Labor Drivers

Custom drivers are assigned to generic departments. Before running the labor forecast, the user enters Custom driver data for his or her site on the Forecast Planner.

1. Select Administration > Application Setup > Forecaster Setup > Labor Drivers and select the Create Custom Drivers tab.
2. In Generic Department, select the department associated with the driver. The system applies the custom driver to all departments that have the same name.
3. Click the Add Row icon, and enter a Name and an optional Description.
4. If the driver value is expressed in currency, select Currency format.
5. In Decimal places, enter the number of decimal places to display.
6. Select Active to enable the driver to be used.

7. Note: If you deactivate a driver after it has been assigned to departments, you do not lose historical data. However, you cannot use the driver in the future for labor forecast calculations.

A static driver is assigned to a particular site.

1. Select Administration > Application Setup > Forecaster Setup > Labor Drivers and select the Create Static Drivers tab.
2. Click the Add Row icon, and enter a Name and an optional Description.
3. Select Active to enable the driver to be used.
4. Select the Assign Static Drivers tab.
5. Select a site from the Business Structure. Note that the site must be effective in the selected Forecast Week.
6. Enter the Start Date. You can backdate or enter a future date. Make sure that the effective date range of the assignment is within the effective date range of the forecast category.
7. Enter the End Date or select Forever.
8. In Driver select the static driver to which the Value applies.
9. In Value enter the numeric value that applies to the static driver for the selected site. For example, for labor required to sweep, enter the number of square feet at the site.
10. Click Save.

Fixed drivers are configured when you configure labor standards. (See Labor Standards.)

You can offset labor standards by one or more days, rather than for just eight hours. This offset is required, for example, when unloading and processing truck deliveries extends over two days.

For example, trucks for a particular store arrive on Monday. Half of the truck is unloaded between 5:00 P.M. and 11:00 P.M. on Monday. The unloaded contents are processed the same day between 9:30 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. Then on Tuesday from 5:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M., the second half of the truck is unloaded. Finally, from 9:30 P.M. to 6:00 A.M. the content from the second truck is processed:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
Unload truck	5:00pm–11pm	5:00pm–11:00pm
Process contents	9:30pm–	6:30am            9:30pm–	6:00am

Because this switch is not a global switch, administrators must change the system setting on all servers.

For a store where trucks arrive early in the morning, the truck also arrives on Monday. Half of the truck is unloaded on Monday from 5 P.M. to 11 P.M. That half is processed on Tuesday from 6 A.M. to 12 P.M. The second half of the truck is unloaded Tuesday from 5 P.M. to 11 P.M. Content from the second half is processed Wednesday morning from 6 A.M. to 12 P.M.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
Unload truck	5:00pm–11pm	5:00pm–11:00pm
Process contents		6:00am     –    11:00pm	6:00am– 12:00pm

There are many other possible scenarios, including when more than one truck arrives on the same day for unloading and processing. Although a single truck typically takes no more than two business days to unload and process, the system allows up to seven days to account for the time of year and sales levels.

You can use any custom driver configured for your store.

Create two labor standards for each set of unload and process times. The first looks back 0 days, and the second looks back 1 day. Both labor standards are driven by same custom driver (for example, Truck).

When you run the Forecast Planner, the system prompts for values for any custom drivers. Enter volume values for the truck at that time.