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Managing Shift Swaps

In profiles configured for shift swapping, employees can create, edit, and cancel shift swap invitations, as outlined in Swapping Shifts. Managers should be aware that while employees can swap non-productive tasks, they cannot swap shifts that are defined as Offtime (that is, tasks that have the Off-time Acct option checked on the Tasks Controls tab of the Assignment Info dialog box in Staff Manager Client) unless an administrator configures the Shift Swap feature to allow it. Otherwise, employees can only swap non-productive tasks that have the Non productive for Shift Swap box checked on the Assignment Info Tasks Controls tab.

In order to review pending shift swaps, administrators must be designated as managers on the Shift Swap Default Configuration page. This enables administrators to receive notification of all shift swaps (if desired) and to cancel pending shift swaps from the Profile page.

How Shift Swaps are Marked

Shift swaps are marked with letters indicating their status.

These markings are also visible in Staff Manager Client. The letters indicating swap status are displayed next to the employee’s name in Schedule Editor and Daily Editor.

Managing Shift Swaps Requiring Manager Approval

When the Requires Manager Approval box is selected in the shift swap configuration, managers are required to approve all swaps for the specified profile. Shift swaps needing approval are added to the My Alerts box and the Requests box on the manager's Admin Dashboard, along with a link to the Schedule page to take managers to those swaps.

On the Schedule page, a Shift Swaps Pending Approval pane lists all pending shift swaps by the date the invitor requests to swap. To view the Shift Swaps Pending Approval pane, users should click the Show Shift Swaps check box.

The Show Shift Swaps and Show Opportunities options are mutually exclusive. Managers may view opportunities or shift swaps but not both at the same time.

Approving or Denying a Shift Swap

This information only applies in profiles where shift swaps are set to require manager approval. Complete the following steps to approve or deny a shift swap:

  1. From the Schedule menu, select Administer Schedule > Weekly Schedule. The Weekly Schedule page opens.
  2. If the Shift Swaps Pending Approval pane is not visible, select Show Shift Swaps.
  3. Click the link for the swap to be approved or denied. The Shift Swap Details page opens, which displays the names of all invited employees and the current invitation status for each, such as Accepted, Pending Manager Approval, or Pending Acceptance.
  4. Select employees to approve or deny by clicking the check box at the end of their row.
  5. If you want to, you can enter an Optional Message to Employee. This option lets you send a message to both the person who initiated the swap and the person who accepted the swap.
  6. Select Approve Selected or Deny Selected.

If an invited employee has not yet accepted the swap invitation (that is, has an invitation status of Pending Acceptance) the selection check box is unavailable. You cannot approve or deny swaps until the employee accepts the swap invitation.

Canceling a Pending Shift Swap Invitation

Designated shift swap managers can cancel employee swaps as long as the swap is still pending. This is true whether a profile is configured to allow swaps without manager approval or not.

Pending shift swaps are not visible on the administrator's Weekly Schedule page. To get to the employee Weekly Schedule page, from the Home menu, select Employee Dashboard, and then complete these steps to cancel a pending shift swap.

  1. From the Schedule menu, select Administer Schedule > Weekly Schedule while viewing pages as an employee.
  2. Right-click the yellow cell with the pending shift invitations and select Cancel Invitations from the menu.

Automatic Swap Expirations

You do not need to cancel a swap invitation if it is due to expire. Clairvia Web automatically causes swap invitation to expire if:

The Clairvia Web file EventMgrSrvConfiguration.xml is set at installation with this swap expiration value, which is expressed in the number of minutes before the start of the date on which the initiating shift falls. You can update this value by contacting Cerner Clairvia Support.

An expired swap invitation message is made inactive in the receiving employee’s Message Center.

EXAMPLE

At Hometown Medical Center, the swap expiration value is set to 10. This means that pending swap invitations will expire 10 minutes before midnight the day before the swap would have taken place. If an invitation is sent to swap a shift taking place on 12/02/06, pending invitations will automatically expire at 11:50 p.m. on 12/1/06.

Ignore Pay Period for Swaps

Managers may select to ignore pay periods for shift swaps by selecting the Ignore Pay Period Restrictions for Swaps box on Shift Swap tab of the Configuration page. When activated, employees will not be limited to swapping shifts within a pay period; the application will highlight all shifts that are possible swap options regardless of pay period. In addition, overtime rules and limits are ignored.

The Swap Report

The Swap Report displays swap transactions over a range of time, based upon the date of the shift to be swapped. This report enables managers to see which employees are initiating swaps.

To open the report, from the Reports menu, select Swap Report. The Swap Report: Report Selection page displays. You must select data in all options to run the report.

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