Forum Discussion
Better way to view employees' schedules?
Howdy, y'all. I've just been hired into a new office, and as the only member of Gen Z to be employed, I've been summarily appointed to the media committee, which includes thinking through the ways that we communicate with one another effectively.
The issue that's driving me up a wall at the moment is our calendar management. We have an Excel sheet saved as a tab within one of our Teams channels that lists every employee's status in the office for every day of the year. This is helpful for a couple of reasons:
- We work in healthcare and must have one person on-call at all times. There are two on-call shifts per day; one from 8 AM to 8 PM, and one from 8 PM to 8 AM.
- There must be a minimum number of staff people working during regular weekdays (that is, aside from the on-call staffer, we must also be able to see that there are at least a couple people aside from the on-call person who are in the office during a regular week, so that the office isn't completely empty around Christmas and so on). For this, we usually look at the row for the day of the month and the column for the employee's name, with the intersecting cell being filled in with the time of their shift.
- In addition to the two on-call shifts per day, one person will be designated as "substitute" for one 24-hour period. If either the AM or PM on-call person call out, the substitute will clock in to replace them.
- Further, there is a staffer who is designated as the support member for an entire week's time. Should the on-call person have questions or concerns, the support member will be able to answer their call at any time during the week.
- We typically have it color-coded so we know by taking a glance at the day who is on AM, who is on PM, who is substituting, and who is backup.
- This is an example:
| Staff A | Staff B | Staff C | Staff D | Staff E | Staff F | Staff G | |
| Friday 8/1 | 8a-8p | 8a-4:30p | 8p-8a | 8a-4:30p | 8a-4:30p | 8a-4:30p | |
| Saturday 8/2 | OFF | 8a-8p | 8p-8a | OFF | OFF | OFF | |
| Sunday 8/3 | 8p-8a | OFF | 8a-8p | OFF | OFF | OFF | |
| Monday 8/4 | OFF | 8p-8a | OFF | 8a-8p | 8a-4:30p | 8a-4:30p | |
| Tuesday 8/5 | 8a-8p | OFF | OFF | 8p-8a | 8a-4:30p | 8a-4:30p | |
| Wednesday 8/6 | 8a-4:30p | 8p-8a | OFF | 8a-8p | 8a-4:30p | 8a-4:30p | |
| KEY: | AM on-call | PM on-call | Support |
Obviously, this way of keeping track of things is archaic and has led to chaos. Is there a better way somewhere in Teams/Outlook/SharePoint calendar, or in some other application that can connect to this workspace? We run basically everything in our department out of Teams
1 Reply
Hey, if it works, it doesn't necessarily need to be modernized :)
You can look into the Shifts solution for Teams, or build something on top of Microsoft Lists. The latter should give you more flexibility and has robust extensibility options, but you haven't said what kind of improvements are you looking to make.
