Staff Scheduling

[pipme]

Need some staff scheduling / rostering software.
Able to handle 3 shift system ... full time and part time employees, incorporating employees' personal shift preferences and statutory rest days ...... suited to small Hospital with approx' 25 staff.

Would like a trial period, more than one week ..... Have looked at TimeTracker from Asgard ... would like to compare others to this.

Any ideas / experience of --- please ?

P

 

[AdamW]

SAP is used by most large corporations for many things including this.

It is worth investigating, I am sure they must sell it to smaller companies too. They'd be silly not to!

 

[nstreet]

Search for time and attendance and flexitime on the web. There are hundreds of systems out there many will do what you want and more. Prices range from a few hundred pounds upwards.

 

[pipme]

Gents, thanks for the replies.

'SAP' .... I have worked where this was in use, is probably a little heavyweight, I never saw it used for shift planning .... Then I only saw the back of a fag packet for that anyway !!

'Time and attendance and flexitime' A bit of a broad brush ..

Perhaps a better description :- Software to resolve problems in the placing, subject to constraints, of resources into slots in a pattern or a set of working shift patterns .... No more than that, I just wondered if anyone had used any such software.

I have Googled myself to bits !!!

 

[breezer]

why not use excell tpo draw a matrix, just because you have a p.c. doesnt mean you should use it for everything, think what they did years ago, no pc available then,.

looks like you are trying to invent a cure a for which there is no disease

 

[pipme]

why not use excell tpo draw a matrix, just because you have a p.c. doesnt mean you should use it for everything, think what they did years ago, no pc available then,.
looks like you are trying to invent a cure a for which there is no disease

There is software to automate that matrix, more accurately than the old pencil and paper .... thus saving lots of time for more important tasks ...

Finding lots of software ... hence the problem ... getting some recommendations as a start point.


Anyway Breezer, take a sheet of a4, see if you can fold it in half more than eight times ... Related to an old farming trick, in the shoeing of the Lord of the Manor's horse, and his ridiculous agreement of paying the smithy one grain of corn for the first nail doubling for each subsequent nail hammered in :- 1,2,4 etc .... 4 shoes say 8 nails in each = loads of grain !!

P

 

[AdamW]

Proving how useful Excel is:

I took one Excel spreadsheet, put "1" in cell A1. Then used a fill to double the number down the column until I reached 2^31 (i.e. 4 shoes, 8 nails in each. 1 = 2^0, 2 = 2^1 etc, i.e. counting in binary).

Then I used a "Sum" function to find the sum = 4294967295

Now, the old medieval monetary system was based on the mass of a grain of corn. This "grain" is equivalent to 1/5760 of a troy pound (and a penny was 24 grains).

So, 4294967295 grains of corn have a mass of 4294967295/5760 troy pounds = 745654 troy pounds.

Which is roughly 278 metric tonnes. Not a bad day's work!

 

[pipme]

Ok ! Now some more work !! Just measured thickness of a sheet of 100 gsm paper, 0.0045" or 0.1143 mm
Now let us fold (if we could!) the sheet, in half, repeatedly 31 times, the total thickness would be more than 240 Km ?

P

 

[mildmanneredjanitor]

Need some staff scheduling / rostering software.

Just ask Adam!

He'll probably even be able to estimate sick days too!!!


Just kidding Adam!

 

[pipme]

Proving how useful Excel is:

I took one Excel spreadsheet, put "1" in cell A1. Then used a fill to double the number down the column until I reached 2^31 (i.e. 4 shoes, 8 nails in each. 1 = 2^0, 2 = 2^1 etc, i.e. counting in binary).

Then I used a "Sum" function to find the sum = 4294967295

Good fun, aint it just ?..... a minor detail :-
Sum of geometric progression in this case sum = 2³² - 1 Calculator is quickest hereabouts !!
From (a(r^n - 1)) / (r - 1)
where a=1 r = 2 n = 32
------------------------------------------
And for your mortgage / loan
r = (APR% / 100 + 1)^(1/12) : n = term in months : P = Loan amount
and r^-n = 1 / r^n
(P ( r - 1 ) ) / (1 - r^-n) = n thly repayments
-----------------------------------------------------
P

 

[AdamW]

Good fun, aint it just ?..... a minor detail :-
Sum of geometric progression in this case sum = 2³² - 1

I was trying to remember the formula. Knacks.

I've got too used to computers and their ability to do labour intensive number crunching that I've forgotten most of the basic mathematical methods. I can't even remember what Monte Carlo is!

When I first bought my first flat (this one) I made an Excel spreadsheet that started off with the value I bought it at, the mortgage outstanding, the interest rate etc. etc... this allowed me to model what changes in interest rates would do for my mortgage payments, and also had a column with "predicted value" depending on what the housing market increases were doing... It is pretty insane when you calculate what your house will be "worth" in a few years even with a relatively steady price increase.

 

[TexMex]

Just a tip. Using Pipeme's figures, if you stop folding the paper when you get to just 13 times it would be a more practical 468mm thick. This could make a handy "hop up" when doing the decorating.

 

[pipme]

Good fun, aint it just ?..... a minor detail :-
Sum of geometric progression in this case sum = 2³² - 1

I was trying to remember the formula. Knacks.

I've got too used to computers and their ability to do labour intensive number crunching that I've forgotten most of the basic mathematical methods. I can't even remember what Monte Carlo is!

When I first bought my first flat (this one) I made an Excel spreadsheet that started off with the value I bought it at, the mortgage outstanding, the interest rate etc. etc... this allowed me to model what changes in interest rates would do for my mortgage payments, and also had a column with "predicted value" depending on what the housing market increases were doing... It is pretty insane when you calculate what your house will be "worth" in a few years even with a relatively steady price increase.

In your spread sheet Did you apply inflation ?
((InflationRate%÷100 )+ 1) ^ n(umber of years)
eg. Inf 2.5% pa Infl over 10yr 1 ÷ (1.025^10) = 0.7812
So the 'value' of £1 in 10 yrs time discounted back to today =£0.78

Historical RPI Here

You may have noticed that, in a given loan, at a steady interest rate there is an initial capital repayment which actually increases by the monthly interest rate month on month until the final capital repayment, whereupon the sum of the capital repayments = Loan amount. The first interest component is loan × monthly interest rate .. the sum of cap and int repayments per month are constant with a constant interest rate.

Decided to learn this stuff many years ago, realised that although we watch our 'pennies' we tend to take for granted that our mortgage account would be correctly administered ... found a couple of errors resolved in my favour over the 13 years when I had a mortgage.
Such memories, of a day, gladly gone by ...

P

 

[pipme]

Just a tip. Using Pipeme's figures, if you stop folding the paper when you get to just 13 times it would be a more practical 468mm thick. This could make a handy "hop up" when doing the decorating.

You only half right there Tex ... let the index (as in indices) = the number of folds using base 2 ... 2^0 = 1 (no folds one thickness.. 2^2 = 2 folds giving 4 thicknesses) 2^13 = 13 folds (2^13×0.1143)mm = 936 mm final thickness.
----------------------------o0o-------------------------
Who needs a shuttle ?

Just fold a sheet of paper in half 42 times and climb the resultant wodge !!

(2 ^ 42) × 0.0045 ÷ 12 ÷ 5280 = 312,361 Miles final thickness, a ways beyond the green cheese.

A little bit can go a long way !!

P

 

[TexMex]

You only half right there Tex ... let the index (as in indices) = the number of folds using base 2 ... 2^0 = 1 (no folds one thickness.. 2^2 = 2 folds giving 4 thicknesses) 2^13 = 13 folds (2^13×0.1143)mm = 936 mm

That's probably why I bumped my head on the ceiling when I tried it out. I folded it once too many times.