I know that you can log into xmatters and assign a temporary replacement for yourself. But there doesn’t seem to be any way to input the dates that you'll be away without assigning a replacement, then allowing your place in any team to be skipped, so that the notification simply skips you and move to the next person without delay?
I have gotten around this by creating a second team without that person (based on the default team), and then created an indefinite holiday coverage with the new team assigned.
At one stage I was actually able to change the existing team of a group without assigning any holiday coverage – I know I did this as I was able to go through the schedules and see that they had changed and that the person on holiday wasn’t there. And at this stage I hadn’t put in a ‘site to use for holidays’ so holiday coverages wasn’t even available.
Yet I now have no idea how I did this and cannot do it again. I’d prefer this to a holiday coverage but have no idea how to do it and the option to do this seems to be embedded somewhere deep in the system. I can see how to assign an existing team for a one-time coverage or holiday coverage, but not 'permanently' as I have done once for a group. Doco on this particular 'feature' is not available either. Any ideas?
But my basic question is: What is the best way to do something like this? Creating a team without a member just for a holiday doesn’t seem like the simplest way to manage this situation and it must happen often. Not everybody has a replacement – sometimes you make do with a smaller team and xmatters should handle this.
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Hi Gavin
I think I'm getting a better picture now. So, first things first: if you create a holiday coverage, it will be in effect whenever a company holiday occurs (or site, depending on your group settings). Holiday coverages are not intended to work the way you're using them there - you COULD force them to, but it would require creating a separate custom holiday for each day you'll be away, adding them as site holidays, and then creating a holiday coverage to be in effect for those days.
Another way to handle it would be to navigate to the "Group Details" page for each of your groups, and expand the coverages for which you are a member. If you click on a shift in an expanded coverage (the shifts will be light blue), you can modify the details for that shift - and simply remove yourself from the team. This not only enables you to modify only those affected dates, but also lets you see at a glance which dates are affected. It's also easier than creating a one-time coverage from scratch, as each new coverage is automatically populated with the existing details for that date.
I can give you exact instructions if you tell me which version of xMatters you're using, or you can refer to this page of the On-Demand help:
https://help.xmatters.com/ondemand/index.htm#userguide/advancedtasks/modifying_a_shift.htm
I hope this helps!
FWIW: the temporary replacement feature was the only mode for doing this because historically we never wanted to setup a self-service operation that could leave a hollow schedule. However we are completely re-writing our Group scheduling UI, and it would be great to talk with you about how would envision a the behavior working. We will reach out to you via email and see if you can lend your opinion.
Hi Don. Thanks for your advice. I do know how to change an individual coverage and this could be useful for a day or two, but Alex is on long-service leave so that won't do. Somehow, I did manage with one click to make the 'Alex missing' team the existing team for my group. And I did this without using a holiday coverage. It isn't ideal, as it has to be manually reversed when he comes back from leave. But this is the best solution I can see for now. The only problem is that I have no idea how I did it, or how I will reverse it when he comes back. Can anybody tell me how I did this?
Hi Doug. I look forward to hearing from you about the re-write of group scheduling. Cheers.