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Staff planning

Staff planning enables you, as an organisation’s administrator, to schedule your participants according to your needs. Participants have the option of confirming whether they are available during the planned time slots. Finally, as the administrator, you can then decide which participants should be assigned on a binding basis.

💡 Staffing plans are part of the free ‘Shift Plans’ extension, which you can add to your organisation under Admin → Extensions.

💡 Unlike shift plans, staffing plans do not affect participants’ availability for call-outs.

Create a staffing plan

To be able to create templates in the calendar, you must first create a staffing plan. In our example, we are using a two-shift system, as is common in the emergency medical services. To create a new staffing plan, select Create staff roster at the top.

To create a template for the staffing plan you have just created, simply click anywhere on the calendar or drag the time period directly with the mouse to the position on the calendar where you wish to add the template.

💡 If you have created several staffing plans, you will automatically be asked to select the staffing plan for which the template is to be created.

1️⃣ You can add a name and a description to each template for a clearer overview. In our example, we’ll start by creating the day shift here.

2️⃣ In this section, you define the times for the template.

Valid from: Defines the date from which the template is to apply.
Multi-day: Allows you to extend the time period over several days. Each increment adds 24 hours to the period between the start and end times.
Start time / End time: Use these two fields to define the exact time period on the specified day.
Frequency: The frequency allows you to add a recurrence to the template. If the template is only to apply once, leave the value at zero. In this case, one would mean every day, two every other day, and so on.
Valid on: ‘Valid on’ comes into play when the frequency is set to more than one. Here, you can also specify which days within the frequency should be selected.

3️⃣ Under Resources, you then specify the participants you wish to schedule. You can either assign the participants directly or use a label to specify the required number of staff.

Once you have created the templates, you can publish them individually by clicking the arrow icon next to each template. Alternatively, you can use the Publish staff rosters button to publish several templates collectively for a specified period. Publishing the plans means that the assigned participants will be notified and can confirm whether they are available.

⚠️ To respond to a staff roster as a participant, the GroupAlarm App is essential. Responses are submitted in the ‘Appointments’ section.

💡 Later in this documentation, when referring to a single published template in a cycle, we will refer to it as an ‘instance’.

1️⃣ Unpublished templates can be edited at any time by clicking the pencil icon. The arrow next to it publishes the relevant instance.

⚠️ Editing or deleting an unpublished template affects the entire cycle. However, deleting a published template (instance) only affects that specific instance.

⚠️ Once a template (instance) has been published, no further changes can be made to that template (instance).

2️⃣ You can recognise published instances by their bolder colour. The small padlock icon above indicates that the instance has already been published but has not yet been finalised.

3️⃣ Once you have received feedback from participants, you can view this in the relevant instance. Using the participant selection tool, you can then assign participants from the pool of confirmations. Once you are satisfied that enough participants have been assigned, you can finalise the instance. Upon finalisation, the participants will be notified again and the assigned position will be visible in the app.

💡 An example from the GroupAlarm App showing the feedback view from the participant’s perspective.

Updated on: 26/08/2026

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