Shift Billboard workflows
Each valid request to post a shift, claim a shift, or withdraw a shift posting follows a workflow to determine the outcome. Requests must follow the required workflow whether it was initiated by an employee or by a manager. Workflows include the process steps that a transaction must complete. A process step may perform validations, seek approvals from users, or other functions.
Process steps also control notifications that are sent to users during the workflow. Notifications can be sent to inform users about the status or outcome of a request. Notifications are also used to obtain approval decisions from users.
The Shift Billboard uses separate workflows for shift posting, shift claiming, and withdrawing shift posts. Default workflows are included to provide out-of-the-box functionality for Shift Billboard.
Workflows can be customized for customers that require custom behavior for Shift Billboard requests, such as additional approval or validation steps.
Posting workflow
The posting workflow determines the process steps that must be completed before a shift is made available on the billboard. These outcomes are possible when a request completes the posting workflow:
- ACCEPTED: The shift post is successful. The shift is made available for employees to claim on the billboard, based on billboard group configuration. Shifts posted by employees remain in the posting employee's schedule until they are successfully claimed.
- REJECTED: The shift post is unsuccessful. Shifts posted by employees remain in the posting employee's schedule. Shifts posted by managers remain unassigned.
Claiming workflow
- ACCEPTED: The shift claim is successful. Unassigned shifts posted by managers are assigned to the claiming employee. Employee posted shifts are assigned to the claiming employee and removed from the posting employee's schedule. Other pending claim requests on the shift are rejected.
- REJECTED: The shift claim is unsuccessful. The shift remains available on the billboard.
Shifts that have pending claim requests are still available on the Shift Billboard for other employees to claim.
Withdrawal workflow
The withdrawal workflow is initiated whenever a shift post is removed from the billboard. Shifts may be removed from the billboard by the posting employee, by a manager, or by the job scheduler tasks. In the default withdrawal workflow and in most implementations, all transactions that withdraw a shift from the billboard are accepted. The withdrawal workflow does not reject any withdrawal actions unless added as part of a custom workflow node. The withdrawal workflow is generally used to control user notifications and records created, such as Shift History, when a shift post is removed from the billboard.