Working with Schedules

Schedules can be defined once Users and/or Workstations have been added and their associated policies defined.

A schedule defines which policies are active at any given time, and can be tuned down to five-minute periods. CN Pro makes it easy to select widths of up to an hour at a single click, clone a schedule over a week, etc. This section will describe how to use the Schedule Editor.

Note

There is a hierarchy involved in the schedule definitions. Firstly, the schedule assigned to a workstation group always takes precedence. This means, if someone is working on a workstation that is a member of a certain workstation group, then the schedule assigned to that group applies. Only where a time segment has not been coloured (see below) does the system check for a user schedule. If no time schedule is defined for the user group the user is a member of, then the default policy is used. The default policy is set on the Manage Policies page (see Working with Policies).

The Schedule Editor page is accessed by clicking on the Edit Schedule button on either the Workstation Group management page or the User Group management page. Figure 7.1 shows a blank schedule ready to be created for workstation group B3 Group.

Figure 7.1 - The Schedule Editor

Policies can be ‘painted’ onto the Schedule Editor using the Policy Paint Brush. To do this, set the policy for the brush using the option box next to the Policy Paint Brush and also the time width in the box next to this (the options for the time width are 5, 15 and 30 minutes and 1 hour).

Note

The colour codes for the policies are shown along the bottom of the screen in Figure 7.2

Figure 7.2 shows that the Full Monty policy has been inserted into the slot for Mon (am) between 8am and 12noon. This was achieved by clicking four times (1 hour sections each) on the 8am, 9am, 10am and 11am segments.

Figure 7.2 - Full Monty applied between 8am and Noon on Monday

If lunchtimes require a less restrictive policy, this can be added as seen in Figure 7.3. Here, the less restrictive policy Lunch Time has been added between 12noon and 1pm using a single 1 hour click.

Figure 7.3 - Applying the Lunch Time Policy between 12noon and 1pm.

Finally, Figure 7.4 shows the Full Monty policy applied for the rest of the day, 1pm to 5.30pm. This can be achieved using 30 minute time widths rather than the 1 hour.

Figure 7.4 - A Full Day is Scheduled

If the same schedule is required for each day of the week, simply select the radio button to the right of Monday and then click on the Clone Selected button.

A message will check if the clone should be applied to the rest of the week. Click Yes, and the schedule will be applied to all days (see Figure 7.5).

Figure 7.5 - Monday’s Schedule is Cloned throughout the Week

To remove policies from, say the weekend, select None from the paint brush, click the radio button by Saturday or Sunday, and click Fill Selected. Figure 7.6 shows the results of clearing the policies for both Saturday and Sunday.

Figure 7.6 – Schedule Applied to Monday – Friday only