign a one hour grace period, that staff member won’t be assigned to another shift until after 11am. You’ll find this new setting built into the Auto Scheduler screen.
Inactive Account Level
This feature will be a huge plus, particularly for sites that manage seasonal or transitional employees (such as student employees that change from semester to semester) – we’ve added an inactive account level for LibStaffer accounts. Inactive account holders won’t be able to log in to your LibStaffer system, and they don’t count against your account subscription. However they’ll continue to display in your historic reports, so you retain an accurate picture of staffing at different times in history.
Good to know: when you set an account to inactive, the account holder will be removed from all future shifts, but they’ll remain assigned to any shifts in the past for reporting purposes. To set an account to inactive, head to Admin > Accounts > Edit Account.
Expanded Shift Notes
We’ve added a couple of popularly requested features for shift notes, to help improve communication with staff. When emailing staff, admins now have the option to include relevant shift notes within the email – a great way to send out additional reminders to make sure everyone is on the same page! We’ve also corrected a small oversight – shift notes will now display to regular level users, both from the dashboard as well as from the overall schedule page. Hooray for increased communication with staff!
Email Updates
We’ve added a few key updates to the email functionality available in LibStaffer:
- Shift Supervisors can now choose which employees should receive schedule reminder emails. Previously you could either send emails to all staff with an assigned shift, or to one specific staff member. Now we’ve included checkboxes so you can pick which staff should receive an email notification.
- We’ve also added a cc field to schedule reminder emails, so you can email people who aren’t assigned to a schedule with information on upcoming shift staffing.
- Shift Supervisors can also now send a general email to staff from within LibStaffer. This is a great way to make announcements to staff apart from schedule reminders – great for things like policy changes, staff reminders and the like.
- And we’ve added a couple of new email notifications for the following situations:
- Admin(s) now get an email notification when a time off request is submitted.
- Schedule admins now get an email notification when an open shift has been picked up.
Mostly good stuff with the updates, but how can an admin turn OFF the notifications from time off requests and when a an open shift has been picked up? My inbox is now flooded with emails that I don’t need to see.
Hi Jason! There isn’t a way to turn these off at the moment, but we’ll be adding this feature shortly (ie within the next day or so). Once this is rolled out, you’ll find the setting to turn the “Open shift has been claimed” email under Admin > Schedule Settings > COG icon. The setting to turn off time off requests will be located under Admin > System Settings > Time Off Settings – if “Require Time Off Mediation?” is enabled, a secondary setting will display to toggle Admin email alerts on/off. Again these aren’t there right now, but they will be there in the next day or so. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi there! Is there a way to turn off the automatic email notification that goes to admins when shifts have been picked up?
Hi Jennie! There isn’t a way to turn this off at the moment, but we’ll be adding a feature to handle this within the next day or so. It will be located under Admin > Schedule Settings > COG icon – you’ll see an option to turn off the email alerts associated with open shifts being claimed. Again this isn’t there now but it should be there probably by early tomorrow morning. Thanks for the suggestion!!
Hello,
We have 7 schedule admins, some want the notifications when shifts are covered some don’t. Can this feature be added instead of turning it off for everyone?
Thanks.
Hi Barb – thanks for that suggestion! We’re going to look into making the email alerts customizable on a by-person basis in the future. This won’t be a quick add, but we will look to get this in the timeline for later this year. Thanks again!!