To access the Daily Schedules - Assign Multiple mode, click the Schedules link on the Home page. The Daily Schedules page will be displayed by default. Click the Assign Multiple action mode radio button.

The Daily Schedules - Assign Multiple action mode allows you to create or modify schedules for one or more employees on one or more days. The schedule grid displays scheduling information for all of  your filtered employees, allowing you to view the effects of your edits on your staffing levels.

When you create or modify schedules using this mode, you actually create daily schedule records (or schedule deviations). If these daily schedules overlap with schedule time pairs that are based on recurring schedule assignments, the recurring schedules will be superseded. You can remove schedule deviations (and thus restore any underlying recurring schedules) using the Daily Schedules - Delete or Restore Multiple mode. For more information about recurring schedules and schedule deviations, see Understanding Recurring Schedules.

The Daily Schedules - Assign Multiple mode includes three update modes, each of which allows you to perform a different type of action on multiple schedule grid cells. Use the drop-down box near the top of the Daily Schedules page to select your desired update mode. The modes and the tasks you can perform in each mode are:

• Replace all schedules on the selected dates with this schedule — This is the default update mode, which allows you to replace all existing schedules (both daily and recurring) on the selected days, for the selected employees, with a new schedule that you define in the property sheet.

• Add this schedule to the selected dates if it does not conflict — This update mode allows you to add the schedule you define in the property sheet to the selected cells, but only if the new schedule does not overlap with any existing schedules.

• Modify schedules on selected dates that match Selected Schedules times — This update mode allows you to update all of the schedule time pairs for the selected employees and dates that match a specific in and out time.

For step-by-step instructions on performing any one of these tasks, click the task in the above list. The sections below explain some of the features of the Daily Schedules - Assign Multiple mode that are common to all of these tasks.

Note: You can view the complete schedules (daily and recurring) for all of your filtered employees from any of the Daily Schedules action modes.

Selecting Cells in the Schedule Grid

When you are in the Assign Multiple mode, you can select and act upon multiple date cells for multiple employees at one time. Selected cells are highlighted in a dark blue color. By default, clicking individual cells one after the other highlights and selects each cell. You can click cells in any random order and they will be added to your total, cumulative selection. To deselect a cell, simply click it again.

You can use the button in the top left corner of the schedule grid if you want to quickly select a "boxed" group of contiguous cells. To do this, click the button and then click one corner of the area containing the cells you want to select. Then click the diagonally opposite corner of the area. The cells in the entire area will be selected. (You can achieve the same effect by holding down the ALT key and clicking one corner and then the other.) You can also use this method to select multiple cells on the same row or in the same column. To return to the non-contiguous, single-cell selection mode, click the button (or release the ALT key).

Tip: You can tell which selection button is active by the color of the buttons. The active selection mode button has red coloring and the inactive selection mode button has blue coloring.

To clear all selected cells, click the button (or press the ALT key and click a selected cell).

Note: In some circumstances you will also need to use the Selected Schedules box at the top of the page to select a specific schedule time pair, in addition to selecting date cells. See Modifying Selected Properties of Multiple Schedules.

Using the Property Sheet

In Assign Multiple mode on the Daily Schedules page, the editing area (or property sheet) at the top of the schedule grid is not automatically populated with schedule properties when you select cells, as it is in the Edit Single mode. This is because you can select multiple schedules, and not all of the schedules you select will have the same properties. In Assign Multiple mode, you must manually enter the schedule properties you want to define (for new schedules) or edit (for existing schedules).

The property sheet contains the following fields:

• Time In

• Time Out

• Hours

• Earnings Code

• Lunch Plan

• Department (or other labor charge field name, depending on you company's configuration)

• Job (or other labor charge field name, depending on you company's configuration)

• Shift Rule (if your company is using this optional feature)

• Flextime Rule (if your company is using this optional feature)

Note: When opened from the Daily Schedules - Assign Multiple mode, the Earnings Code Lookup window will display all of the earnings codes used by your company, since the employees may belong to different pay groups and thus use different earnings codes. When you submit your changes, the application will always validate all earnings codes according to each employee’s pay group. If you have selected an employee whose pay group does not use the earnings code you have chosen, an error message will be displayed after you click the Submit button.

Use the following buttons and features to save and reuse schedule properties, apply your changes, save your changes, or cancel your changes.