Roster assignment types
There are two main types of assignment types for a roster - Round Robin and FIFO. Both of these assignment types can be used to assign tasks or shifts to team members, but they work in slightly different ways. You can select the Assignment Type for your Roster under "Assignment settings" in your Roster form.
Round Robin:
The Round Robin assignment type is used to assign tasks or shifts to team members in a rotating manner, where each team member gets an equal number of assignments. For example, let's say you have a team of five members - John, Mary, Alice, Bob, and Chris - and you need to assign two assignee per day. With Round Robin, each team member would be assigned a shift in the following order:
- Day 1: John, Mary
- Day 2: Alice, Bob
- Day 3: Chris, John
- Day 4: Mary, Alice
- Day 5: Bob, Chris
And so on...
As you can see, each team member gets assigned a shift in a rotating manner, so that everyone gets an equal number of assignments. This helps to distribute the workload evenly among the team members.
FIFO:
The FIFO (First-In-First-Out) assignment type is used to assign tasks or shifts to team members with rotating the primary assignee. For example, let's say you have a team of four members - John, Mary, Alice, and Bob - and you need to assign two assignee per day. With FIFO, each team member would be assigned a shift in the following order:
- Day 1: John, Mary
- Day 2: Mary, Alice
- Day 3: Alice, Bob
- Day 4: Bob, John
And so on...
In this example, John and Mary are assigned on Day 1 in the order they are defined. Mary becomes the first assignee on Day 2 since she was the second assignee on Day 1. Alice and Bob are then assigned in the same order they became available. This pattern continues, with the second assignee from each day becoming the first assignee for the next day.
Note that this pattern may result in some team members receiving more assignments than others, depending on their availability.
Both Round Robin and FIFO can be useful for different scenarios, depending on your team's needs. If you want to distribute the workload evenly among your team members, Round Robin is a good option. If you want to assign tasks based on role based such as Primary/Secondary, FIFO is a good option.