Creating a New Callout

A callout is defined as the process of requesting employees to work during their unscheduled work hours or shift, usually accomplished by phone and/or pagers. Follow the instructions shown here to create a new callout of any type other than All Hands.

Callout

The process of requesting employees to work during their off hours or for non-shift work, usually contacted by phone and/or pagers.

If you wish to create an All Hands callout, see All Hands on Deck Callout. If you wish to create a callout in which you manually enter all employee responses to the callout before you initiate it, see the instructions on Creating a Manual Callout. Your company may not use some of the options shown here, so your callout screen may look slightly different.

Note: If a user does not have access to a callout attribute—Blast Calling, Pager Delay, J/A Rule, and/or Future Run Time—and the default of the attribute is enabled, the attribute will be turned off when the callout is created by a user without security access to the attribute. For some companies that attribute will remain at its default.

To Create a New Callout

1. Click the Callout tab. The Callout screen displays.

2. Click Create. The Callout Definition and the Roster Picker tables display.

Callout Definition Table

Roster Picker Table

Note: If you wish to accept the default options as they appear on the screen, skip to Step 14. If your company requires certain fields to be populated, ARCOS prompts you for information in those fields when you attempt to Submit the callout.

3. Select a callout type from the Type dropdown. Some companies have a default callout type that populates this field and some do not.

   • If you selected All Hands as the callout type, some of the steps below do not apply. See All Hands on Deck Callout for more information.

   • If you selected 911 Emergency (if your company has this type), see On-the-Fly Roster List Ordering for more information.

4. Click the calendar icon to the right of the Work Start date and time to select a start date and time, if necessary.

5. Enter up to 100 characters in the Description field. This information displays on the View Open Callouts screen as well as other ARCOS reports. The employee does not see or hear the description field as part of the callout process. The purpose of this field is to aid you in identifying the callout when you pull reports. If you do not enter a description, ARCOS uses the name of the current user, type of callout, work start time and date, reason, and location to create a description for the callout.

6. Click the calendar icon to the right of the Work End date and time to select an end date and time, if necessary.

Note: The Work End time must be greater than the Work Start time or you will receive a pop-up when you try to save the callout or advance to the Roster Picker.

 

 

7. Enter an Event number in the Event # field, if your company uses this option.

Event # is an alpha-numeric field that can contain up to 12 characters. Information in this field is visible on the View Open Callouts page and the Callout Detail Report. There is a button located in the Reports tab under the Callout Detail section titled Detail by Event Number that allows you to search callouts by Event Number.

8. Select a callout reason from the Reason dropdown. A default callout reason, determined by the company, may appear in this field.

9. Select a custom message from the Custom Msg dropdown, if necessary.

Callout Custom Message

Only the first 50 characters of Custom Messages will display in the Custom Msg dropdown field on the Create Callout page. If the message exceeds the limit of 50 characters, it will be followed by an ellipsis (...) and will have a mouse over so that you can hover your mouse pointer on the message to see the full description.

10. Select a location from the Trouble Location dropdown, if your company uses this field. This identifies the Level 4 location where the trouble is and will be spoken to the employee during an inbound call.

11. Click to select each appropriate attribute selection. Attributes vary based on company preferences. For an explanation of the Attributes, see Callout Definition Table.

12. Click to select each appropriate override selection. Overrides vary based on company preferences. For an explanation of the Overrides, see Callout Definition Table.

13. Click Save. The basic callout information is saved.

    

Note: Step 13 is optional. You can continue to step 14 without clicking Save and ARCOS automatically saves the information for you. However, if you do not click the Save button, ARCOS does not display the Notes nor the Delete buttons.

About Notes

A Notes button displays on the Callout Edit Page, once a callout is saved. After clicking the Notes button, a pop-up displays that allows you to enter the note for the callout. Once a note is added, the Notes button changes to display the number of notes included with the callout.

When clicking the Notes button on a callout that already contains notes, the pop-up that appears displays the existing note(s) as well as allowing additional notes to be added . The text of all notes entered for the callout also displays in a table at the bottom of the Callout Detail Report.

The Delete button displays once a callout ID number is assigned and the following conditions are also met:

• The callout has been saved, and
• There are no child callouts (sub-callouts) associated with the callout.

Note: The Work End time must be greater than the Work Start time or you will receive a pop-up when you try to save the callout.

14. Click to select a roster from the Roster Picker table. The roster title turns pink. - OR -

Click the Crew Request button to display the Crew Picker table, if your company has this option. Remember that when selecting Crews , the quantity refers to the number of Crews being selected, NOT the number of employees of different classes which make up the Crew. For more information on Crews, see Create Crews.

Crew

A crew is a two or more classifications connected for the purpose of a callout. An example of a crew would be the Emergency Crew shown here, which consists of 1 Lineman and 1 Senior Lineman. So, if a user selects 1 crew, then two people will be requested. Companies who use Crews can establish the Crew with whatever mix of employees they require.

Note: If an empty list is part of a crew, the list will display in italics on the Crew Request Selector on the Callout Create page. When a crew is selected that contains an empty or inactive roster, the user will receive a pop-up, warning them of their selection.

Crew Picker

Pop-up when selecting a crew that contains an empty list.

15. Click the 'cmt?' link to view comments associated with the roster. If no comments are available, the 'cmt?' link changes to N/A when you click it. This is a feature that not all companies use.

    Example of Comments Associated with a Roster

    

16. Click the 'avail?' link to see how many employees are available for the callout, if desired.

The avail? link queries the database and counts the current number of available and existing employees for each roster in the list.

For example, 2/4 means that there are two employees available for the callout and there are a total of four employees in that roster.

Note: You can click the 'chkAll' link at the top of the Class/Workgroup table to check the number of available employees for all rosters.

17. Enter the number of employees from the roster to be used in the callout in the Quantity field.

18. Click Loc Selector if you wish to include rosters from other locations in the callout and repeat step 17 to select employees from the additional location.

19. Click Submit. The information you entered in the Callout Definition table and the Roster Picker table is saved.The Sub-callout and Manual Bypass information displays.

Sub-callout

• The sub-callouts table displays one row per roster selected for the callout.
• Sub-callouts are also referred to as child callouts.
• You can modify the number of employees required for the callout, the number of attempts ARCOS makes through the list, and whether or not the roster is chained in the Sub-Callout table.
• You can also remove a roster from the callout by clicking the Delete button in the Action column.

Note: Unless your company uses the 1-2 Rest Rule, skip to step 21.

20. Click OK on the ARCOS Feature Note: 1-2 Rest Rule dialog box that displays, if your company uses this feature (Click here for more information on the 1-2 Rest Rule).

    

21. Make modifications to the Sub-callout(s) table by changing any of the following options (if your company uses the option):

• The number of employees required (# Req, to modify the number of employees requested from each sub-callout),

• • • If you enter a number that exceeds the number of employees available, ARCOS displays a pop-up that warns you that you have selected more employees than are available.

• The number of attempts (Attempts), or

• • • You can configure the Callout page to automatically allow a specified number of attempts before going to Wait status. If you have the option, you may also configure a delay period between attempts.

• Chaining (Chain), if your company has this feature. (Click here for more information on Chaining).

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Note: The number of overlapping callouts (Overlap), if your company has this feature, appears in the Sub-callouts table. (Click here for more information on Overlapping Callouts).

22. Click Add New Class/WG to include any additional rosters in the callout.

23. Enter any Manual Bypass information in the Manual Bypass table.

    

    If your company uses the 1-2 Rest Rule, your Manual Bypass Section identifies employees who are not available due to the rule.

    • If the checkbox in the Call column to the left of any employee is grayed out, the employee cannot be called for the pending callout.

    • Right-click the checkbox to change the box to pink and override the exception so the employee may be called. This applies to the current roster ONLY. If the employee is on any subsequent chained rosters, the schedule exception is still in place.

    • If you uncheck the Call box for all employees AFTER you enter Bypass results for any employees in the list, you will receive a pop-up that warns you responses for all available employees will be changed to Manually Bypassed if you continue.

    

Note: ARCOS allows you to submit a callout if no one is available in the roster you select. When you initiate the callout, you receive a message that you must confirm to continue the callout.

Note: If your company uses this option, click the 90 Minute Test button if you wish to have ARCOS check for employees who do not have a normal shift record that begins within 90 minutes of the selected start time of the callout. Those employees who have a shift that begins within the 90 minute time frame are highlighted in green and all other employees who would have otherwise been available are deselected and “Work Pending Rule” populates the Response field for those employees.

Note: For some companies, if you do not initiate the callout within 5 minutes of the beginning of callout creation, you receive a pop-up telling you the callout has not been submitted.

24. Click Initiate Callout to initiate the callout. The View Open Callouts screen displays.

    

When an employee is working a Normal Callout, Holdover, Travel, etc., it is important to make sure he gets released when his work is done. If the employee does not get released, ARCOS cannot call him for the next callout when his name comes up because ARCOS sees him as still working. See Using the Employee Working Page for more information.

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*Note: ARCOS documentation is a living document. For inconsistencies or missing features, contact ARCOS Support. Not all companies have all items in the Online Help.