Set up an availability report

An availability report lays out a weekly grid showing when each of your resources can work. Set working hours for each resource, save working hours as templates you can reuse, and add exceptions for times a resource is unavailable. Connect it to an allocation report so the work assigned there falls inside real working hours.

You can have one availability report per app.

Before you start

You need a table with your resources: the people, vehicles, equipment, or anything else whose working hours you want to track.

Create the report

1. From your app home, open your resources table

2. Select Reports

3. Select Add new report

4. In the Scheduling reports section, select Availability

5. Select Create

Fill in the basics

Name your report and set up the Reports & Charts panel the same way you would for any other report.

Quickbase creates four tables when you save:

• Availability Assignments: a resource's working hours for a date range, set from a template or a custom assignment

• Availability Exceptions: per-resource overrides for non-working time, such as time off

• Global Exceptions: company-wide exceptions, such as holidays, that apply to all resources

• Availability Templates: reusable availability patterns that can be assigned to resources

You can't map these to existing tables. You add and view this data from the report itself, so you don't need to work in the tables directly. Editing their fields or records could break your report.

Note

Deleting the availability report doesn't delete these four tables or the data in them. Since you can only have one availability report per app, keep this in mind if you're deleting one to start over. Your old assignment, exception, and template data will still be there.

Choose your display settings

Under Resource details, choose which fields show on each resource. Select First three fields in default report to use the fields the default report already shows, or Custom fields to pick your own.

Add filters and sorting the same way you would on any other report.

Save your report

Once you've filled in the required fields, select Save.

How availability is calculated

Availability is what this report shows: when each resource can actually work. You don't set availability directly. The report calculates it from the assignments and exceptions you add.

An assignment gives a resource a repeating pattern of working days and hours. Exceptions work against that pattern, marking time a resource can't work during hours it otherwise would.

You add availability by adding assignments and exceptions from the report itself.

Assignments

A resource can have more than one assignment. Once an assignment ends, either by reaching its end date or by using up its occurrences, it moves to past assignments and stops affecting availability.

When more than one assignment is still running, only one of them applies: the one you added most recently. Both stay listed as saved. So if you add a summer schedule while a year-round assignment is still running, the summer one applies because you added it last, even though the year-round one is still there.

To retire an assignment instead of letting a newer one override it, give it an end date or delete it.

To add an assignment, select a resource. Choose Custom assignment to set the hours yourself, or select one of your saved templates. A new app has no templates yet, so at first you'll see only Custom assignment and an option to create your first template.

Add a custom assignment

1. Name the assignment. For example, Monday through Friday, normal hours

2. Choose whether the assignment repeats weekly or follows a custom pattern

3. Set From for the day the assignment starts

4. Choose when the assignment ends: no end date, on a date you pick, or after a number of occurrences

5. Turn the toggle on for each working day, and off for each non-working day

6. Set the hours the resource works on each working day. Add a split shift if the resource works more than one block of hours in a day, and remove it the same way

7. Select Save assignment

Saving a custom assignment creates a record in the Availability Assignments table.

Set up a custom pattern

A custom pattern repeats on a cycle other than a week. Choose it when you create the assignment, then set how many days the pattern runs before it repeats, and the day the pattern begins.

For example, to create a four days on, four days off schedule, set the pattern to eight days, then turn the first four days on and the last four off.

A custom pattern involves two dates that don't have to match. The From date (1) is when the assignment starts for the resource. The other (2) is when the pattern's cycle begins. If the pattern begins earlier than the assignment, the resource enters the pattern partway through, and days before the assignment starts have no availability and appear empty on the report.

Edit an assignment

Editing an assignment changes it for its whole run, not from today forward. If an assignment has been in place for four weeks and you change its hours, the new hours apply to all four weeks, including days that have already passed.

Warning

Editing an assignment can change past availability. To change working hours going forward while leaving earlier availability as it was, give the existing assignment an end date and add a new one that starts after it.

Work with templates

Templates let you save working hours once and apply them to multiple resources.

1. Select Add template

2. Set up the working hours the same way you would for a custom assignment, then select Save

To apply a template to a resource, select the resource, choose Template, and select the one you want. You can also edit any existing template.

Adding a template creates a record in the Availability Templates table. Applying a template to a resource creates a new record in the Availability Assignments table. Editing the template does not impact any assignments that were created based on that template.

Exceptions

An exception marks when a resource isn't available during its normal working hours, such as time off.

1. Select a resource, then select Add exception

2. Choose a date. Leave All day on to block the entire day, or turn it off to set a specific time range

3. Select Save exception

Saving an exception creates a record in the Availability Exceptions table. An exception overrides any assignment for that resource during the time it covers. Hover over an exception on the report to see its details.

Global exceptions

A global exception applies to every resource at once (for example, a company holiday).

1. Select Add global exception

2. Choose a date

3. Select Save

Saving a global exception creates a record in the Global Exceptions table. Like a regular exception, a global exception overrides each resource's regular working hours and any assignment for that day, but it applies to every resource at once.