How do I schedule activities?
This article is quite detailed and covers many different topics regarding adding an activity. If you are looking for a specific piece of information, you may wish to search by a keyword using the CTRL+F (Command+F on Mac) shortcut on your keyboard.
Go to Section 4 ( Timetable) and click on the + New Activity button. Under the Categorisation section there is Schedule section where you enter the days and times on which an activity occurs.
Let’s try a simple example. Let's say you wanted to add an activity that is scheduled to occur weekly on Tuesdays from 09:00 to 17:00. To set this in the schedule, try the following:
Click to change the default start and end time of '08:00' ( From) and '12:00' ( to) and change these to '09:00' and '17:00'.
On the next two rows, keep the default of Repeats as 'Weekly' and of Every as '1 week on'.
click 'Tuesday' from the list of the weekdays.
Click the green Create button to the bottom right corner in order to save it in your Timetable.
There is every chance your Job Plan is not as simple as that though. We will talk you through some other options for adding more complex scheduling as well below.
In the event that you undertake an activity every other week, that is easily entered. As it is a schedule based on a two-week pattern, leave the activity repeating as 'Weekly' but change the number of weeks it occurs on from 'Every 1 week on' to 'Every 2 weeks on'. Once that has been saved, you have an activity that alternates in a two-week pattern, and this will also be reflected in your Hours and PAs.
In addition to this, it might be the case that you undertake a different activity on that alternate week. If so, add first activity as above, and select this to take place on Week 1. Click Create and that is saved for you. Then, when you add the other activity, this time you highlight this to take place on Week 2. Once you have created that activity, an alternating pattern will have been set up.
(NB: Week 1 will be highlighted by default when adding an activity which does not occur weekly, so click this again to deselect it in order to set up that alternating pattern.)
You could have an activity on a three, four, seven, or even 49 week schedule and the above process will work for each one of them. If you were to work an activity 4 weeks of the year, weeks 1, 9, 24 and 42 of a 52 week schedule, this would be just as simple to add. Simply add the activity in question, categorise as needed, click the day on which this occurs and then highlight 'Weeks 1, 9, 24 and 42' of the schedule before clicking Create.
In other circumstances, you might have an activity that occurs on a monthly rotation, rather than weekly.
If it’s a one month cycle (e.g. you undertake an activity on the 2nd and 4th Monday and Thursday of the month, every month) that’s added in a similar fashion to adding weekly activity activities. The first difference is changing the Repeats field from 'Weekly' to 'Monthly'.
After that you will be given two options: it will repeat either On the... or Each.
If you leave the default On the... selected, you will then be able to choose which weeks of the month they occur on in the first box (i.e on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th week of the month) and which days.
So, if you undertake an activity that happens on the 2nd and 4th week of a month on Mondays and Thursdays, select '2nd' and '4th' in the first row, and then tick 'Monday' and 'Thursday' in the subsequent row. Then, as with any activity creation, scroll down and press Create.
The 'Each' option would be used for any date specific activities. For example, if you have a regular meeting each month on the 10th, select 'Each' and this will allow you to select the day(s) on which this occurs.
If you have a flexible activity on your schedule, (i.e., a responsibility as part of your Job Plan with an associated PA equivalent, but not set to occur at a particular/regular time), this should be marked as such.
To add this to your Timetable, add the activity in the usual manner and then scroll down to the Schedule section. The first row of this section will give options for Scheduled or Flexible. As the default would be Scheduled, you should instead mark Flexible, and the content of this section will change slightly.
At this point, it is as simple as entering the Hours and PAs this activity would be equivalent to as a weekly average.
If the activity is a responsibility for which you know the PA equivalence, but do not know the Hours, you can leave the hours blank and just enter the PA total. If you know the amount of time worked on a weekly average, you can enter this and select whether this is Premium or Non-Premium Time, and this will be automatically calculated for you.
Your Job Plan is, as a standard, based on working occurrences happening over a 42-week year. This takes into account the 52 weeks of the year, with 10 weeks captured in Annual Leave and Study Leave allowances, as well as Bank Holidays leaving you with 42 weeks.
(NB: this may be slightly different for your organisation, based on local policy and their current setup with SARD.)
By default, a weekly 4-hour activity would mean 1 PA allocated to that activity. The system will then extrapolate this to occur once every week and, therefore, 42 times a year. However, particular activities in your Job Plan may include Prospective Cover. It essentially means the activity is worked around your normal schedule to mean that 1 PA per week actually gets carried out 52 times a year, rather than 42 expected as a standard.
If this is the case (and it has been agreed by your organisation that this should be reflected in your Job Plan), there is a box at the bottom right of your activity window marked Prospective cover over 52 weeks. If you tick this box, the system will automatically calculate the additional PAs and hours allocated to this activity as a result.
The blue 'i' icon on the right-hand side of that button will provide further information on Prospective Cover, when this would be used, and how this is calculated on the site.
These are easily marked on Job Plans. When adding an activity, in the last row before the Schedule section you will see a button for On Call which by default is marked as 'No'. If this does need to be marked as an On Call activity, select 'Yes' instead. The activity will then be set as Flexible On Call by default, but you can change this to Scheduled On Call if needed using the same method as explained above.
Advanced options have been added to better reflect the unique nature of specific Job Plan activities. To gain access to these functions, simply toggle the Advanced button to the bottom left of the pop-up activity window.
Within the Advanced options, the first row is to override the total occurrences of an activity. This will be automatically calculated based on the activity information, once this has been created. Therefore, if you are just adding a new activity and this shows as zero, this would just need to be saved.
If this number should be changed, click the Override Total Occurrences? box to override the total occurrences and add the new number in the textbox to replace the calculated figure currently showing.
SARD’s Job Plans will automatically calculate the hours and PAs of activities added into it. Occasionally an organisation would prefer a lower or higher number of hours or PAs (or both) to be allocated to an activity. If this is the case, mark 'Yes' next to Override Hours and PAs and you will be given the option to manually add the hours and PAs that should be allocated to an activity.
Once the total occurrences figure or the Hours and PAs have been changed, this will override any calculations made by the site. The information in the Schedule section will no longer dictate the calculated total. To revert to the calculated figure, each of these boxes would need to be unticked.
You may have an activity that starts or ends partway through the Job Plan year, or even an activity that is only part of your Job Plan for a matter of weeks or months. If any of these are the case, you can amend the Start Date or End Date, or both if needed.
By default, the start and end dates for an activity would match the Effective Date of the Job Plan set in Section 2 (General Info) and would therefore be applicable across the entire Job Plan. If you were to manually enter Start and End Dates, the calculation would take this into account – your occurrences would appear lower and the PA/Hours total would similarly be affected.
Scheduling
Go to Section 4 ( Timetable) and click on the + New Activity button. Under the Categorisation section there is Schedule section where you enter the days and times on which an activity occurs.
Let’s try a simple example. Let's say you wanted to add an activity that is scheduled to occur weekly on Tuesdays from 09:00 to 17:00. To set this in the schedule, try the following:
Click to change the default start and end time of '08:00' ( From) and '12:00' ( to) and change these to '09:00' and '17:00'.
On the next two rows, keep the default of Repeats as 'Weekly' and of Every as '1 week on'.
click 'Tuesday' from the list of the weekdays.
Click the green Create button to the bottom right corner in order to save it in your Timetable.
There is every chance your Job Plan is not as simple as that though. We will talk you through some other options for adding more complex scheduling as well below.
Complex Scheduling – Rotational Activities
In the event that you undertake an activity every other week, that is easily entered. As it is a schedule based on a two-week pattern, leave the activity repeating as 'Weekly' but change the number of weeks it occurs on from 'Every 1 week on' to 'Every 2 weeks on'. Once that has been saved, you have an activity that alternates in a two-week pattern, and this will also be reflected in your Hours and PAs.
In addition to this, it might be the case that you undertake a different activity on that alternate week. If so, add first activity as above, and select this to take place on Week 1. Click Create and that is saved for you. Then, when you add the other activity, this time you highlight this to take place on Week 2. Once you have created that activity, an alternating pattern will have been set up.
(NB: Week 1 will be highlighted by default when adding an activity which does not occur weekly, so click this again to deselect it in order to set up that alternating pattern.)
You could have an activity on a three, four, seven, or even 49 week schedule and the above process will work for each one of them. If you were to work an activity 4 weeks of the year, weeks 1, 9, 24 and 42 of a 52 week schedule, this would be just as simple to add. Simply add the activity in question, categorise as needed, click the day on which this occurs and then highlight 'Weeks 1, 9, 24 and 42' of the schedule before clicking Create.
In other circumstances, you might have an activity that occurs on a monthly rotation, rather than weekly.
If it’s a one month cycle (e.g. you undertake an activity on the 2nd and 4th Monday and Thursday of the month, every month) that’s added in a similar fashion to adding weekly activity activities. The first difference is changing the Repeats field from 'Weekly' to 'Monthly'.
After that you will be given two options: it will repeat either On the... or Each.
If you leave the default On the... selected, you will then be able to choose which weeks of the month they occur on in the first box (i.e on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th week of the month) and which days.
So, if you undertake an activity that happens on the 2nd and 4th week of a month on Mondays and Thursdays, select '2nd' and '4th' in the first row, and then tick 'Monday' and 'Thursday' in the subsequent row. Then, as with any activity creation, scroll down and press Create.
The 'Each' option would be used for any date specific activities. For example, if you have a regular meeting each month on the 10th, select 'Each' and this will allow you to select the day(s) on which this occurs.
Complex Scheduling – Flexible Activities
If you have a flexible activity on your schedule, (i.e., a responsibility as part of your Job Plan with an associated PA equivalent, but not set to occur at a particular/regular time), this should be marked as such.
To add this to your Timetable, add the activity in the usual manner and then scroll down to the Schedule section. The first row of this section will give options for Scheduled or Flexible. As the default would be Scheduled, you should instead mark Flexible, and the content of this section will change slightly.
At this point, it is as simple as entering the Hours and PAs this activity would be equivalent to as a weekly average.
If the activity is a responsibility for which you know the PA equivalence, but do not know the Hours, you can leave the hours blank and just enter the PA total. If you know the amount of time worked on a weekly average, you can enter this and select whether this is Premium or Non-Premium Time, and this will be automatically calculated for you.
Complex Scheduling – Prospective Cover
Your Job Plan is, as a standard, based on working occurrences happening over a 42-week year. This takes into account the 52 weeks of the year, with 10 weeks captured in Annual Leave and Study Leave allowances, as well as Bank Holidays leaving you with 42 weeks.
(NB: this may be slightly different for your organisation, based on local policy and their current setup with SARD.)
By default, a weekly 4-hour activity would mean 1 PA allocated to that activity. The system will then extrapolate this to occur once every week and, therefore, 42 times a year. However, particular activities in your Job Plan may include Prospective Cover. It essentially means the activity is worked around your normal schedule to mean that 1 PA per week actually gets carried out 52 times a year, rather than 42 expected as a standard.
If this is the case (and it has been agreed by your organisation that this should be reflected in your Job Plan), there is a box at the bottom right of your activity window marked Prospective cover over 52 weeks. If you tick this box, the system will automatically calculate the additional PAs and hours allocated to this activity as a result.
The blue 'i' icon on the right-hand side of that button will provide further information on Prospective Cover, when this would be used, and how this is calculated on the site.
Complex Scheduling – On Call activities
These are easily marked on Job Plans. When adding an activity, in the last row before the Schedule section you will see a button for On Call which by default is marked as 'No'. If this does need to be marked as an On Call activity, select 'Yes' instead. The activity will then be set as Flexible On Call by default, but you can change this to Scheduled On Call if needed using the same method as explained above.
Advanced Section
Advanced options have been added to better reflect the unique nature of specific Job Plan activities. To gain access to these functions, simply toggle the Advanced button to the bottom left of the pop-up activity window.
Advanced Section – Overriding Occurrences
Within the Advanced options, the first row is to override the total occurrences of an activity. This will be automatically calculated based on the activity information, once this has been created. Therefore, if you are just adding a new activity and this shows as zero, this would just need to be saved.
If this number should be changed, click the Override Total Occurrences? box to override the total occurrences and add the new number in the textbox to replace the calculated figure currently showing.
Advanced Section – Overriding Hours and PAs
SARD’s Job Plans will automatically calculate the hours and PAs of activities added into it. Occasionally an organisation would prefer a lower or higher number of hours or PAs (or both) to be allocated to an activity. If this is the case, mark 'Yes' next to Override Hours and PAs and you will be given the option to manually add the hours and PAs that should be allocated to an activity.
Once the total occurrences figure or the Hours and PAs have been changed, this will override any calculations made by the site. The information in the Schedule section will no longer dictate the calculated total. To revert to the calculated figure, each of these boxes would need to be unticked.
Advanced Section – Start and End Dates
You may have an activity that starts or ends partway through the Job Plan year, or even an activity that is only part of your Job Plan for a matter of weeks or months. If any of these are the case, you can amend the Start Date or End Date, or both if needed.
By default, the start and end dates for an activity would match the Effective Date of the Job Plan set in Section 2 (General Info) and would therefore be applicable across the entire Job Plan. If you were to manually enter Start and End Dates, the calculation would take this into account – your occurrences would appear lower and the PA/Hours total would similarly be affected.
Updated on: 27/02/2025
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