Duty Types
Organising your duty types is central to the way DutyMan works. You can choose to specify them in one of two ways - Freeform or Listed.
You define Freeform duty types as you go along. With Listed duty types you plan ahead, make a list of your duty types and arrange them in groups.
Strategy: Freeform or Listed?
Listed duty types give you more control; Freeform duty types are more flexible. Read on to decide which strategy is best for your way of working.
Freeform
You define duty types as you enter them into your computer. This can be either when you create a file to be uploaded or as you type directly into DutyMan on the web. When the same duty type appears more than once in a roster the onus is on you to make sure spellings are identical. To a computer "barman" and "bar man" are not the same!
Listed
You provide a list of all valid duty types before inputting your duty rosters. As rosters are input, either by uploading or typing directly in to DutyMan on the web, duty types are checked against the list. If a duty type is not in the list it cannot be input.
Duty Type Order
Listed Duty Types give you control over the order in which duty types are displayed.
Duty Type Groups
Listed Duty Types are organised into Duty Type Groups. A Duty Type Group is a set of one or more related Duty Types.
Examples
Don't see the need for duty type groups?
Then the chances are you don't have a need to use them so just create a group for each of your duty types and DutyMan creates a type with the same name within that group. Then use your duty types in your roster and all DutyMan does is make sure that your duty type names are consistent.
Comparison
The table below compares the way DutyMan behaves when using Freeform and Listed duty types.