The Shifts and Availabilities overview combines seat availability on departures with staff scheduling information and fleet information from the Resource Manager in PaxFlow.
Here you will see a wholistic view of the operation, the upcoming tours and the resources assigned to them such as vehicles and staff. It is also possible to make modifications to shifts directly from the Shift and Availabilities' reports.
The reports in general
The reports offer various options to see different resource related information. You can use any of the preset options or customize the reports using the table settings.
Information the reports can provide:
Departure Availabilities are managed in your booking system on a departure base. PaxFlow is able to visualize the seat numbers and gives convenient access to the availability management for each departure. It's also possible to apply color codes.
Departure Shifts are managed in your shift scheduling system on a position and location base. PaxFlow is able to display shift schedules and make amendments. For departure shifts is a combined view with availabilities and fleet assignment on hand.
Non-departure shifts are shifts for the office, pickup and drop-off assistance or field shifts. These can only be displayed in the table.
Default Shifts and Availabilities Reports
We highly recommend using the default reports which have been made available on the Shifts and Availabilities overview to cover the most common use cases. The default reports use preselected data and are presented in a table style grid format to show different combination of the data. The presentation of the data can be customized using the table settings.
The default predefined reports are:
All locations (shifts)
In order to view any of the reports the user can simply click on the icon for a given report.
Availabilities
This grid is used to display the available seats on different departures during the selected date range. The default view shows +7 days which can be changed by modifying the date range. The grid shows the available number of seats / the total number of seats on the departure.
Color codes can be set up in the general settings to highlight different load factors.
The table settings options for Availabilities:
Position: - / -
Table style: Departures x Days = Availabilities
Result settings: - / -
All locations
This grid shows an overview of all created shifts for all location i.e. tour and/or custom location.
The table settings options for All locations:
Position: - / -
Table style: Days x Locations = People
Result settings: - / -
Departure Shifts
This grid shows the shifts of guides, drivers and driver guides on different departures for the selected date range. When there are multiple people assigned to a departure, the list of all the people is shown along with their shifts for the departure.
Click on any date to view the list of departures and the list of passengers for the selected date. Click on a departure code to view the details of the associated departure.
Default Table Settings for Departure Shifts:
Position: Guide, Driver, Driver guide
Table style: Departures x Days = People
Result settings: - / -
Departure Shifts with Vehicles and Availabilities
This is used to view the vehicles and the staff assigned to different departures during a given time period. It also shows the availability of seats on the departures along with the vehicle and staff information.
Default Table Settings for Departure shifts with Vehicles and Availabilities:
Position: Guide, Driver, Driver guide
Table style: Departures x Days = People
Result settings: Show availabilities, Show assigned tour buses
Field Shifts
This grid shows the shifts of the field employees. It shows information about the field locations only (set in the Shift settings).
Default table settings for Field shifts:
Position: Guide
Table style: Locations x Days = People
Result settings: Show shift timing
Office Shifts
This grid shows the shifts of the office people of the organization across different locations. The locations are as specified in the General Settings, under the Shifts tab. A sample grid with office shifts is as shown below. Use the date range widget to select the dates for viewing the data.
By default, the dates are listed as columns and all locations are listed as rows. Use the swap button to change the view. Click on any date to see the details of the departures and the passengers on the date.
Default table settings for Office shift:
Position: Nothing selected
Locations: Office
Table style: Locations x Days = People
Result settings: Show shift timing
This report can be modified to show office shifts overview for all staff members i.e. by changing the table settings to:
Position: All selected
Table style: Days x People = Times
Result settings: Show shift timing for employees with shifts on selected date range
Pickup and Drop-off Shifts
This is used to display different pickup and drop-off shifts for employees for the selected days. It shows the drivers and driver guides assigned for pickup along with the shift timings. If a person has multiple pickups assigned for a given day, his name will appear multiple times in the list, one for each of the pickup assignment.
Click a date to view the list of departures and the list of passengers on each departure for the day.
Default table settings:
Position: Driver, Driver guide
Table style: Locations x Days = People
Result settings: Show shift timing
Table settings
The Table settings can be used to generate custom reports of "Shifts and availabilities" and/or to modify the presentation of the data in predefined default reports.
The available options in Table settings:
Advanced options (table variables)
View options
Date Range
This field is used to set the date range corresponding to which the data is to be seen.
This widget provides multiple options like Shift default (9 days including the current day), This week, Next 7 days, Year to date etc to set the dates automatically. Additionally, a custom date range can be set here. Set the date range as required and click Apply.
Positions
When using the table to display human resources, different types of staff can be filtered corresponding to whom the data is to be displayed. For example, if Driver and Guide are selected, then only data corresponding to them will be shown in the grid. The positions in the dropdown are as configured in the General Settings under the Shifts section.
Guide: Shift data is displayed when scheduled on a field shift location or a departure shift location
Driver: Shift data is displayed when scheduled on a pickup or drop-off assistance shift location or a departure shift location
Driver guide: Shift data is displayed when scheduled on a pickup or drop-off assistance shift location or a departure shift location
Other: Shift data is displayed when scheduled on an office location
Locations
When displaying shift information it is possible to filter the view for selected locations. Locations are either "Tours" or static Office or Filed locations that you have created in Shift settings. Use the dropdown to Select all, Deselect all or to choose specific locations you would like to view shift information on.
Advanced Options
The advanced options allow you choose the variables to control the data dimensions on the report grid.
The data table grid is always a combination of two table dimentions (column and row) and a data result variable. For logical reasons are some combinations not possible to display. Other combinations might need positions or result settings to be activated otherwise won't display results.
The data variable for table rows and columns:
Departures: Displays the tour-codes of the departures in the selected departure group or the default departure group. Can't be used together with Locations.
Days: Displays the dates for the selected date range. In case this is not selected as multiplier or result then the amount of days with data per People (= only available combination in this case as Departures and Locations can't be used together as multipliers) is displayed in the results.
People: Displays the staff names for the selected positions with shifts scheduled in the selected date range.
Locations: Displays location names for pickup, drop-off, field and office shifts depending on which positions are selected. Can't be used together with Departures.
The data cell variable:
Departures: Does not work in results. Use Times to see departure shifts per Days or People.
Days: Works only with People as one multiplier. Lists the dates within the selected Date range on which a shift exists for the staff on selected positions either for Departures or Locations.
People: Works only with Days as one multiplier. Lists the staff names with a shift on the selected Days for the positions selected by either Departures or Locations. Shift modifying enables when used with Departures.
Locations: Does not work in results. Use Times to see pickup, drop-off, field and office shifts per Days or People.
Times: Lists the amount of scheduled shifts by their timing per People, Departures, Locations or Days. Locations and Departures can´t be used together as multipliers.
Availabilities: Only works with multipliers Departures and Days. This is the so called "Availabilities table". The bolt number displays the occupied number of seats, the number in the middle is the number of seats currently available to book (total availability reduced by the number of occupied seats) and the last number displays the total availability set in the backend booking system.
The result setting for data cell variable:
The options in this drop-down are applied to the results. Some of the options only work for certain variables and need at least one position to be selected.
Show shift timing: Shows the timing of a shift for the displayed locations or departures. Does not work with result variables Times and Availabilities
Show availabilities: Shows the availabilities for each departure. Does only work when Departures is a multiplier and does not work with the result variable Availabilities
Show assigned tour buses: Shows the assigned tour vehicles from the Fleet Manager. Does only work when Departures is a multiplier and does not work with the result variable Availabilities
Show all departures & days: Displays empty columns and rows. Does only work when Departures is a multiplier.
Show machine-readable dates: Displays any displayed dates in the format YYYY-MM-DD.
Don't repeat headers: Headers are normally repeated after 10 rows. The behavior can be disabled with this option.
Other table controls:
Refresh: This is used to refresh the caches from the third party shift scheduling system and the backend booking system for the current selection of locations and date range.
Go: This button is used to apply the above discussed fields in the tool and generate a data grid corresponding to the specified inputs.
Departure Group Filtering
The Departure group selector on the top of the page can be used to filter for certain departures by selecting a departure group. The departure groups are created in the general departure group settings.