[craigkendall]

We try to maintain an available workforce of 20 OiOs per league we provide service to. Lots of moving parts when scheduling. Currently, each OiO can log into our system and check an available box beside each game to indicate he/she is available or not for each game. Admins have the ability to indicate in each users' profile if he/she is qualified or trained for each role. And when the scheduler/s are actually assigning persons to jobs for games, the system presents only those trained who are available for the game being scheduled. The scheduling page also provides info about who worked the previous game and next game for each job.

I'm in the process of brainstorming an enhancement to our online website/scheduling system and would appreciate the feedback of others. As indicated above our system already uses a a combination of competency and availability to provide pull-down menus for each position for each game that the scheduler can use to assign OiOs to jobs. 

The ultimate goal is having the system intelligently recommend a schedule for each game based on four factors: competency (is the user trained for the position), frequency (is the user scheduled too frequently or not frequently enough for the job), availability (simply, has the user said he/she is available to work at the game), and recency (how long or short has it been since the individual was scheduled for this job).

In the slightly modified screenshot below, I've mocked up visualizations of who was scheduled the last four games for the positions (where the darker the color the more recent) and reversed it for who is scheduled over the next four games. I've also mocked up a list of names who are trained for the position to be scheduled who have said they are available to work that date (and including a serialized listing of how many games this season the user has worked that position, how many games total the user has been scheduled so far in the season for any game, and how many games overall the user has said he/she is available).

The initial goal is to simply provide the visual data to our folks who do scheduling (my self and John Locke who is also on here) to be used when manually setting the schedule. This would hopefully replace the current additional pencil/paper maintained to balance the scheduling).

I would be interested in any feedback from others who schedule multiple OiOs. What thoughts you may have about the four factors. Especially if anyone is using a similar system. And how does this compare (thought process wise) to how others of you do scheduling.

[brookelowe]

We have about 10 people for Mudbugs. It’s hard to get people to volunteer each night.

[kenfrasier]

In years past, we had an email go out for each of the assignments for each night. Sometimes people that were not "assigned" would not show up, because they weren't needed. Then the assigned person wouldn't show up and we would be short handed. 

We now just fill positions as people arrive. It's very frustrating when people arrive 7 minutes before puck drop, but thankful they are there!

Odessa has no statisticians, other than who is in the timekeeper/penalty box for SOG. We are lucky to have 6 OiO's at any given night plus a PA announcer. 

Clock, Hockey Tech(HT), 2 goal judges, and 2 penalty box. One night we did it with 3. One penalty box, one on HT/clock, one clock/PA/penalty box (that was me). We didn't even try to keep SOG or +/-.