Logging Actual Hours and Comparing Plan Versus Actual
How to record the hours a crew member or unit really worked, how BackOps reprices them with your rules, and how to read the variance against the planned schedule.
Every slot on an event has two schedules. The planned schedule comes from the need: the call times you built in procurement. The actual schedule is what really happened: the rigger who arrived 45 minutes late, the A1 who stayed two hours past the call, the driver who never came. Recording the actual schedule is how a slot's real cost replaces its estimate.
Open a Slot's Actual Schedule
Each slot (one reservation: the person or unit filling it) has its own detail panel. Open it from either place:
- On an order's Fulfillment tab, expand the row and select the calendar button on the slot.
- On the event's Coverage roster, open the slot from the person's row.
The panel shows the slot's name and status, a readout of Planned, Actual and Fulfilled, a timeline, and the Actual schedule list.
Where the Actual Schedule Comes From
A slot has no actual schedule until something says it happened. When the slot is checked in, BackOps copies the need's planned blocks onto it as its actual schedule, so on an ordinary day you only edit what changed. Until then the list reads No actual schedule recorded, which is also the normal shape of a no-show.
You can also add blocks by hand at any time, for example to record a shift after the fact.
Record What Really Happened
Add or edit a block
In Actual schedule, select Add block, or the edit button on an existing block. Fill in Block (its name), Type, Start and End, and optionally the Activity and Area it belongs to.
Save
Remove a block that did not happen
When an actual block has the same name as a planned block but different times, the list shows the planned times beneath it, so a late start reads at a glance. To start over, Reset to plan replaces every actual block with the blocks from the plan.
Slots that come from a vendor order's own units are managed through the order, and their actual schedule cannot be edited here.
How Actual Hours Are Priced
The same rule sets that priced the plan run again on the actual blocks. Overtime and the other states your rule sets define come out of the rules, not out of a dropdown: if the real day went past the threshold, the hours past it are overtime. The States row of the timeline shows which state each stretch of the day landed in, and the slot's rate card prices each state.
Which schedule prices a slot depends on how far it has got:
- Not yet arrived (Tentative, Awaiting confirmation or Confirmed, with no actual blocks): the cost is projected from the need's plan at the rate of whoever fills the slot. It is a forecast.
- Checked in or Completed: the cost comes from the actual schedule.
- No-show or Released: the cost comes from the actual schedule alone. With no blocks, the slot costs nothing; it is never billed a full day for someone who did not come.
Read the Variance
The readout at the top of the panel compares the two schedules:
- Planned is the planned hours. It appears only when the slot fills a need; an item nobody ordered has no plan to compare against.
- Actual is the hours in the actual schedule, with the difference from plan beside it. A negative difference means fewer hours than planned.
- Fulfilled is what the slot costs on its current basis.
The timeline draws Planned, Actual and States as rows on the same time axis, which makes a shifted call or an extended out obvious without reading the numbers.
When a replacement covered a no-show, both people keep their own actual schedule. Open the earlier person from the "replaced" link under the slot to see or correct what they were charged for.