A weekly shift plan template describes general information about the shift plan-the number of weeks in rotation, crew, and effective date. The shift plan template also includes shift templates that describe the recurring daily shift patterns that were defined on the shift plan template for the number of weeks in the rotation. The details associated with each daily shift within the rotation is what is captured on the daily shift template record. For example, a weekly shift plan template might use a different daily shift template on Fridays than the one used on other days.

This section describes concepts related to setting up and maintaining shift templates.

Each shift template starts with the selection of a Crew Shift Type, and then other details, such as work availability hours, crew members, service classes, and service areas can be populated as needed. These details defined on the shift template is what is used to generate the actual shifts. A Shift Weekly Template Periodic Monitor Process (W1-SFWKT) is used to create the actual shifts based off the template.

The system enforces the close pairing between the shift template and the shift it creates by storing both the actual shift and the shift template records in the same table (this is done so that similar details can be shared). Also, the same crew shift type defines both the business object used to create the actual shifts of this type as well as the business object used to create the shift templates of that type. Additionally, generated shifts maintain a reference to the shift template that was used to generate it to ensure that any changes made to the template may be reapplied to those shifts.

If the weekly shift plan template is dedicated to a specific crew, each daily shift template may include the complete shift information needed to generate a shift.

A weekly shift plan template may be defined as a common template to be shared by multiple crews. As such, details unique to each crew, such as the crew and the resources allocated to it, cannot be specified on the common template as they differ for each crew. The crew specific details are taken from the crew record at shift generation time.