What Are Schedules?

Schedules in FTE Tree define when a position is expected to work and serve as the source of each position's FTE value. A schedule is a reusable template made up of time blocks across the days of the week, or a simple weekly hours value.

Every position must have a schedule assigned. The position's FTE is calculated as:

FTE = Schedule Paid Hours / FTE Standard Hours

For example, a schedule with 40 paid hours per week in an organization where the FTE standard is 40 hours per week produces an FTE of 1.00. A schedule with 20 paid hours per week produces an FTE of 0.50. FTE values are calculated to four decimal places internally and displayed rounded to two decimal places.

Schedule Types

Full Schedule (with entries)

A full schedule includes day-by-day time entries specifying when the position works. This provides both FTE calculation and staffing coverage analysis.

Hours-Only Schedule

If you only need to define FTE without specifying exact work times, set the Paid Hours Override field. When this is set, the schedule's paid weekly hours come from this value and time entries are optional. Hours-only schedules are excluded from coverage analysis since they have no time data.

Creating a Schedule

Navigate to Settings > Position > Schedules and select Create Schedule.

  • Name: Enter a descriptive name for the schedule (e.g., "Mon-Fri 8-5", "Weekend Evening Shift", "Part Time 20h"). Names must be unique within your organization.

  • Cycle Length (Weeks): The number of weeks in the schedule cycle. Use 1 for a standard weekly schedule, 2 for a biweekly rotation, etc.

  • Paid Hours Override: If set, this value is used as the paid weekly hours regardless of any time entries. Leave blank to compute hours from entries.

Schedule Entries

Each entry specifies a week number (for multi-week cycles), a day of the week, a start time, an end time, and an entry type.

Entry Types

  • Work: Standard work time. Counted toward paid hours and coverage.

  • Paid Break: Paid break time. Counted toward paid hours and coverage.

  • Unpaid Break: Unpaid break time. Not counted toward paid hours. Excluded from coverage analysis.

To accurately calculate paid hours, use split work entries rather than a single block with an unpaid break. For example, for an 8-hour day with a 1-hour lunch: create two Work entries (8:00 AM - 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM) rather than one 9-hour block with a separate unpaid break.

Multi-Week Schedules

For positions that follow a biweekly or rotating schedule, set the cycle length to the number of weeks in the rotation. Each time entry is assigned to a specific week number within the cycle. The paid weekly hours are averaged across the cycle.

For example, a biweekly schedule where Week 1 has 5 work days and Week 2 has 3 work days would average the total hours across 2 weeks.

Split Shifts

You can add multiple entries for the same day to support split shifts. For example, a position that works 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM on Monday would have two entries for Monday with those respective time ranges.

Restrictions

  • Start time and end time must be different for each entry.
  • Overnight shifts (where the end time is before the start time, spanning midnight) are supported.
  • Duplicate entries with the same week number, day, and start time within a single schedule are not allowed.

Assigning a Schedule to a Position

Once schedules are created, they must be assigned to positions through the Schedule attribute. This attribute appears in the position attribute form and supports effective dating.

To assign a schedule, edit a position's attributes and select the desired schedule from the Schedule field. The schedule assignment follows the same approval workflow as other position attribute changes.

When a schedule is assigned, the position's FTE is automatically derived from the schedule's paid hours divided by your organization's FTE standard hours.

Coverage Analysis

The Coverage Analysis view shows how many positions are staffed at each time slot throughout the week. Access it from the department workspace's Coverage tab.

Filters

  • Department: Narrow results to positions within a specific department.

  • Job Code: Narrow results to positions with a specific job code.

  • Effective Date: View coverage as of a specific date (defaults to today). This determines which schedule assignments are in effect.

Reading the Coverage Grid

The coverage grid displays:

  • Rows: Time slots throughout the day (only time slots with at least one position scheduled are shown).

  • Columns: Days of the week (Monday through Sunday).

  • Cells: The number of positions scheduled to work during that time slot. Cells with one or more positions are highlighted.

For multi-week schedules, the coverage grid shows data for each week in the cycle.

Only Work and Paid Break entries appear in the coverage grid. Unpaid Break entries and hours-only schedules (with no time entries) are excluded.

Per-Job Code Breakdown

Below the overall totals grid, an expandable accordion shows the same grid broken down by job code. This allows you to see coverage for specific roles, such as how many Nurse positions are scheduled at any given time compared to Physician positions.

Schedule Coverage Report

A Schedule Coverage report is available in the Reports section. This report exports the coverage data as a spreadsheet with columns for Job Code, Day, Time, and Position Count. Only time slots with at least one position are included in the output.

Editing and Deleting Schedules

  • Edit: Navigate to a schedule's detail page to update its name, cycle length, paid hours override, or modify entries. If the schedule is assigned to positions, a warning shows the number of affected positions. Changes to a schedule that affect paid hours will trigger FTE recalculation for all assigned positions.

  • Delete: A schedule can only be deleted if no positions currently reference it through the Schedule attribute. If positions are assigned to the schedule, you must first reassign or remove those schedule assignments before deletion.