Skills and certifications

Skills and certifications are employee attributes used to assign the most qualified person to do a job. If a job requires a skill or certification and no employee is scheduled who has that skill or active certification, a schedule rule is violated.

Step 1: Create skills and certifications

Note:

Your function access profile must allow you to edit skills and certifications ( Administration > Application Setup > Access Profiles > Function Access Profiles. Select a profile and go to Manager - Common Setup > Schedule Configuration).

In Skills & Certifications, set the following:

  • Certifications— Select Allowed in Add, Edit, Delete, and Display.
  • Skills— Select Allowed in Add, Edit, Delete, and Display.
  1. Select Administration > Application Setup > Scheduler Setup > Skills & Certifications.
  2. Select the Skills or Certifications tab. To sort by full or display name, click the column header.
  3. Select All from the Filter drop-down box. You can also use the filter to view only active or inactive skills or certifications.
  4. Click New or select a skill or certification and click Duplicate or Edit.
  5. Enter a name, up to 40 characters long.
  6. (Optional) Enter a Display Name, up to 5 characters long.
  7. Click Save & Close.

You can also activate, inactivate, or delete a skill or certification.

  • Select a skill or certification, click Activate or Inactivate. If you inactivate a skill or certification, it is no longer available to employees. Employees retain existing skills and certifications.
  • Select a skill or certification to remove. Click Delete. Click Yes to confirm.

Step 2: (Optional) Configure proficiency levels

Note:
Your function access profile must allow you to edit proficiency levels:
  1. Select Administration > Application Setup > Access Profiles > Function Access Profiles.
  2. Select the profile. Click Edit.
  3. Select Manager– Common Setup > Schedule Configuration.
  4. In Proficiency Levels > Edit, select Allowed so that the manager can create, duplicate, edit, activate, inactivate, and delete proficiency levels.
  5. Click Save and Close.

You can use proficiency levels to:

  • Rank employees by their level of proficiency in a skill or certification.
  • Define the level of proficiency in a Skill & Certification Profile that is needed to perform a job.

To help an organization to develop skills by location, you can define different proficiency levels for the same job but in different locations.

  1. Select Administration > Application Setup > Scheduler Setup > Proficiency Levels.
  2. Click New or select a proficiency level and click Duplicate or Edit.
  3. Enter a Name and, optionally, a Description.
  4. In Level, enter a value that is a whole number from 0 to 999. Levels do not have to be unique; you can repeat levels for other proficiency levels.Best Practice: For clarity and consistency, create proficiency levels in order from advanced to novice.
  5. Click Save and Close.

You can also activate, inactivate, or delete a proficiency level:

  • Select a proficiency level and click Activate. Click Save.
    Note: The Skills & Certifications page in People Information displays only active proficiency levels. However, it displays the proficiency level of employees whose selected proficiency levels are later inactivated. But if you edit an inactivated proficiency level that is assigned to employees, the page no longer displays the inactivated proficiency level.
  • Select a proficiency level and click Inactivate. If you inactivate a proficiency level, you can no longer assign it to an employee or job. Employees and jobs retain existing proficiency levels.
  • Select a proficiency level to remove and click Delete. Do not delete a proficiency level that is in use.

Step 3: Assign skills and certifications to employees

  1. From the Main Menu, go to Maintenance > People Information.
  2. Select an employee name, go to the Scheduling section, and expand Skills & Certifications.
  3. As needed, add skills information (display name, proficiency level, status, and effective date) and certification information (display name, number, proficiency level, grant date, and expiration date).
  4. Click Save.
  5. Repeat for the next employees.

Step 4: Group skills & certifications into Skill & Certification Profiles

Note:
Your function access profile must allow you to edit skill & certification profiles.
  1. Select Administration > Application Setup > Access Profiles > Function Access Profiles.
  2. Select the profile. Click Edit.
  3. Select Manager— Common Setup > Schedule Configuration.
  4. In Skill & Certification Profiles, select Allowed so that the manager can create, duplicate, edit, activate, inactivate, and delete skill & certification profiles.
  5. Click Save and Close.

A Skill and Certification Profile (SCP) groups skills, certifications, and proficiency levels to assign to jobs or shifts.

  1. Select Administration > Application Setup > Scheduler Setup > Skill & Certification Profiles.
  2. Click New or select a certification profile and click Duplicate or Edit.
  3. Enter a Name and (optionally) a Description.
    Tip: To help managers to understand the skill requirements for shifts, develop an intuitive and clear naming convention for skill & certification profiles.
  4. Select skills. You must select at least one skill or certification.
    Note: Because an employee must satisfy all skills and certifications, you can list the skills and certifications in any order.
  5. Select a Skill.
  6. Select a Proficiency Level.When set to Any, the system effectively ignores the proficiency level.
  7. Click Add Row to add another skill and proficiency level.
  8. Select a Certification.
  9. Select a Proficiency Level. When set to Any, the system effectively ignores the proficiency level.
  10. Click Add Row to add another certification and proficiency level.
  11. Click Save and Close.
  12. To activate, inactive, or delete a skill or certification:
    • Select a profile and click Activate or Inactivate. If you inactivate a skill or certification profile, you can no longer assign it to a job. Jobs retain existing proficiency levels.
    • Select a profile to remove and click Delete. You cannot delete a profile that is in use; unassign it first.
  13. Define how to compare the proficiency levels of employees to the required proficiency levels in the skill & certification profiles of shift segments.By default, skill or certification proficiency levels are ignored.
    1. Select Administration > Application Setup > System Configuration > System Settings > Scheduling tab.
    2. Set the site.scheduling.schedulePlanner.skillcertificationcoverage.proficiencylevelmatchingmode.Reference system setting to Exact Match, Select Higher, or Select Lower.
    3. Click Save.

View Skill and Certification Details in the Schedule or Call List

You can view details of an employee’s assigned skills and certifications by adding the "Skills Details" and "Certifications Details" columns (available with the Schedule Group Totals entity) to a dataview. Adding these columns to a dataview can be useful in the Schedule Planner or Call List. For example, when managers are manually filling open shifts they can quickly find employees that have the necessary skills and certifications for those jobs.

The details for skills include Display Name (Proficiency Level, Effective Date). The details for certifications include Display Name (Proficiency Level, Expiration Date). If an employee has multiple skills and certifications, they are all listed together. For example, an employee that has Management and QA skills, and has Project Management and Finance Management certifications, appears as follows:

  • Skills Details: Mgmt (High, 01/01/2021); QA (Medium, 01/10/2022)
  • Certifications Details: Fin (Medium, 12/31/2022); Proj (High, 12/31/2023)

If a skill or certification does not have a Display Name, then the Skill or Certification name is used instead. Skills and certifications details are listed in alphanumeric order.

To view skills and certifications details in the schedule or call list:

  1. Configure the dataview:
    1. Go to Administration > Application Setup > Display Preferences > Information Access > Dataview Management.
    2. Select Add > Employee View or edit an existing dataview.
    3. Enter the necessary dataview information (select Scheduling for Category).
    4. Add the Skills Details and Certifications Details columns (available in the Schedule Group Totals entity).
  2. Add the dataview to the manager’s dataview profile. For more information, see Manage Dataview profiles.
  3. Add the dataview to a schedule:
    1. Go to Administration > Application Setup > Scheduler Setup > Schedule Planner.
    2. Create a new schedule, or edit an existing schedule, and then go to Secondary Schedule Configuration > Schedule planner dataview and select the dataview from the list.
    3. Select the Skills Details and Certifications Details columns.
    4. Save the schedule.
  4. Add the dataview to a call list:
    1. Go to Administration > Application Setup > Scheduler Setup > Procedure Sets.
    2. Click New, enter a Name, and then from the Context list, select Call List Tab.
    3. For Column set, select the dataview.
    4. Save the procedure set.