Employee Scheduling Software

Create a Custom Schedule Format for Your Staff Schedules

Posted by Brandy on October 18, 2012

The ability to create a custom schedule format is one of the most powerful features in Visual Staff Scheduler. With our employee scheduling software you can design and print an almost infinite variety of staff schedules. 

Print the Schedule As You See It on Screen

After you’ve completed your schedule you can print schedules by selecting Print from the File menu. Or, you can print schedules by selecting the name of the current schedule format, such as 28 day, from the Reports menu. This will always be the first item listed in the Reports menu. This is also an easy way to print the schedule exactly how you see it on screen.

Choose a Staff Schedule Report to Display a 1 to 42 Day Calendar

Staff schedules are designed to list the names of employees who are scheduled to work on a particular day or range of days. Our employee scheduling software features customizable one to 42 day, or calendar style, staff schedule formats. To do this with Visual Staff Scheduler, click on the Reports menu and select Staff Schedules. Select 1 to 42 Day from the Staff Schedules menu. Visual Staff Scheduler displays the 1 to 42 Day Staff Schedule window. Use the Names List box to select the employees you would like to appear on the printed schedule. Or, click on the Select All button to instantly select all employees on the list.

Filter Your Employee List when Preparing Work Calendars

Visual Staff Scheduler also allows you to prepare work calendars using the query function, which enables you to filter your employee list to only show people how meet a specific type of criteria. You can use this feature to prepare vacation schedules, schedules for a particular shift, people in a specific position, department or unit schedules, and much more. Click on the Query button to select or create a query. The video shows an example of how to create a query to display all RN’s who are scheduled to work.

Display Schedule Information You Want To See

On the Start Date box click on the calendar icon to choose the date you would like the schedule to begin then enter the total number of days you would like displayed in your schedule. For example, you could enter 14 for a two-week calendar, 30 for a monthly work calendar and 42 for a six-week calendar. Select the total number of weeks you would like to display per page, such as four weeks. If you receive the truncation message, it means there is too much data to squeeze onto one page, so you’ll need to either reduce the font size in the Report Setup or lower the number of weeks to display per page. In the Contents box, select all items that you would like to appear on the report. The options include:

• Position
• Shift Description
• On-Call Status
• Explanation Description
• Use Abbreviations

You can also choose the way names appear on the report by choosing a different name format, for instance choosing to display an abbreviated form of the person’s name instead of spelling out their full name. In the Options box, select all the options you wish to appear on the report, such as Blank Schedule, Print employee numbers only and Append Legend.

Communicate Staff Schedules to Your Employees

Not only does Visual Staff Scheduler allow you to create a custom schedule format to display your employees’ work assignments, it also allows you to communicate work calendars to your employees in different ways. From the Print Preview window, you can save this schedule as a PDF to email it to people, save it as an HTML file to post it on your company’s web portal, or simply print the report to hang up in break rooms or hand out to people.