How To Configure Shift Log

It is now much easier to configure Shift Log, with Workbooks being the heart and soul of the system. A workbook is usually organised around a set of activities for a role. You can structure the workbook to have as many pages as required to record activities for the role.

Step 1. Workbook Planning

It's important to plan out how you want your workbooks to appear, as this will inform the choices you make when configuring lists, fields, and forms; as well as which entries to display on which pages in which workbooks.

Workbook Structure

Before you start configuring Shift Log, you need to understand how you want your workbooks to be structured. Workbooks can be structured according to functional area, site, department, etc. Choose the structure that works best for your organisation.

If you have an existing implementation of Shift Log, you can mimic that structure or you can take the opportunity to review and revise.

Workbooks menu:	Pages within a workbook:

Entry Types

Workbooks can contain 3 types of entries, which are used for different purposes. You need to understand the types of entries you need when creating the workbooks, so you know what type of forms you will need (see step 5). These entry types are:

• Case Entry: An ongoing issue that also appears in Case Management. These entries remain visible in Shift Log until they are closed.
• General Entry: An ongoing issue that only appears in Shift Log. Similar to Case entries, they will remain visible in Shift Log until they are closed.
• Log Entry: An entry (“comment” in previous Shift Log versions) that only appears in a particular shift. These are also locked when a workbook is published. 

Security Considerations and Workspaces

Workbooks are secured by roles within a workspace, so all users who have access to a workspace will also have access to the workbooks and pages within that workspace.

It is likely that you will need multiple workspaces/workbooks with differing levels of security.

Note: If you only need a single level of security, you may still want to consider using multiple workspaces, as workbook pages must be uniquely named within a workspace. So you cannot have 2 pages called Handover Report in 2 different workbooks in the same workspace.

Read more: Workbooks

 

Step 2. Configure Sites and Shifts

You will need at least one site and one shift pattern in order for workbooks to recognise shift boundaries and display a shift picker. 

A shift pattern is a 24-hour period divided into equal portions of time, with a start time being the time the first shift starts. Shifts can be 6, 8, 12, or 24 hours long. 

Shift Log allows you to define multiple shifts on a per-site basis. For each site, you specify one or more shift patterns. 

• If you have multiple sites, you will need to specify a default site.
• If a site has multiple shift patterns, you will need to specify a default shift pattern.

You may use and rename the Default Site and Default Shift Pattern that is automatically created upon installation.

If you disable a shift, it will not appear in the shift picker for workbooks using that shift, and users will not be able to navigate it. This is useful if you have a shift where no-one is rostered, for example you may only have a morning and afternoon shift, but no night shift.

Read more: Sites, Shifts and Swings

 

Step 3. Configure Named Lists

Named Lists is how you create drop-down list Fields (e.g. Severity) to be used in Forms. When a Form is added to a workbook (see Step 6), you can group the entries by one of the Named List Fields on the Form.

So if, for example, you want to mimic the Topics concept from older Shift Log versions, you can create a Named List for each Topic you want to group by.

You can specify the sort order of the items in the list, either manually or automatically (this would be alphabetical).

Tip: If you have forgotten to configure a Named List while creating a Field, you can right-click to open the Named Lists page in a new tab, create the Named List, and then it will be visible when you resume configuring your Field.  

Read more: Named Lists

 

Step 4. Configure Fields

Fields are the properties that appear in an entry: in the workbook's log panel table and in the entry dialog.

Fields must be assigned to a Form in order for them to appear in Shift Log. The same field (such as Category) can be assigned to many Forms, so they are created independently of a Form.

Note: Fields cannot be changed or deleted after they have been created.

Fields have one of the following data types:

• Boolean: This field will appear as a check box in the dialog, and in that table will appear as a True or False value.
• Datetime: In the dialog, this will allow users to choose a date and time by using a date picker. The date and time will appear in the table in the format you specify.
• Decimal: A number field which allows you to specify the number of decimal places.
• Entity: In the dialog, the user can type part of the entity’s name, and the resulting list will show the top 10 matches to choose from. You can choose to restrict the available entities to a certain hierarchy or template.
• Integer: A number field in which users can only enter a whole number.
• List: In the dialog, the user can choose items from a pre-defined Named List. You can specify whether only a single item should be selected, or if multiple items can be selected.
• Text: Free-format text that the user can enter. You can choose whether this should be a single line of text, or if more text can be added. A text formatting toolbar will be displayed if multi-line text is chosen.
• User: In the dialog, the user can type part of a person’s name, and the resulting list will show the top 10 matches to choose from.

Some fields come configured by default and are reserved for system use.

You can configure defaults and other properties on a Field (e.g. mandatory or hidden), when you configure a Form that uses that Field.

Read more: Fields

 

Step 5. Configure Forms

A Form defines both the type of entries that will be created, and the fields that the entries will contain. As mentioned in Step 1, Form types can be:

• Case Entry: An ongoing issue that also appears in Case Management. These entries remain visible in Shift Log until they are closed.
• General Entry: An ongoing issue that only appears in Shift Log. Similar to Case entries, they will remain visible in Shift Log until they are closed.
• Log Entry: An entry (“comment” in previous Shift Log versions) that only appears in a particular shift. These are locked when a workbook is published.

When a workbook is configured to contain a Case Entry, for example, you need to specify the Case Entry Form that will determine the fields.

Case, General, and Log entries all have a different set of default system fields associated with them. In addition to these, an administrator can add further fields as required. The default fields for each type are:

System Fields	General Entry	Case Entry		Log Entry
Created By Created Date ID Last Modified By Last Modified Date	Assigned To Closed Date Description Status Time Open	Assigned To Category Closed Date Description Due Date	Entity Priority Procedure Status Time Open Title	Description Event Time

Tip: System Fields cannot be removed from a Form, but can be hidden from view. 

The Fields on a Form can optionally have default values, be made mandatory or hidden, and be made editable or read-only. Note that most of these options can be overridden when a workbook is being configured, but initially configuring sensible defaults can save time when configuring many workbooks.

In the Defaults section, you can also choose various options for how the field is to appear in Shift Log: both in the log table view and in the entry dialog view.

• To set a field to populate with a particular value each time, set a Default Value and disable editing, in General Defaults.
   
• For the Table View, you can choose to show or hide a field, and how wide the table column should be for that field. Depending on the type of field, there may be additional configuration options.
  The order in which the Fields appear here is the order in which they will appear in the workbook tables. You can also drag and drop each field to change the order in which it appears. 
   
• For the Dialog View, you can also choose whether to show or hide the field. Depending on the type of field, there may be additional configuration options.
  The order in which the Fields appear here is the order in which they will appear in the entry dialog. You can drag and drop to change the order. 

Read more: Forms

 

Step 6. Create and Configure a Workbook

With the previous steps done, you can now create and configure a workbook.

Note: If you have forgotten one of the previous steps, and need to go back to add a new field, for example, you will then need to refresh your workbook for it to become available.

To create a workbook, simply click the New Workbook button in the Home tab of the ribbon.

Workbooks are configured in a similar way to pages in P2 Explorer. First, you choose the layout of the workbook pages by setting the number of rows and columns in the Grid Layout component. Then, you add a Shift Log component corresponding to the type of entry you want to create (Case Entry, Log Entry, or General Entry - see step 5 above).

The components use Forms to know what fields to show in the table and dialog. 

There are 3 main parts to configuring a component:

1. Specify the Form you want to use, and optionally apply a sort order. You can also choose a Named List Field by which you want to group your entries.
2. If desired, you can filter the entries by one or more Fields. This is useful if you are using the same Form for different roles, and want to show different Fields for those roles. You can also drag and drop the filters to change the order in which they apply.
3. In the Table View and Dialog View, you can override some default values, and you can also drag and drop the Fields to change the order in which they appear in the table and entry dialogs, respectively.

After configuring the first page, click 'Add New Page' to add more pages and components.

When saving a workbook, you need to name each page separately, in addition to the workbook. The pages will be saved in the same workspace as the workbook. You cannot have duplicate page names inside a workspace.

Filtering

Filtering is a key feature of entry components. This is because Forms can be used in more than one component, which means that the forms are shared - and the entries stored against the form can also be shared among workbooks. You can apply filters to shared forms to restrict the entries to a certain type.

For example, you could have a single form for HSE issues, and use that form in workbooks for Area 1, Area 2, and Area 3. You can then filter the form to only show entries for the relevant area, while retaining a master list in yet another workbook for the HSE manager who overseas all of the those issues. You can filter the form on any field that the form contains, and you can add multiple filters if desired.

Handover

You need to use a Shift Handover component in your workbook if you want to be able to publish the workbook. This is usually on a separate page to the other components.

When constructing a Handover Report, you will usually want to include information from a number of forms from the same workbook, so you would add multiple Shift Handover components to a page in order to construct your report. Each Shift Handover component is configured to display entries stored against a form you are interested in. For multiple forms, you need multiple components.

We recommend including the Report Header only on the first Shift Handover component on the page – this will display the report title and shift details, which are usually only displayed once per report.

Although you could add a Shift Handover component to any page in a workbook, only one page can be nominated as the Handover Report for that workbook (this is done in Workbooks Settings).

There are 2 important details for the Shift Handover page.

1. Set the rows in your grid to have Dynamic height – this will ensure the report displays all entries and will print nicely.
2. In the workbook settings, you need to specify which page of the workbook is the handover report.

Note: When printing out a handover report, background colours should be enabled in the browser's print function before printing.

Settings

Finish off your workbook by ensuring the following Workbook Settings are correctly configured:

• Site and Shift Pattern: This is required in order for the Shift Picker to be displayed.
• Handover Report Page: This is required in order for the Print button to be displayed.
• Privileges: In addition to workspace privileges, you can further refine the security levels for a workbook. Note that you must have Explorer Admin privileges to do this. A handy shortcut to adding new users has also been added to this section, so you can add users as needed without having to go into Server Management.

 

Read more: Entry Components, Handover Report