Overview of the Staffing module

The Staffing module schedules staff by task rather than by lesson: thinking in terms of "who covers which post at what time" rather than "who teaches what". It complements the teaching timetables when the institution has to manage student supervision, monitoring duties, study halls, exams or group-supervision activities.

Main use case: student supervision and education assistants

The module was created to meet the long-standing need of student supervision teams: pastoral staff, education assistants, monitors and personnel who cover a multitude of posts over the course of the day, independently of lessons.

Examples:

• supervising the corridors;
• filtering entries to and exits from the school;
• staffing reception;
• supervising the playground during breaks;
• supervising the cafeteria at noon;
• covering study hall and the study room;
• running or supervising the library, the common room or a workspace;
• accompanying students off site, for example for a PE outing entrusted only to accredited people;
• covering one-off between-lesson slots;
• supervising exams, competitive exams or special days.

A task describes a presence need. It carries no subject, no teaching syllabus and no mandatory student group, unlike a lesson. The grid is often much finer than a teaching timetable: in student supervision, the quarter hour is common. The need can change sharply during the day: 0 people in the playground during lessons, 3 people at noon, 1 person in the library all afternoon.

The module's screens

Grid

The grid defines the time frame of the service: working days, time slots — often finer than a lesson grid — and the periods of the year when it applies. It serves as a working template before naming people. Sites and their distances are declared in the same place: they are used to flag incompatible assignments between distant locations.

See Building a service grid.

Assignments

The Assignments screen defines the posts or tasks to cover: label, required and ideal number of people, priority, site, authorized staff and compatibilities between tasks — for example two adjacent corridors that the same person can cover on a quiet slot when understaffed. Needs can vary slot by slot.

See Defining the tasks to cover.

Planner

The planner assigns staff members to the actual tasks of a week or a date range. Assignment is done by selecting, moving, duplicating and correcting manually. Absences, unavailability, conflicts and assignments of unauthorized people appear as alerts.

See Assigning staff.

Roster

The duty roster gives each person their list of tasks or their week as a grid. It can be printed, exported or shared depending on the rights and the distribution mode chosen by the institution. It shows the totals useful for reading the week and keeps the absence or unavailability signals.

See Rosters.

What the module checks

• people's availability;
• declared absences;
• assigned workload;
• authorized staff on each task;
• conflicts with other tasks or presences;
• consistency of needs per site and per slot, taking the distances between sites into account.

Staff planning is manual: the grid, the alerts and the correction tools guide each assignment, which you keep under control. Omniscol does not place staff automatically.

Operational benefit

The gain comes mostly from centralization:

• a shared needs grid instead of an isolated spreadsheet;
• assignments that can be changed week by week;
• duplication of stable weeks;
• absences visible in the staff schedule;
• printable or shareable duty rosters;
• fewer back-and-forths between the supervision team, the people assigned and the administration.

For a school of about a thousand students, customer feedback indicates around 20 hours of administrative work saved per week.

"We chose Omniscol to digitalize the schedule management of our student supervision department (the education assistants' timetable). The solution proved intuitive, comprehensive and perfectly suited to our needs. Everyone can clearly see where they are assigned."

— Jeanne Weeber, Deputy Head, Collège Sévigné (founded 1880), Paris

Other uses

• Exam supervision: midterm sessions, school-leaving exams, competitive exams, several days, several rooms, supervisor needs per exam paper.
• Study halls and supervised study: supervision posts that vary with the number of students expected.
• Montessori and active-pedagogy supervision: activities or workshops to cover without imposing the structure of a standard lesson.
• Activity-leader and task schedules: leisure center, after-school care, boarding school, schedules organized by mission.
• Outing supervision: school trip, educational outing, school visit.
• One-off presences: parent reception, open house day, class council.

Difference from a lesson

A lesson carries a subject, a group of students and a qualified teacher. A Staffing task carries a presence need: someone is needed on this post, with the right availability and, where necessary, the authorization to cover it.

This difference explains why the module works with needs grids, people assignments and duty rosters, instead of starting from a subject / class / teacher distribution.

Module scope

An account with Staffing includes:

• the Staffing module: grids, tasks, planner, duty rosters;
• the Absence management module for assignable staff;
• the administration screens needed for accounts and roles;
• cross-cutting search, according to the account's rights.

The Staff role

The Staff role is designed for student supervision teams (pastoral staff, education assistants, monitors, attendants). Depending on the account's rights, it gives access to Staffing, to the personal schedule and to staff absences, without opening up the school's entire global configuration.

The same user can combine several roles: for example a teacher involved in an active pedagogy can be both a teacher and a staff member scheduled by task.