ASSISTBid Vacation 2017

BE INFORMED. BE PREPARED. BE READY

Basic Concepts

• Bidding in ASSIST is governed by your bargaining unit rules, your starting leave balance, your accrual rate, and your requested time off.

• Much like previous vacation bidding process:– You will be scheduled for a “bid appointment” by seniority. Missing your

appointment will move you to the end of the list.– You must complete your bid requests during the allotted time. There are no

extensions because someone else is waiting in line behind you.

• New to this vacation bidding process:– Your appointment will be in the ASSIST system, rather than with a live person.– You do not have to be at the facility to attend your scheduled bid

appointment.– The Bid calendar is updated in real time so that you can monitor the

availability of your desired slots.

2

Basic Tips

• Live assistance will be available during your bid appointment.– Make sure you know how to get help prior to your bid appointment. Not

knowing who to call while the clock is ticking could cause you to miss your bid. – DO NOT wait until the last few minutes of your appointment to request help.

Once your time is up, your time is up.

• Check your Vacation Calendar prior to your appointment time to monitor the availability of your desired bid period(s).– As always, be prepared with alternate vacation dates, slots can go quickly.

• Be prepared by knowing your bargaining unit rules.

3

Projected Leave Balance Explained

• Your starting balance is obtained from State Payroll (maintained by the State Controllers Office [SCO] and reflects your annual leave or vacation balances as of the date of your bid appointment.

• ASSIST then adds the amount of leave time you are projected to earn per month up to the month of your requested time off. This is your Projected Leave Balance for that month. (it is different each month because you earn additional leave time each month).

• You cannot exceed your Projected Leave Balance.

• You cannot exceed the number of bids or the number of hours stipulated by your bargaining unit.

• ASSIST will automatically block out days between your bids based on your bargaining unit rules governing number of days between bids.

4

Good to Know:ASSIST reduces your leave balance by the amount of any currently approved leave you have scheduled through the end of the current year.

Bidding in ASSIST is governed by your starting leave balance, your accrual rate, and your bargaining unit rules.

Your starting leave balance is obtained from State payroll records and is used to project how much leave you will have for the entire vacation year and also the amount available for each month.

Any approved leave prior to the start of the Vacation Year will deduct from your projected leave balance as you place bids.

The number of bid hours can not exceed the projected leave amount for the month selected.

The total of number of bid hours cannot exceed the projected leave for the year.

Your remaining leave is carried forward to the Ad Hoc Process.

OctSep Nov Dec

Submit

Vacation Bids

Jan Feb Mar Oct Nov Dec

Starting Leave

Balance

1

0

Balance

1

2

3

4

4

5

Projected Leave Amount Available for

Bid Placed in this Month

3

5

ASSIST Accrual Concepts

2

Bid

Bid

Approved Leave

5

ASSIST Accrual Concepts – Simple Example

Balance at the Beginning of Bid Vacation

Vacation balance reported by SCO as of the end of Aug 2016: 100 hours

Vacation scheduled in ASSIST from Sept through Dec 2016: -40 hours

Accrued vacation from Sept through Dec 2016: 28 hours

Projected vacation balance at start of the 2017 Bid Vacation: 88 hours

Projected Available Balance for Bid Vacation

Projected balance for Jan 2017: 88 hours

Feb 2017: 95 hours

Mar 2017: 102 hours

Dec 2017: 165 hours

ASSIST assumes you will take your planned

vacation

Leave Type: Vacation

Accrual Rate: 7 hours per month

Bid Appointment: October 17, 2016

The sum of all bids placed through March

can not exceed this amount. You can not “borrow” time from a

future month

6

Leave balances received from SCO are a month

behind. Bidding performed in Oct will

start with Aug balances

Bid Vacation Requires Five Simple Steps

1. Come prepared with your desired bid periods and backup bid periods should your primary choices not be available.

2. Understand the constraints of your bargaining unit rules.

3. Select the first day of your request from the vacation calendar.

4. Enter the last day of your request.

5. Submit the request.

7

Good to Know:Use the header at the

top of the vacation calendar to guide you.

Getting to Your Vacation Calendar

• From your log in screen you can access your Vacation Calendar in two ways:– From the Requests

drop down click the Vacation Calendar menu item.

– From your Reminders box, click the Vacation Calendar alert. TIP:

Your alert box also tells you the date and time of your bid appointment

8

Accessing Your Vacation Calendar

• A pop up will appear showing the Vacation Calendars.– There is only one

for now since this is the first year.

– Give it a click and let’s get started!

Good to Know:This tells you the

entire duration of the bidding process for

your unit, program, or facility, NOT your bid

appointment.

9

Vacation Calendar at a Glance

• We will go over each of these sections in detail:

Count Down Timer

Calendar

Basic Navigation

Header

Month Selector

10

Basic Navigation

• Selecting the Legend will provide helpful information on how to read the calendar.

• To return to your regular ASSIST daily calendar, select Close.

11

Month Selector

• Switch between months on the Vacation Calendar by clicking the displayed month and selecting from the drop down.

TIP: Changing months will

“refresh” your calendar ensuring you have up-to-

date information.

12

The Count Down Timer

• This timer has two very important functions:– First, it tells you how

long you have until your appointment begins.

– Once your appointment has started, it will tell you how long you have left.

• After your appointment is over, you will no longer see a count down timer on your screen.

13

Calendar Header

• The header shows your Vacation Calendar name and your appointment times.

• During and after your appointment it will also display:– Your Projected Leave hours

as of the month selected in the calendar (Annual Leave and Vacation)

– The number of bids you have left

– The number of hours you have left

TIP: If you call for

assistance, you will be asked

for the name of your Vacation

Calendar

Good to know:Both Annual Leave and Vacation are

shown, regardless of your official leave

type. 14

Use the Calendar Header to Guide Your Bids

Good to know: This starts out as the number of

bid hours available for the vacation calendar, based on your

bargaining unit rules. As you place bids, this number is

reduced showing you how many hours you have remaining for the

year.

15

Good to know: Your Projected Leave hours

update with each month selected, based on your leave

accrual rate.

Good to know: The number of bids you have

remaining based on your bargaining unit rules.

The Calendar Before your Appointment

• Looking at the Vacation Calendar prior to your appointment can be very useful. – It shows your anticipated schedule based on your

current cycle.– You can see how many slots are allotted and how

many have been taken on days you hope to request.

TIP: For up-to-the-second information, refresh

the screen by toggling between

months.

Only one slot

remaining!

Good to know: This three number set tells

you how many slots are:Pending / Taken / Allotted

16

On your Mark, Get Set, GO!

• If you are logged in to your Vacation Calendar when the timer expires, you will get a pop-up message from the system telling you that your appointment time has started. Click OK to refresh your calendar and start bidding.

• If you log in after you appointment has started, you will not get a pop-up, your calendar will simply open in bidding mode.

TIP: Sometimes this

message will pop-up more than once due to

system settings, just hit OK until it

goes away.

17

The Calendar During your Appointment

• The first new thing you will notice about your Vacation Calendar during your appointment, are the Add icons. Clicking this icon to start your bid request.

• Dates without an Add icon, are not available.

• As you could with the pre-appointment calendar, you can see how many slots are allotted and how many have been taken.– As a reminder, the key is:

Pending / Taken / Allotted

18

Key Notes When Bidding

• When clicking the Add icon on the calendar, select the first day of the bid period you wish to request.

• Your requested time period may cross RDOs, the system will not count these against your projected leave balance.

• Your requested bid may NOT cross days with no available slots (unless that day is your RDO).

• Your bid is controlled by your bargaining unit rules:– You may not request more bids than allowed by your bargaining unit.

A bid is a single contiguous time period.– You may not request more bid hours than allowed by your bargaining

unit. Bid hours are the amount of leave your request would consume.– You may not request a bid if you do not have enough projected leave

to cover the bid.

19

Making your First Bid

• Find the first day of the time period you would like off.

• Ensure that each day, through the end of your desired time period, has an available slot.

• Click on the Add icon on the first day of the time period and the request window will pop-up.

TIP: This day has no available slots,

but because it is your RDO, you do not need a slot.

20

Adding the Request

• The Start Date is pre-populated based on the Add Icon date selected.

• Select your end date by clicking on the calendar and selecting the final day you want off before returning to work. In this example, Jan 8th is selected.

• Select your leave type (Annual Leave or Vacation).

• Click Next

21

01/08/2017

Reviewing the Request

• This screen allows you to review the leave balance usage proposed by your request.

• Today indicates what your leave balance is as of Today.

• Projected provides your Projected Leave Balance as of the first day of your request.

• Projected Pending takes into account any currently unapproved leave requests you may have.

• Each day of your request will show the number of leave hours you will have to use. (RDO days will use 0 hours)

• The total hours of the request and your scheduled shift are also shown.

• Once you are satisfied with the request, click Submit.

• Click Previous to go back and change your bid. 22

Confirming the Request

• After clicking submit, you will be asked to confirm. Click OK.

• If everything is okay with your request, you will get a success message.

• Click Close and your Calendar will be automatically refreshed and display your time off as shown on the following slide.

• If you did not get a success message, jump to slide 22.

23

Your Updated Calendar

• After a successful bid, your calendar will show your request in green. If you have sufficient leave time for the bid and the bid conforms to bargaining unit rules, your bid is automatically approved.

• You are now ready to make another bid if you have any bids remaining.

Good to know:At a glance you can see the type of leave you are using. VA for Vacation and AL for

Annual Leave

Good to know:The (A) simply means

Approved

TIP: Clicking on the link will allow you to delete a bid. (see page 23 for

more details)

24

Why didn’t my Request Go Through?

• There are three reasons your request may not go through when you submit it:– Insufficient Leave Time in your

Projected Leave Balance– Insufficient Vacation Slots remaining

for at least one of the days in the time period you requested

– Noncompliance with bargaining unit rules

• All will provide you with an error indicating that it was unable to process your request.

• Go back and examine your request and ensure that it does not exceed your Projected Leave Balance, all non-RDO days have at least 1 available slot, and its compliant with bargaining unit rules.

25

TipUse the grid at the top of your

calendar to track how many hours and remaining bids are

available.

What if I made a mistake in My Request?

• You can change any bid during your appointment by deleting it and reentering a new bid.– You MUST still be within your bid window to delete a request. After

your bid appointment is over, you cannot delete the request.

• After deleting the request, your bid count and bid hours are restored.

26

Deleting a Bid Request

• To Delete a request, click on the hyperlink shown in any of the days within the time period of the request.

• This will open a View Request pop-up.

• Click on the Delete button. Good to know: You can only

delete requests during your bid appointment.

27

Confirming the Deletion

• After clicking Delete, you will be asked to confirm. Click OK.

• You will get a success message.

• Click Close and your Calendar will be automatically refreshed and the request will no longer appear on your calendar.

28

The Calendar After your Appointment

• After your bid appointment, you will no longer see any Add Icons or hyperlinks.

• Once your appointment is complete, bids can no longer be added or deleted.

29

How do I Get Help?

• If you require additional assistance during your bid appointment, please contact:

Facility Contact Info Here123-456-7890

• Remember, do not wait until the end of your bid appointment to get help, the bid appointment cannot be extended.

30

Congratulations!

Bid Vacation requires five simple steps:1. Come prepared with your desired bid periods

and backup bid periods should your primary choices not be available

2. Understand the constraints of your bargaining unit rules (use the header at the top of the vacation calendar to guide you)

3. Select the first day of your request from the vacation calendar

4. Select the last day of your request

5. Submit the request

31

Ad Hoc Process

Vacation Bidding

10/15/2016 11/15/2016

Ad Hoc Requests

12/1/2016 12/31/2017

• Ad Hoc requests are also submitted through your vacation calendar

• The request process in ASSIST is the same for both Bid Requests and Ad Hoc Requests

• The request types for Ad Hoc will be expanded form vacation/annual leave to include the other leave types allowed per your bargaining unit rules

• The opening of the Vacation Calendars for Ad Hoc requests will be preannounced so that everyone may prepare

Good to know:• Requests can be submitted when the

Vacation Calendar is opened for Ad Hoc• Vacation calendars will open for Ad Hoc

requests simultaneously for everyone• You may request one Ad Hoc day at a

time• The Ad Hoc Calendar will remain open

for the year

TRADESHow Trades Will Work During The Bid Process

10/11/2016 33

Trading During the Period

• The Bid Vacation process will be completed before any trades are allowed in 2017.

• Once Bid Vacation is completed for our facility, trades for early 2017 will resume through ASSIST. Trading for 2017 in ASSIST may will resume on 11/20/2016.

• You may still request a trade for early 2017 by following our previous paper based submittal process. Your CSO will enter your trade into ASSIST once the Bid Vacation Process is Complete.

• Trade requests for the remainder of 2016 maybe submitted through ASSIST using our current processes.

Discussion