Rota clash management

Clash detection in ChurchSuite

When adding people to a rota, users are warned if a clash will occur. There are two types of clash that you might be alerted to:

• unavailability clashes - where the person being added to a rota date has previously added unavailability for that rota date and time
• date clashes - where the person being added to a rota is already serving on one or more other rotas for the same date and time

When a clash arises, you can choose to Cancel what you're doing - perhaps to first resolve the clash - or choose to Proceed to accept the clash, perhaps to resolve the clash later.

Some clashes are unavoidable and even acceptable and inevitable. For example, people might serve in the refreshments team before a service but also be part of the set-up team for the service before that. Then they may be leading prayers during the service and then go out and lead a youth group later in the service! All of these overlapping serving instances may give rise to date clashes on the respective rotas.

You can reduce instances of false clashes by setting each rota's serving times to more accurately reflect the actual times of serving within each of your services. For example, if your morning service generally runs from 10.30 am to 12 pm on a Sunday it may be tempting to set all the morning service rotas to run for those times. Instead, we encourage you to set more precise serving times when adding rotas to minimise false clashes.

It's also possible to disable clash detection on certain rotas - see later in this article. Remember, a clash is a warning of something that may need to be remedied - but sometimes clashes cannot be remedied, they remain clashes.

In addition to on-screen clash notifications when adding people to rotas, Users can view all rota clashes at any time by reference to the Clashes and Unavailability tabs on a rota's "View" page...

...and also view all clashes across all rotas using the Clashes report in the Rotas module's Reports section. The rota Clashes report can be filtered by particular Ministries or Tags within a given range of Dates.

This report is designed to provide everything needed to decide whether any action is required. For example, in conjunction with the Serving Frequency report, you may look to identify people at risk of "serving fatigue"; those who are doing too much! Or the reports may highlight bottlenecks that could be avoided if additional people were recruited to help share the load. Helpfully, you can see the status of affected rotas (draft/published) and the roles of the affected serving team members. Please remember that this report is intended to be a decision-making tool - clash detection is not intended to be a barrier that prevents you from adding people to a rota.

Clash detection in My ChurchSuite (rota members)

The My Rotas section of My ChurchSuite is great for enabling serving team members to:

• view a list of their upcoming 'Next serving' dates and roles for all their rotas
• view the full rotas on which they serve
• communicate with other rota members
• see who else is serving alongside them on the rota and their respective roles
• see serving opportunities and sign-up for future rota dates (if rota sign-up has been enabled on a rota),
• add their unavailability to block out dates when they are not available to serve
• affirmatively accept or decline requested serving dates
• organise and process swaps when they are unable to serve an assigned rota date

When rota members are processing swaps or signing up for dates on a rota, they are prevented from processing a change that will cause a clash with another rota member. In these circumstances, the rota swap must be processed by either a module User in ChurchSuite or a ministry overseer in My ChurchSuite. This is intended functionality to prevent team members from causing rota changes that have unhelpful knock-on effects for other people and other ministries. However, rota members can process swaps and sign up for rota dates that result in a personal clash - in this scenario, a notification is given and it is assumed the person will not create a personal clash without having a solution to resolve it!

Clash detection in My ChurchSuite (ministry overseers)

For each rota within the My Rotas section of My ChurchSuite, there is a helpful Clashes summary for ministry overseers showing a list of all clashes - including the rota dates within the rota being viewed and the clashes that arise from other rotas. Under 18 rota members are shown with a 'child' icon next to their name in the list. The report also helpfully shows the rota status (if the rota is 'draft', for example) and the roles of team members on those rota clash dates.

Disabling rota clash detection - introduction

It's sometimes the case that you have a rota for which clashes will always arise that are not clashes that you need to be notified of. For example, on a Communion rota or Bible Readings rota that serves part way through a service - those rota's members can participate in other rotas for the same service and it does not cause a real clash - people can often do multiple things within the same service!

With this in mind, it's possible to disable clash detection for a rota - either when the rota is first added or after the rota has been published. This can be done in ChurchSuite by a module User and in My ChurchSuite by a ministry overseer. In the example earlier, disabling clash detection for the 'Communion' and 'Readings' rotas will prevent unhelpful false clashes showing on those rotas and any other overlapping rotas. Let's look at how that works for each platform in turn...

Enabling and disabling rota clash detection in ChurchSuite

When adding a rota there's an option on the Add rota page to enable or disable Clashes for that rota. If clashes are Disabled, the rota will not generate date clashes (normally shown in red) with any other rota serving at the same time. Unavailability clashes, shown in red strikethrough, continue to be shown on all rotas.

The Clashes detection status is shown in the rota profile at the top of the rota page. You can change a rota's Clashes status at any time by editing the rota - select Edit at the top of the rota "View" page.

On the Edit rota pop-up, tick to enable Clashes or untick to disable. Click Save.

Enabling and disabling rota clash detection in My ChurchSuite

When ministry overseers are adding a rota in the My Rotas section of My ChurchSuite, there's an option to enable or disable Clashes for that rota. If clashes are Disabled, the rota will not generate date clashes (normally shown in red) with any other rota serving at the same time. Unavailability clashes, shown in red strikethrough, continue to be shown on all rotas.

A ministry overseer can also change a rota's Clashes status at any time by editing the rota. Click the Edit rota button at the top of the rota page.

On the Edit rota pop-up, tick to enable Clashes or untick to disable as required. Click Save the changes.