Setting My Preferences

Preference Profile settings that appear are configured by your organization. This means the display options and behaviors are based on configuration inputs supplied by your organization. Additionally, as of application version 7.1 Preference Locks can be set when configuring the Preference in the Setup area to prevent employees from editing a specific preference.

This application is designed to always return the person’s highest priority that matches the rule, or job allocation’s criteria for further processing. For example, suppose your preference choice for job X are as follows:

  1. Shift 3 in Unit 4
  2. Any Shift in Unit 4
  3. Any Shift in any Unit

Suppose your organization has set the rules to return the number one preference choice in the first pass. If there are no X jobs on Shift 3 in Unit 4 available, then the application will return zero jobs for you. Moreover, suppose the second rule pass is set to return peoples’ greater than or equal to #1 choice, so in this pass the application finds X job in Unit 4,which in this case returns the highest priority that matches the rules criteria, your #2 choice.

Simply put, the application returns the highest matching preference, your number #1 choice, then it evaluates your number one choice against the rule, or the job allocation criteria. If the rule, or the pass is set to >=2 (greater than or equal to two) and a job matches Preference one, two, and three, then the application returns number one, this being your number one choice which is not greater than or equal to two, and so it will fail the criteria of >=2 which means qualify the second choice or greater.

A single preference number will be returned from all rule or job allocation checks against preferences. The application will always return the highest matching preference number. If a vacancy matches preference number one, two, and three. The number one preference will be returned for further processing, after the number one preference is returned, the result is compared to the WHERE condition (or filter modifier for job allocation). If the Where is set to >=2 (greater than or equal to two), the number 1 will fail. If the where is set >=1 (greater than or equal to one) - then the number 1 will pass. As you can see it is important to understand your company’s preference qualification criteria when setting your preferences so you don’t miss out on job opportunities.

This task will cover how to set a shift preference with editable controls, including how to order a set of preferences. The image below shows a Preference that allows the user to set their shift preferences for a date range. Step results below are hypothetical examples to illustrate how preferences and rules may affect staffing rules, and how they can work together. The task steps below shows how we set the Preferences in the image shown, but remember your settings and Preference Profile behavior exhibited by the application is driven by on your organization’s configuration.

  1. Click the Preference Profile menu box, and click Add New Preference Set.
  2. Click +Add to open the Preference Profile. The screen redraws based on the configuration setting for the selected Preference Profile. The default is 1, meaning your primary choice.
  3. Click 1 to show the Preference Profile items configured. In the image, the user can choose any shift. The user’s primary preference is to work Shift 1, 2, or 3 equally, meaning no preference sort should any of these shift opportunities come their way. Type % symbol in the search box, or type the name of the shift to return selectable shift items. Select each shift, in this case we selected Shift 1, Shift 2, Shift 3. Then supply the date range. Date ranges are not required. Click Save to confirm your selections.

    What does this mean to the user? It depends on how your organization fills vacancies or jobs, because rules could be set to return positions that match the user’s #1 choice, in this case the user has more opportunities because number one means, Shift 1, 2, or 3.

  4. To indicate another shift preference, click +Add > click 1 > choose a shift. The second preference on the image shows the user has only one choice, Shift 1. Select one shift and supply the date range. The date range cannot overlap the previous preference. Click Save again.

    What does this mean to the user? Depending on how your organization fills vacancies or jobs, rules could be set to return positions that match the user’s number #1 choice, this means only Shift 1 positions would apply, or your organization could set a pass that returns #2 and subsequent choices, in this case no positions would return for this user and for this date range.

  5. The third preference on the image shows the user a shift order from 05/06/2017 through 05/12/2017. The person prefers jobs on Shift 1, next jobs on shift 2, followed by jobs on shift 3. To indicate this pattern:
    1. Click +Add > Click 1 > Select a Shift > Provide a date range > Click Save.
    2. Click 2 > Select a Shift > Click Save.
    3. Click 3 > Select a Shift > Click Save. To reorder your selections, use the double- headed arrow.

    What does this mean to the user? Depending on how your organization fills vacancies or jobs, rules could be set to return positions that match the user’s number #1 choice first, followed by the #2 choice and so on, or have a more global pass such as return positions that match the user’s preference using a matching criteria of greater than or equal to one. This means the user could potentially work jobs in Shift 1, Shift 2, or Shift 3.

Parent topic: My Info