An On-Call roster is a special type of Base Roster used to roster after-hours support. This roster type facilitates a weekly on-call rotation including automated clock-in/clock-out, call logging and payment for on-call allowance and on-call disturbance remote work.
Required packages and permissions
Available with: Lumary WFM 2.12 and later
Supported in: Lumary DC
Permission: Lumary WFM - On-Call Scheduler or Lumary WFM - On-Call Management permission set
This article explains how to set-up an on-call roster in four steps:
- create a new on-call base roster,
- associate workers to the roster,
- add sessions to the roster,
- roster an on-call worker to each week.
When the roster is up and running, you will periodically need to:
- navigate back to the on-call base roster, to extend the roster by one or more weeks, or to add or remove a worker from the on-call rotation.
See also: Payroll setup for on-call rostering.
Create a new on-call base roster
- Click on the Scheduling tab in the nav bar.
If you can't see this tab, you may need to check under the More drop-down list or click on the App Launcher nine dot grid and search for scheduling.
- This will open the live Scheduling roster. The green Scheduling tag in the top part of the calendar shows that you're on the live scheduling roster.
- Click on the Roster Mode button.
- Select Create a new Roster.
- Click on the Next button.
This will open the Roster popup form. The following table explains what each of the fields are for and how to use them. Mandatory fields are marked with an asterisk.
| Field | How to use it |
|---|---|
| * Type | Select On-Call from the picklist. |
| * Roster Name | The name of the roster should make it easy to identify what this roster is for. Eg. East Region After Hours Support Line. |
| * Is Active | A tick in this checkbox allows the use of the base roster for the creation of roster periods. For new base rosters, the checkbox is ticked by default. |
| * Start Date |
Choose the start date carefully, as this will set the day of the week each on-call period starts and ends on. For example, if 5 August 2024 is a Monday, selecting this date as the start date means that day 1 of the roster will be Monday and workers will be rostered on a weekly rotation from COB (close of business) Monday to SOB (start of business) the following Monday. If the start date is a Friday, workers will be rostered on a weekly rotation from COB Friday to SOB the following Friday. |
| Escalation On-Call Roster | If there is a second on-call support roster that calls to this line may be escalated to, a link can be created here. |
- Click Save.
This will take you to the new base roster. The Calendar tab is where you manage on-call sessions and the Associated Workers tab is where you can see the list of workers in the on-call rotation. The red Roster tag shows that you're viewing a base roster and the teal green On-Call tag shows that its an On-Call roster, which is a one week base roster for remote on-call sessions.
Associate workers to the roster
Associating workers to an on-call base roster allows you to allocate them to upcoming on-call sessions a week at a time.
To add a worker to the on-call rotation for this roster:
- Click on the Associate Worker button.
- Type into the Contact field to search for the worker by name.
- Select a worker assignment. (Type 00 to list all of the worker's active worker assignments.)
- Availability Template should be auto-filled with the On-Call Roster Availability Template.
- Click the Save button.
- Repeat this process to add each on-call worker.
- You can click the refresh button in the top right of the On-Call Workers list to refresh the list after adding more workers.
Once you've associated all required workers, click on the Calendar tab to go back to the calendar view.
Add sessions to the roster
- Click on the Roster from Template button.
- In the Template field, search for and select After hours on-call.
- Review the Start Time and End Time for Weekday Night, Saturday Night and Sunday Night to match your rostered hours. Note that Saturday and Sunday 24-hour shifts are set to end after 23:59 hours. There is a tolerance which will treat sessions with a one minute gap as continuous.
- Click the Create Sessions button.
This will add 7 days of unassigned on-call sessions to your on-call base roster. Each session will have an on-call allowance session activity to facilitate payment of on-call allowance.
The next step is to roster workers to upcoming weeks.
Roster an on-call worker to each week
The on-call base roster will be used to create one-week roster periods each assigned to a different on-call worker on rotation.
To create each roster week:
- Make a note of the day of week of Day 1 of the roster.
- Click on the Base Roster selector and make a note of the start date of any existing roster periods listed below Base Roster as each new roster period must have a unique start date and should be created sequentially week by week.
Only Draft or Validated roster periods will be listed. Weeks which have already been Published will not be shown in this list.
- Choose Create On-Call Sessions.
This will open a New On-Call Sessions pop-up.
- Select the next sequential Start Date with the same day of week as Day 1 of the Base Roster.
- Select the Worker who is to be rostered on-call for this week. Workers who have already been rostered previously will show with the most recently assigned on-call week start date. The first listed worker is the next-up worker in the rotation, ignoring any shift swaps, so to assign workers at an even cadence, select the first worker in the list. Then for the next week you roster, this worker will drop to the bottom of the list and the next next-up worker will appear at the top.
- Click Save.
In future, on-call roster assignment will be able to be automated and only weeks which fail validation due to a leave clash or public holiday will need to be reviewed and published manually.
The new roster period will be validated automatically and if there are any errors, such as clashing worker leave or unavailability, or any public holidays during the period, these will be highlighted.
- If the status shows as Validated go to step 10.
- If the status shows as Draft, you will need to correct any validation errors before you can Publish the roster period.
- If the assigned worker will be on leave or unavailable during the week it is recommended to delete the Roster Period and then regenerate it selecting a different worker:
- Click the Delete button.
- Click OK to confirm.
- Start over from step 1 above.
- However, if the worker is mostly available but only 1 or so shifts need to be reassigned:
- Right-click on the session and choose Modify Workers.
- Select a different worker for this session.
- Click Next.
- Click Save.
- For any Public Holidays occurring on a weekday:
- Right-click on the session and choose Modify Session Times.
- Update the Start Time and/or End Time of the session as required to change it from a standard weekday on-call duration to a public holiday on-call duration. Synchronise Worker and Client Appointments checkbox should remain ticked.
- Click Next.
- Click Save.
- Right-click the session again and choose Modify Session Activities.
- Change the Allowance Category to On-Call Weekend/PH so the correct allowance rate will be applied to the session.
- Click Save Session Activity.
- Click Save.
- If the assigned worker will be on leave or unavailable during the week it is recommended to delete the Roster Period and then regenerate it selecting a different worker:
- Click the Validate button to re-validate the roster.
- Repeat steps 3 to 9 to create roster periods as many weeks out as you plan to advance-roster on-call workers. For example, your process may be to roster on-call workers up to 3 months out.
The next step is to publish as many roster periods as you normally schedule in advance. For example it may be your process to schedule rosters up to 6 weeks out. After the roster period has been published it will disappear from the Base Roster selector list and can instead be viewed and/or modified from the live Scheduling view, shown when you click the Roster Mode button from a Base Roster or Roster Period.
- Click on the Base Roster / Roster Period selector and navigate back to the earliest listed Roster Period.
- Click the Publish button to publish the sessions to the live schedule.
- Repeat steps 11 and 12 for each week of advance scheduling which has been validated and is ready to be published to the live schedule.
Navigate back to the on-call base roster
To extend the roster by another week, or to add or remove a worker:
- Click on the Scheduling tab in the nav bar.
If you can't see this tab, you may need to check under the More drop-down list or click on the App Launcher nine dot grid and search for scheduling.
- This will open the live Scheduling roster. The green Scheduling tag in the top part of the calendar shows that you're on the live scheduling roster.
- Click on the Roster Mode button.
- Select Select an existing Roster.
- Type the name of the on-call roster and select it.
- Click on the Next button.
This will open the selected on-call base roster. From here you can:
If you have opened the wrong base roster, click the Roster Mode button again to return to the Live Scheduling view, and then repeat the above steps to open a different roster.
Remove a worker
If a worker stops being part of the on-call roster, you can delete them from the Associated Workers list. Immediately after doing this, they will not be able to be assigned to new roster periods created off the on-call base roster. The worker will still be able to complete any sessions they have already been rostered to, or those sessions can be reassigned to a different worker using the Modify Workers right-click action.
- Toggle from the Calendar tab to the Associated Workers tab.
- Next to the worker to remove, click the down arrow at the end of the row and choose Delete.
- Click OK to confirm.
See how on-call workers can log on-call disturbances and complete an on-call session with disturbances.