Some common questions about the role & use of Period Protections in StaffCover:
Q. In StaffCover, I have a teacher who must never do any Cover - how do I tell the program this ?
A. You can do this by altering all his/her Period Protection codes to 5.
To do this, go to Customize -> Teacher Details, find the teacher, then click on '5' (top-right corner of screen) for every period.
Or you can set his/her "role" (again on the Teacher Details screen) to "Exempt from cover".
Notes:
-- If you want to remove a teacher entirely from StaffCover , you can Suspend them. Again, this is done on the Teacher Details Screen.
-- Setting 'Covers this week = n/a' does not stop the teacher doing cover - in fact, this means there is no limit on his cover.
-- For more information on Period Protection codes, see sections J3, J5, J10 in the Manual, and also the summary below.
Q. What do the various Period Protection (p.p.) codes mean ?
A. Summary of p.p. codes:
0 - very happy to provide cover in this period
1,2,3,4 - will provide cover, but progressively less happy to do so
5 - cannot provide cover in this period (under any circumstances) / teacher is busy
E - will only provide cover if you deem today an "emergency"
C - operating as a "cover supervisor" in this period (see the Manual for details of how this works).
Q. How do I apply Period Protection codes to Special Locations ?
A. Spec Locs can be used for a variety of reasons in TimeTabler – some of which mean that you definitely can’t cover in that period (eg: “unavailable / part-timer”) … and others mean that you could cover (at least in an emergency; eg: a meeting).
To denote this in StaffCover, we say that each Spec Loc has a “period protection (p.p)” … in the same way that free periods do … but whereas a free period starts (by default) with a p.p. of 2 (fairly happy to cover), a Spec Loc starts with a p.p of 5 (can never cover).
But you can change these … so if you know that this Spec Loc is a meeting, you can change its p.p. to E (can cover in an emergency) … or if it is free period you can change its p.p. to 2 (fairly happy to cover), etc.
Any questions, let us know.
By the TimeTabler Team