Manage the Crew Shell Calendar

The Crew Shell Calendar is your main tool for scheduling and managing your crews' work shifts. It gives you a clear overview of your crews' schedules in a grid format, and it allows you to easily assign shifts, manage team compositions, and adjust schedules with simple drag-and-drop actions.

Access the Crew Shell Calendar

To begin, navigate to the Crew Shell Calendar interface (Main Menu > Features > Core > Resource Management > Crew Shell Calendar). The interface consists of a main table displaying Crew Shells and their work shifts, and a filters panel on the right side of the page.

Filter Crews in the Calendar

To find the crews you want, use the filters:

• Operation Center (Required): You must select a specific operation center to view its crews.

• Crew Shells: Select specific crews to view only their calendars.

• Resources: View crews that include a selected technician.

• Activity Status: Filter to see only active, inactive, or all crews.

After you set your filters, click Search to update the calendar.

Understand the Crew Shell Calendar View

After applying filters, the Crew Shell service calendar is displayed in a grid view in the central panel.

The calendar grid gives you a visual representation of your crews' schedules.

• Rows: Each row represents a specific crew shell.

• Columns: Each column represents a calendar day.

• Time Period: You can change the view to show different time periods using the drop-down menu. Time periods include:

  • A week

  • Two weeks

  • Four weeks

  • Eight weeks

  • A month

  • Two months

• Empty Cells: An empty cell means the crew has no work shift assigned for that day. A crew must have a work shift to be available in the scheduling console.

Crew Shell Work Shifts

Each crew's work shift is shown as a colored card with its code and duration. A crew can only have one work shift per day. Additional details include

• Configuration: Work shifts and their corresponding colors can be configured using the shift registry function.

• Shift Limitations: Only one work shift can be defined per Crew Shell for a specific day. Cross-midnight shifts are supported, meaning a shift's end time can extend into the next day.

• Daily Plan Availability: A Crew Shell is only available in the daily plan if it's active and has a defined work shift for that day.

Crew Shell Composition

A yellow card in a cell indicates that a crew's team members have been defined for that day. You will see a number in brackets that tells you how many technicians are in the crew. Additional details include:

• Basic View: This yellow card initially displays a small icon and a number in brackets, which indicates the current number of technicians in the crew.

• Empty Composition: If the yellow card is absent, it means the crew composition hasn’t been defined for that day.

• Scheduling Empty Crew Shells: It is important to note that NextGen FSM allows empty Crew Shells (without a defined crew) to be scheduled with activities. Technician assignments can be made after the scheduling phase.

• Expanded View: Click the yellow card to show a more detailed view of the individual Crew Shell members for that day. An icon next to a technician’s name indicates that they the team leader. Each Crew Shell can have only one team leader.

Draft and Confirmed Composition

Crew compositions are in either Draft or Confirmed status.

• Draft Status: Crew members are in a provisional state and require confirmation to become operational.

• Confirmed Status: Crew members are considered published and fully operative for scheduling. For more information on managing Crew Shell composition, see Manage Crew Shell Members.

• Visual Indicators: The calendar uses both the icon and the color of the composition card to indicate its status.

Icon	Color	Status	Description
	Yellow	Crew members are confirmed, no further changes	The Crew Shell is confirmed, meaning there are no subsequent changes, and it applies to orders already scheduled on the Crew Shell.
	Orange	Crew members changed after last confirmation	The composition of the Crew Shell was modified and is different from that applied to the orders scheduled on the Crew Shell.

Manage Work Shifts with Drag and Drop Operations

NextGen FSM supports drag-and-drop functionality for managing Crew Shell calendars. You can:

• Move a work shift: Drag and drop a work shift card from one calendar cell to another to reposition it.

• Duplicate a work shift: Perform the drag-and-drop operation while holding the Shift/Option key to copy a work shift to another day.

• Move a crew members allocation: Drag and drop a crew member allocation card from one calendar cell to another to reposition it.

• Duplicate a crew members allocation: Perform the drag-and-drop operation while holding the Shift/Option key to copy a crew member allocation to another day.

• Move both (work shift + crew member allocation): Drag and drop both cards from one calendar cell to another.

• Duplicate both (work shift + crew member allocation): Perform the drag-and-drop operation while holding the Shift/Option key to copy both cards to another day.

Perform Single-Cell Operations

You can interact with a work shift card within a calendar cell. If you have Edit Crew Shell permission, the following options are available:

• Modify Work Shift: Change specific details of a Crew Shell's work shift. This includes:

  • Changing the work shift itself.

  • Adjusting the shift's start or end time.

  • Changing the Crew Shell's movement type.

  • Adding or removing lunch break times.

  • Adding useful notes about the work shift.

• Manage Technicians: View and change the Crew Shell's composition for the day. For more information, read the Manage Crew Shell Members page.

• Remove Work Shift: Remove the work shift for a Crew Shell on a specific day, making the Crew Shell unavailable for task assignments on the daily plan.

Utilize First Column Operations

The first column of the Crew Shell Calendar table always shows the name of the Crew Shell for each row. Right-click on this column to activate a contextual menu with the View/Edit Crew Shell option. This option lets you see and change the overall definition of the Crew Shell. More detailed information is available on the Crew Shells page.

Explore Table Actions

On the right side of the calendar table, you can access additional actions:

• Re-arrange columns: Access all available columns and change their display order using "show/hide" and "how to" options. This is useful for removing non-working days from the calendar.

• Re-order columns: Change the sorting order of the displayed Crew Shells, either ascending or descending.

• Add Shift: Open a list of active shifts defined in the system. You can then drag and drop a shift from this list onto a Crew Shell or day of interest in the calendar. If a shift already exists, it’s replaced. An information warning appears if replacement isn't possible.

• Reload: Update the Crew Shells list in the table and retrieve information based on the currently set filters.

• Expand Crews: Force the display of all Crew Shell composition cards in the calendar. This is useful for comparing technician allocations on different days. The default view is collapsed.

• Automatic Confirmation of Composition: Toggle automatic confirmation of technician composition cards after a drag-and-drop operation. This allows for immediate operational use of the Crew Shell without a separate validation step. By default, this option is governed by the Automatic Confirmation of Composition configuration parameter.