Simple Mode:

Job Sharing occurs when more than one employee join together to operate as a single FTE in a crew.  For example, two employees as a single FTE might each be 3 weeks on and then 3 weeks off, alternating.  In a 12 week pattern, the first employee would be allocated to shifts from the roster for weeks 1-3 and 7-9.  The second would have the shifts from the pattern for weeks 4-6 and 10-12.


The "Job Share" feature enables easy configuration of this Worker allocation.


Details you will need include:

  • the Workers combining on the Job Share
  • The pattern that these Workers use in the Job Share, in days.  E.g.
    • an even split of three weeks on and three weeks off would be: 21, 21
    • if one worker does 2/3 of the time and the second only 1/3 then it could be: 28, 14
  • the date on which the Job Share arrangement starts and ends
  • the number of days into the pattern to start the sharing


All the included workers share their patterns.  ROSTERkey has three pattern definitions, shifts (by Crew), roles (by Role Pattern Group), and locations (by Location Pattern Group).  Crew allocation is mandatory for Workers to be assigned shifts.  However, role patterns and location patterns are optional.  All Workers on the same Job Share need to be in the same Crew, and if used, Role Pattern Group and Location Pattern Group.  This ensure that they are actually sharing the same job.


Without the Job Share feature, special roster definitions need to be created for each different sharing arrangement.  This is no longer required.  Simply identify the crew in a normal roster definition that the employees align with and assign them to that crew.


The employees will be assigned shifts in the order they are listed in the "Workers" table, from top to bottom.  When ROSTERkey generates shift allocations, it simply asks "who is 'on the job' today" and assigns them to the shift.  From the screen-shot below, Carli will be assigned to the shifts for the first 2 weeks while Johnie will have those 2 weeks off.  Then Johnie will receive the shifts from the second 2 weeks.  Then back to Carli.


Offset Days:

The "Offset Days" value allows easy configuration of the "Cycle Days" values.  Regardless of when the job sharing arrangement actually starts, configure the "Cycle Days" as a simple pattern, i.e. number of days for each employee.  The above example assumes that Carli will be starting her 14 days at the same time the Job Share arrangement starts, i.e. 1-Jan, Offset Days = 0.


However, if on 1-Jan, Carli will start by doing 7 days, then Johnie 14, and then Carli 14, etc., rather than setting up a more complex Cycle Days pattern, just set the "Offset Days" to 7.


Advanced Mode:

When using the Crews data table, the rules from the Simple mode about the Workers having to be in the same Crew etc., are ignored.  If fact, the Crews that the Workers are assigned to by default will be completely overridden by the Crews in the data table.  Also, default Role patterns and Location patterns can be overridden by adding rows to those tables.



An example of 3 Workers sharing 2 jobs is shown above.  Without using the overlap feature, Carli will get the Shifts from Crew B for 14 days, then Johnie will get the Shifts from Crew D for 14 days, followed by Young with Shifts from Crew B for 14 days, then Carlie again but with 14 days of Shifts from Crew D.  The assignments will continue rotating through the Workers and crews on a 42 days cycle (3 Workers x 14 days each).


When Overlap is set, it causes the leading shifts of the next Worker to be on the same dates as the trailing dates of the current Worker.  For example, the below still produces a 42 day cycle (3 x (15-1)).  On day 15 (starting the count at day 1) Johnie will have his first Shift of the swing defined by Crew D.  This will also be the last day of Carli's first swing with her Shift being taken from Crew B.  Day 29 will be the last Shift for Johnie and taken from Crew D as well as the first Shift of Young's swing from Crew B.