Job Planning User Guide
Job Planning User Guide
2. Accessing SARD for the first time
3.1 My Dashboard drop-down list
3.3 Where would you like to go today?
5.1 Adding a new Job Plan activity
5.4 Adding a flexible activity
6. Signing off and completing your Job Plan
1. Requesting a SARD account
Access to the website is by invitation only, and accounts are set up by the administrator within your organisation. If you think that you should have access to SARD, please contact one of your organisation’s administrators and request an invitation. If you are unsure whom to contact, please get in touch with us on support@sardjv.co.uk, giving the name of the organisation you work for so we can provide you with the best email address to contact.
2. Accessing SARD for the first time
Once your account has been set up, you will receive an invitation email, which will come from no-reply@sardjv.co.uk. Click on the Accept Invitation link within the email to set your own password and get started. Your username is the email address that the original invitation was sent to.
Once you have set your password, you will see a welcome screen that will prompt you for information. Once you have provided the required information, tick the confirmation box and click the Save and continue button.
Now that you have completed your initial setup, you will be able to access SARD using your registered email address and password on the main sign in page.
3. Navigating your Dashboard
The Dashboard is the ‘hub’ of your SARD account. It is the first page you will see when you log in, from which you can get an overview of your progress, view any notifications you may have, and access all the various products.
3.1 My Dashboard drop-down list
My Dashboard is located in the top-left corner. Clicking on it will expand the drop-list with all the products and features you have access to, i.e., Job Plan, MSF/360, eLeave. You will also find shortcuts there to your Job Planning, Portfolio, Appraisal (subject to access to Medical Revalidation) and the eDocuments folder:
3.2 Account drop-down list
If you click on your name in the top-right corner, it will unveil a drop-down list with shortcuts to your Dashboard, editing your details and the option to log out, among other things. Just like My Dashboard, this drop-down list is a permanent fixture – both remain visible in respective top corners throughout the system:
3.3 Where would you like to go today?
The centre of your Dashboard displays icons for each product and feature you have access to. Clicking on an icon will open a product or feature:
3.4 Overview
Overview allows to see at a glance the due dates for your next Job Plan, next medical revalidation, etc. Each due date has an i for information icon next to it for more details:
Please note this image is an example – your actual Dashboard appearance and available products will vary depending on your organisation and role.
The dates under Overview are colour-coded: green means that everything is in place and that you are fully compliant, orange denotes that the due date is approaching, whereas red indicates that something is outstanding and requires your specific action. This RAG (Red/Amber/Green) coding is also used for the products below Overview. For example, should anything be amiss in your current Job Plan, it will be highlighted red in the lower part of your Dashboard.
3.5 My eDocuments
This is where you will be able to upload various documents such as certificates, Declaration of Interest (DOI) form and other supporting evidence specified by your organisation for your Job Plan:
To upload a document, please click View My eDocuments, then + New eDoc, followed by Save. If you would like to upload many files at once, please see this page.
3.6 Notifications
Here you can see any recent notifications, such as whether your Job Plan has been signed by a signatory, or if a change has been made to your Job Plan. To expand the list of notifications further, please click See All Notifications:
3.7 My Details
Clicking on this icon will show basic details of your SARD profile such as registered email address, organisational structure and your medical roles. Your profile can be updated at any time by clicking on Edit My Details:
You can even add your profile picture here, if you wish. Once done editing your profile, please click Save.
3.8 Help and Support
This is where you can find your organisation’s Support Documents such as guidances and templates for various forms. You will also find further resources like Helpdesk, video and user guides here. Most importantly, under Help & Support there are contact details for the administrators at your trust/organisation, should you need to get in touch with them.
4. Job Planning
Clicking on the Job Planning icon on your Dashboard will take you to the list of previous five Job Plans. All your Job Plans can be opened regardless of their state (Draft, Submitted or Complete). If you have more than five Job Plans, please click on the View All button. An “offline” Job Plan indicates a Job Plan which was not done on SARD.
If you do not have a Job Plan open, you can start a new one from this page or from Dashboard by clicking on the + New Job Plan button. You will be given the option to create it from:
- a blank Job Plan template, or
- your last complete Job Plan – if it was completed on SARD, or
- your archived Job Plan (if any), or
- a Job Plan template which was shared by your colleagues or organisation/trust.
How do I start a new Job Plan using the information from the previous SARD Job Plan?
How do I share my Job Plan as a template?
How do I share my AHP Job Plan as a template?
I can't start a new Job Plan despite having access to Job Planning. Why?
4.1 Instructions
Please read the contents of Section 1 (Instructions) for an overview of the Job Planning process and how the Job Planning system works. A Job Plan is designed to be worked through the sections in order, navigating from section to section using the numbered headings on the left-hand side of the screen.
4.2 General Info
Section 2 (General Info) concerns your role within the organisation and the type of contract you are employed under. If you are unsure of any of the answers, please contact your HR department or Job Planning administrator. The contact details for the latter should be listed under Help & Support on your Dashboard. Once you have completed the section, click the Save button in the bottom-right corner.
My Job Plan has the wrong dates
What do I enter in Current Pay Threshold?
4.3 Job Plan signatories
How do I add signatories to my Job Plan?
How do I add signatories to my AHP Job Plan?
Section 3 (Signatories) is where you need to select colleagues who are required to review and sign off your Job Plan. Depending on your role and organisation, signatures from certain Job Plan signatories (i.e. Clinical Director, Medical Director, Job Plan Lead, General Manager) may be compulsory.
Select the appropriate signatories from the drop-down lists and click the green + Add button next to their name. If you wish to add additional signatories that do not fall under the Compulsory Signatories lists (if any), click the + Add Signatory button in the bottom right corner of the page and fill in their details manually, clicking Save once done.
How do I sign off a Job Plan for which I am a signatory?
5. Job Plan Timetable
Section 4 (Timetable) is the biggest part of the Job Plan. The Timetable is where you enter your activities to build your average weekly PA calculations as per your contract.
To fill in your Timetable, you need to think of the type of work you do and the frequencies with which you do them. Examples of Job Plan activities could be:
- a clinic that takes place every Monday from 9am to 1pm,
- a ward round that takes place on the second Tuesday of every month from 8am to 11am, or
- a multidisciplinary meeting that takes place every other Wednesday from 1pm to 2pm.
As you enter activities, the system automatically calculates the average weekly PAs and populates the Calendar, allowing you to see how your work is spread across the year.
5.1 Adding a new Job Plan activity
How do I add an activity to my Job Plan Timetable?
Click the + New Activity button in the top-right corner of any Timetable tab to open the New Activity form.
The options in the Categorisation section may vary depending on your organisation:
Click on the drop-down lists to choose the best fit for your activity. Typical activity categories may be:
DCC = Direct Clinical Care
SPA = Supporting Professional Activities
AR = Additional Responsibility
ED = External Duty
APA = Additional Programmed Activity
FPS = Fee Paying Services
PRIV = Private
TRAV = Travel
MS = Medical School
The lines marked with an asterisk (i.e., Category, Subcategory, Activity) are mandatory and must be completed.
The Type of an activity is set to ‘Core’ by default but you can change it to ‘Additional Programmed Activity’ or ‘Additional to Contract’, if required.
As an option, you can specify Employer and Location using a drop-down list for each.
In the Description box, you can explain the type of activity, e.g., by typing “Bronchial ward round” or similar.
Assuming your activity is scheduled (i.e., it is done on a regular basis at predictable times), you now need to fill in the ‘Schedule' section to specify when it happens. Here you can indicate a number of different arrangements, even if your activity schedule is quite complex.
An example: Doctor Strange has a clinic on the 2nd and 4th week of an 8-week cycle. It always falls on a Thursday, and takes place between 2pm and 5pm.
Firstly, we need to enter the start (From) and finish (to) times using the 24-hour clock:
Secondly, we need to select how often this activity repeats. Since this activity is undertaken on a pattern of weeks, we would need to select ‘Weekly’ under Repeats. The said activity falls into an 8-week cycle, therefore we would then need to specify under Every that it takes place (every) ‘8 weeks on’:
The last part of the Schedule section has tabs for each day of the week as well as ‘On weeks 1 to 8’ dots for each week. This is in order to highlight as many of the days and weeks as are necessary. For our example, we need to say that the activity happens on a Thursday, on the second and fourth week of the eight-week cycle:
The last step is to click the Create button which is located in the top-right and bottom-right corner of the New Activity form.
Once we have created and saved the activity, we will be able to view the updated PA calculation. The Summary, which is the last section in the New/Edit Activity form, will show a breakdown of hours and PAs per Occurrence, Week and Year:
How do I annualise my Job Plan?
The Job Planning module automatically calculates how often a work item occurs over 42 weeks which is the basis of an annualised Job Plan. In other words, SARD’s Job Plan is annualised by default. Example: if you do ward rounds for 4 hours every 5th Monday of the month, the Job Plan will calculate how many 5th Mondays there are in a working year (42 weeks). If you wish to override this and say specifically how many occurrences there are in a working year, tick the ‘Override?’ box at the bottom of the Summary section. You can also override the total occurrences in a 52-week year in the ‘Advanced options’ section explained here. Annualising basically means defining something by how many times it occurs per year.
In our example above, there is no need for us to override the number of occurrences.
What does Prospective Cover mean?
PAs are, by default, calculated based on a 42-week year. Doctors get 10 weeks of annual and study leave, so these are not counted in your average year. Prospective cover assumes that during your working year you will be working extra shifts to cover the annual and study leave of your other team members. It essentially says that you will be working a full 52 weeks’ worth of shifts, but compressed into a 42-week working year. If the ‘Prospective Cover over 52 weeks?’ box is selected, this will be compensated for with an increased PA for that activity.
5.2 Advanced options
For certain activities, you may need to toggle the Advanced button to further expand the New/Edit Activity form:
You will be able to see and override, if required, how many Total Occurrences there are for the activity in a 52-week year, if no leave were taken. You can also see the Total Hours for the activity in a 52-week year.
For more information on activity Tiers, please go here.
A date range (Start Date and End Date) can be applied if the particular activity is only going to take place for part of a year, i.e., if you are only going to be doing a particular clinic for a few months over the summer.
The system automatically calculates the hours and PAs to allocate to the activity you have entered. However, if you have a particular reason why you are eligible for more or fewer PAs than the normal rate, choose Yes to ‘Override Hours and PAs’ calculations, then manually enter the value for the ‘Hours per week’ and/or ‘PAs per week’, followed by clicking Save.
Once the activity has been created (saved), it will appear in all Timetable tabs including the ‘Overview’ tab. Our example started in subsection 5.1 will look like this:
The system has automatically calculated the hours and PAs, averaged over the 42-week year. These figures also appear cumulatively in the Job Plan Summary table in the top-left corner of the screen:
Carry on adding activities to your Timetable as explained above until you have entered all your scheduled activities.
5.3 Schedule variations
The Timetable supports many different schedules.
Example A: Let’s say you have a meeting on the third Tuesday of every month. For this, you would need to go to the Schedule section of New/Edit Activity form and:
- for Repeats, choose ‘Monthly’ from the drop-down list,
- for Every, choose ‘1’ month(s) from the drop-down list,
- in the On the…/Each line, select the former,
- in the first line directly under, choose ’3rd’ from the drop-down list, and
- In the second line, choose ‘Tuesday’ from the drop-down list.
Example B: An educational supervisory session that happens every fortnight on a Tuesday, would need to be indicated in the Schedule section of the New/Edit Activity form as follows:
Example C: You are on call for 4 hours every third Saturday and Sunday. The correct Scheduling for such an activity would look like this:
5.4 Adding a flexible activity
You may have activities for which you earn PAs but which are performed ‘ad hoc’, rather than at specific times. For example, you do 4 hours of admin per week (for which you earn 1 PA) but you have to fit this in around other work.
You would need to enter this as an unscheduled (Flexible) activity as follows:
You can click the Non-Premium or Premium button to calculate the PAs for the entered number of Hours per week. This will add the PAs and hours to your Overview tab and the activity Summary without the need to schedule them specifically.
As you build up the Timetable, you will notice that the Overview of activities and Activity Summary begin to accumulate:
You can edit an activity at any time either by selecting it in the Overview or the Calendar tab, or by clicking the pencil icon on the right-hand side in the Day Breakdown or the PA Breakdown tab within the Timetable. Please ensure to click the Save button to record any changes made. You can also delete an activity altogether by clicking the Delete button below. The Cancel button can be used for closing the Edit Activity form.
5.5 Overview tab
The Overview tab is the first page you will see when clicking on Section 4 (Timetable). You can choose to view your activities by order of ‘Weekday’, ‘Category’ and ‘Drag & Drop’ where you can customise the order. Hovering your cursor over any activity in this tab will allow you to see more information on that activity such as the frequency and type. Toggling the Expand All button on will allow you to see this for all activities in your Job Plan. You can also use the Search bar on the right-hand side to search for keywords, such as “Ward Round” or “3 in every 9 weeks”.
5.6 Day Breakdown tab
This Timetable tab allows you to view at a glance your activities listed by days of the week. This view is particularly useful when resolving potential clashes which is covered in more detail here. On the right-hand side next to each activity there are three icons: the i icon for information on Average Time Per Week Calculation, the pencil icon for editing, and the trashcan icon for deleting an activity.
5.7 PA Breakdown tab
If you click the PA Breakdown tab in the Timetable, it will open the breakdown view, where you can see activities broken down by category:
5.8 Calendar view
Clicking on the Calendar tab opens the calendar view, where you can scroll through the year to see what a particular month’s work might look like for you:
5.9 Clashing Activities tab
If you add activities that occur at the same time, they will appear in the Clashing Activities tab (hidden from view in the absence of such clashes). You can see the first 10 instances of overlap in the year, and decide whether to amend the activities to fit the reality, or whether to leave the Job Plan as is.
Please note that, depending on how you and your trust utilise the system, clashes DO NOT necessarily mean that your Job Plan is incorrect.
The clashes are highlighted to help avoid accidental mistakes, and can be ignored if you are aware of the reason for the clash.
You can use Tiers to prioritise certain activities so that when the two do clash, the higher one will take precedence over the lower tier activity. To change an activity’s tier level, click on the pencil icon on the right, choose a number as appropriate from the Tier drop-down list, then click Save.
If Clashing Activities are highlighted orange, it means that they are not yet resolved as you have not adjusted the tiers for the activities. However, if the Clashing Activities are highlighted green, then it means they were resolved by correctly assigning activity tiers.
6. Signing off and completing your Job Plan
How do I sign off my Job Plan?
Once you are happy with your activities entered in the Timetable and how they are reflected in the Job Plan Summary table, you should work through the remaining sections, following the instructions in each section. The remaining Job Plan sections are where you can record things like your on-call supplements, other agreements, additional NHS responsibilities and/or external duties, fee paying services, private practice, supporting resources, etc.
As soon as you are satisfied with the draft of your Job Plan, click the Sign and Submit button to have it signed and submitted for review:
It is possible to change the Job Plan while it is in this submitted state, provided that not all of the signatories have signed it off. Please note that if the Job Plan is changed, it will send an email notification to all signatories. It will also revoke existing signatures, so the Job Plan signatories will need to review the change and re-sign your Job Plan. You can add a comment to a submitted Job Plan which will give you the option to either revoke all signatories (if the comment requires agreement) or not.
If significant or multiple changes are required, you can revert the whole Job Plan to draft using the Revert to Draft button below the last Job Plan section on the left, and re-submit it once it is ready:
What will revoke signatures on a Job Plan?
As soon as all the Job Plan signatories have signed, the Job Plan will change its status from SUBMITTED to COMPLETE, preventing it from being changed. This means that you have finished your Job Plan.
You can access your completed Job Plan at any time by going to your Dashboard and clicking on the Job Planning icon. You can also use the PDF button in the top-right corner to download a copy of your Job Plan.
Why can't I sign off someone's Job Plan despite being a Job Plan signatory?
7. SARD Customer Support
If you require some additional help, we have online support available every weekday between 9am and 5pm via our online chat system. Just click on the green button
in the bottom-right corner of your screen to open a Support Team chat window:
Clicking the Help tab on the right will direct you to a catalogue of Helpdesk articles which can be also found here. These should prove useful, especially if you need assistance outside of business hours.
As always, please let us know if you have any questions or comments via the live chat system or email at support@sardjv.co.uk.
Updated on: 23/07/2025
Thank you!