In order to be able to cover all these aspects in the selection process, Softsite has developed a special visualization tool: a planning board that is controlled via a "control panel". The control panel with different tabs is used to select the data to be displayed in the Gantt chart. Andreas Siemoneit:
"In this way, we have created an intuitive and user-friendly visualization tool that covers the entire process from inquiry to planning, deployment and follow-up control".
The planning board, consisting of table, diagram, and time scale, was developed with the Visual Scheduling Widget - Standard Edition. Andreas Siemoneit explains:
"From the VSW we only use the resource display. The context menu, which has up to three levels, is of paramount importance to us. It is designed to enable jumps and shorten typical work steps."
In this view, all relevant data of the employees such as desired services, planning, assignments, time recording, absences are available and are displayed in individual rows in the diagram.
For each employee, the individual rows are alternately highlighted in white and gray to create a distinction to the following person.
The data can be hidden or switched on via the control panel, depending on the focus the planner needs for his work. If, for example, he wants to see all the shifts of a particular employee in a calendar month, he selects exactly these criteria via the control panel. The planner can enter or change data via the context menu. He can assign shifts, make time recording entries, etc. The three-level structure of the context menu allows the necessary depth that the data selection provides.
In this view, the planner selects a customer inquiry, which is then highlighted in green. In the control panel, the "Request Search" function can be used to search for employees who meet the conditions of the requested services. The small red bars in the diagram indicate that the desired date of the suitable employee corresponds to the request.
Employees can then be assigned to these services. In doing so, schedules are generated (row "Pla"), which are also displayed as an assignment to the request (row "Zuw"). As soon as the requested services (row "Anfr") are completely occupied, they turn white and receive an "OK". In this example, Gerhild Gundermann would like to take over an early shift that the retirement home requests and for which she is qualified.
The company Softsite has been cooperating with NETRONIC for many years. For its predecessor solution, which was based on Microsoft Dynamics AX, it used the ActiveX component VARCHART XGantt for visualization.
"The HTML widget came on the market just at the right time for us because we were in the process of redesigning our application with a web interface. Since Softsite appreciates the cooperation with NETRONIC and the quality of their products very much, the decision to use the widget in our new product was made quickly", summarizes Andreas Siemoneit.
