By Offering Jobs to Interpreters you can determine who is available/can fulfill the job, and/or, based on Interpreters responses to a Job Offer, decide on the best option for assignment.
Note that an Interpreter can always be directly Assigned to a Job, thereby circumventing the Offer process, however this user guide will go through the Offering and subsequent Assignment workflow. When we speak of “eligible” Interpreters we refer to the list of Interpreters that will appear in the Interpreter list on the Assign Interpreter page according to the system/booking/job filters that are applied at the time.
Agencies can choose between 2 different options for Job assignment;
- Interpreters can be allowed to Self-Assign Offers within their portal, or by actioning email Offers, based on a first-come-first-serve system, or
- The agency can use the Job Offer Pool option where the system records Interpreters’ responses to Job Offers but the agency will Assign manually as appropriate; these options will be discussed further within Configuration documents but for the purposes of this user guide we will assume we are using the Job Offer Pool and will Assign Jobs manually
Filtering for Interpreters
Navigating to the Manage Jobs page using the ‘Home’ menu or the ‘Quick Links’ on your Dashboard, use the dropdown menu next to the Job you wish to Offer/Assign and select Assign Interpreter.
This action will take you to the default view of the Assign Interpreter page where you will immediately see a list of eligible Interpreters if any of your Contact/Interpreter Portfolio meet the requirements of the Job - note that there may be occasions where this table is blank as there are no eligible Interpreters.
You can also navigate to the Assign Interpreter page from within the job - go to the Assignments tab and click the Unassigned link on this page.
There are other tabs and features on the Assign Interpreter page which are very useful:
- Preferred Interpreters will display any that were set as Preferred on the Customer or Consumer profiles (note that these these will also appear in the Interpreter list tab but can be viewed/offered separately under the Preferred tab)
- Interpreter Calendar will provide a quick view of the eligible Interpreter(s) bookings (note that the list of default eligible Interpreters will only include those that are available during the scheduled time on the Job)
- Map provides a visual representation of the service location relative to Interpreters locations
- The Edit Job button and the cog wheel menu will allow you to take various actions on the Job
- Job Summary (Show/Hide) and Booking Filters (which includes a handy visual on the number of filters that have been added to the Booking) allow you to toggle various system level and/or booking and Job level filters to increase or reduce the list of eligible Interpreters presented in the table, as well as updating certain data. These are essential especially if there are no eligible Interpreters available by default. Let’s look at these in more detail.
Job Summary (Show/Hide):
This summary will allow you to toggle certain filters to find an optimum or larger set of Interpreters if required, as well as editing certain information on the Job.
On the Left hand side you can see a summary of Job details such as the Requestor, Language, Date/Duration, Location, Consumer etc. Data with a pencil icon can be edited here.
On the right hand side are the filters that have been applied to the eligible Interpreters list either by system defaults or data entered on the job. These can be toggled by checking/unchecking the box next to the filter:
- Proximity Search can be switched off altogether thereby listing Interpreters regardless of their location/proximity to the Service Location, or you can leave this switched on but change the proximity Radius using the drop down menu
Note: for Service locations that use the ‘Remote’ flag, i.e. this is not a physical address, or where the Service type is Remote (e.g. Video Scheduled, Phone Scheduled) the Proximity Search will automatically be disabled.
However there is a switch under Admin -> Company -> Configuration tab ‘Use Proximity Search for Remote Services’ which, if switched On, will enable the Proximity Search for all Service Types except where the Remote flag is used on the Service Location (see the Company & Customer Configuration document in the Admin & Configuration folder for more details). - Available Interpreters Only can be switched off thereby listing Interpreters that have bookings assigned during all or part of the scheduled time for this Job
- Consumer's, Customer's and Interpreter's Exclusions can be switched off thereby disregarding any exclusions that were set either in the Consumer or Contact/Interpreter profiles or in Customer Configuration. Caution is advised here as these Exclusions are likely to be set for very specific reasons
- Preferred Interpreter on Booking can be switched off if this Interpreter is not available
- Marked Unavailable or Declined Offer setting will only be useful if you are making a second or subsequent round of offers on this job, i.e. if an Interpreter has already declined an offer they will no longer appear in the eligible Interpreters list, you can turn this switch on if you wish them to appear to Offer again for example
- Mileage flag will not update the eligible Interpreters list however this will update the automatic mileage calculation on the job which may be used subsequently for financing the job
As you toggle with these filters note how the list of eligible Interpreters will change, filters can be toggled on/off in any combination to provide the optimum list of Interpreters for Job Offers. If any data has been edited in the Job Summary remember to save this using the blue Save button at the bottom of this section.
Booking Filters:
These filters apply to all Jobs within a Booking (unless that the Override Requirements setting has been used (see the document on Team Jobs & Interpreter Shifts), and these filters are likely to be quite vital, therefore care should be taken in editing these.
Note how the Booking Filters link has a count icon that will display at-a-glance, without expanding these filters, if any have been applied to the Booking. Expanding this section will show the details of any filters:
- add or remove an Interpreter gender requirement
- add/remove any Additional Requirements
As with the Job filters, note how the list of Interpreters will change if these booking filters are updated and of course the Job and Booking filters can be toggled in combination to find the optimum list of Interpreters.
If an Interpreter that you would expect to see does not display in the list, even when all filters have been toggled, it is likely that there is an issue with this Interpreter’s Contact profile, for example the appropriate Language may not have been added or their Availability has been changed or perhaps the Interpreter is not Active.
Another useful feature for filtering Interpreters are the filters within the Interpreter List/table itself. You can filter by Rating and/or Employment Category (this can be useful if for example you have an exhaustive list of eligible Interpreters and you wish to offer only to ‘1’ rated Interpreters or in the case where you wish to serve staff Interpreters in preference to contract or freelance interpreters), region etc. The tabular filters can be used independently or in conjunction with the Job and/or Booking filters.
You will notice also that there are several useful columns on the Interpreter List:
- Rate - The Standard/Premium/Platinum rate in pace for this Interpreter relative to this Job
- Margin - The Standard/Premium/Platinum margin in pace for this Interpreter relative to this Job and Customer Rates
- Last Closed - The date in that column will show the most recent date this particular interpreter Closed a Job on the Interpreter Portal
Offering a job
At any point during the filtering process above you can begin sending Offers to Interpreters:
- To select all of the Interpreters in the Interpreter List simply click the checkbox at the top of the list - All Interpreters (with current filters applied)
- Or you can Select multiple Interpreters one-by-one
- Then click on the appropriate buttons at the bottom of the page:
- offer by email
- offer by SMS (if enabled for your agency)
- Alternatively you can select these actions for individual Interpreters using the drop down menu next to an Interpreter
- After selecting the Offer action, you can specify additional information in the Offer email/sms. NOTE: The message field has a 256 character limit, including blank spaces. If exceeded, the offer will not be sent. The same is true for the Subject Prefix field. If you exceed the character limit, you will see a message indicating "Job Offer was not created. Ensure job status is valid". Reduce the length of the message below the character limit prior to resending the offers.
- Note also that you can send the Offer to the Interpreters(s) without sending a Notification by clicking ‘Do Not Send Notification?’, i.e. the Interpreter will see the Offer in their Interpreter Portal but will not receive any other message such as an sms or an email. On the Offered tab, there will be no timestamp in the Last Notified column indicating that the actual notification message was not sent
- Selecting the ‘Allow Double Booking?’ flag will mean that the Interpreter can Accept the Offer even if they have an existing booking at the same time. Interpreters will not get a double-booking warning for back-to-back jobs unless the Double-Booking Buffer (Minutes) is set to 1 minute (Admin menu > Customer menu > Configuration tab).The double-booking message indicates that the Interpreter cannot accept the Offer due to a booking conflict and must contact the agency to indicate availability. The Allow Dbl. Bk.? column on the Offered tab will indicate if this was flagged or not
- Click the blue Notify Interpreters button when you have taken all appropriate actions in the Offer box
Note that the standard Offer Email and SMS Templates can be configured under the ‘Admin’ menu and ‘Templates’ and this will be covered in further detail in a separate document.
You can view all Offer emails/sms on the job in the Notifications tab of the job itself.
This offer process can be repeated for additional Interpreters now or at any time provided the Job has not been Assigned - for example you may want to offer a job to Interpreters in batches based on certain filters. You will notice also that there are additional buttons at the bottom of this page such as the ability to Mark Unavailable and also to record that an Interpreter(s) was Called and/or a Voice Message Left.
As soon as any offers have been made on this job you will notice that the Job Status changes to Offered. Navigating to the Offered tab you will now see a list of Offers for this Job and any responses received in the Offer Accepted and Offer Declined columns. The values here will default to ‘No’ until a response is received - Interpreters can respond by clicking on the Accept or Decline buttons in the Offer email or by logging into their portal and taking appropriate actions within the Jobs Offered section on their Dashboard.
Quick tip: On the Manage Jobs page, using the Reset Columns button you can add columns First Offer and Last Offer, these will provide a visual of when a Job was originally Offered, and if there were subsequent offers, the last date of Offer.
Note: if an interpreter declines an Offer, the offer will still be visible on the interpreter portal and will be marked that it has been declined. The offer will show on the portal until another Interpreter is assigned. If an Interpreter is later able to accept the Job they had declined, they will be able to do so. Interpreters can also filter Offers on their portal by the Declined status if they wish to see new/active Offers only that they have not yet responded to. More information is available for Interpreters on the Interpreter Portal user guide.
Assigning a job
When you are ready to Assign the job based on Interpreter responses, there are a number of ways to do this:
- From the Offered tab within the Assign Interpreter page which we just looked at above, click on the cog wheel drop down menu next to the Interpreter and select Assign or
- From the Interpreter List tab, click on the drop down menu and select Assign or
- From Manage Jobs, click on the drop down menu next to the relevant Job, select Assign Interpreter, this will take you to the Assign Interpreter page as above where these Assign options can then be carried out
- From the Dashboard, click on the Unassigned jobs quick link, click on the drop down menu next to the relevant Job, select Assign Interpreter and this will take you to the Assignments page as above where these Assign options can then be carried out
- From within a Job, navigate to the Recurring tab, start typing the Interpreter name in the Interpreter box and select and click the button Save Assignments. Note that this option does not check that the Interpreter selected is eligible (i.e. Available etc.) so caution should be used to check this in advance, however, this option is particularly efficient especially when assigning multiple recurring Jobs at one time (note the Copy to open slots action).
Otherwise, when assigning a Job that is part of a recurring or related set you will receive a pop-up box that gives you a number of different assignment options. Make a selection and then click Assign.
You will notice that the Job Status will now have changed to Assigned and as always you can check the Notifications tab on the job and you will see the corresponding communication i.e. the Customer and the Interpreter will receive a Booking Confirmation email (depending on how you have configured your system for Confirmations, see below).
Offering & Assigning Team Jobs and Interpreter Shifts
Finally let’s take a look at assigning team Jobs and/or interpreter shifts. The process is exactly the same except that you will need to repeat the Offer and Assign process individually for the number of Jobs/Visits under the Booking.
Open a team Job and move to the Assignments tab. This will display a summary of the number of Jobs/Visits followed by an individual section for each time slot and Interpreter Assignment. To Offer and Assign simply click on the Unassigned link for the relevant Job/Visit and carry out the Offer and Assign process as per the steps in the Offering a Job and Assigning a Job sections of this document.
When this has been completed for one of the Visits, navigate back to the Assignments tab and repeat the process for the remaining Visit(s) within the Booking. As always, you can repeat the Offer process for additional Interpreters prior to the individual Visits being assigned.
Note that the list of eligible Interpreters on the Assignment page for the individual Visits may differ as the time slots, requirements etc. may differ.
When all of the Visits have been Assigned under the Booking you can then see both a summary of the Assignments and details for each job on the Assignments tab. You can use the cog wheel next to the individual jobs to make any further changes such as Unassign Interpreter, sending ad hoc notifications, Cancel etc.
Navigating to the Notification tab, you can select the individual Jobs/Visits to see the communications that have been sent for each, for example Offers to Interpreters and Confirmations to the Interpreter and Customer.
As Jobs move through the workflow of Open to Offered and Assigned, you will notice these changes in both the Manage Jobs page and the Dashboard, for example Open & Offered jobs will appear in the Unassigned Jobs Quick Links on the Dashboard, while the other tabs on this page will display more refined views such as Open/New only, or Offers (>24 hrs) and Unconfirmed (>24hrs). Similarly, Open & Offered jobs can be actioned via the Scheduler tool under the ‘Home’ menu which you may find very efficient once you are familiar with the process of Offering and Assigning Jobs.
Confirming Jobs
An optional final step in the Workflow of a Job prior to Closure is the Confirmed status. This is sometimes used by agencies where they require Interpreters to Confirm a Job after it has been Assigned. Or the agency may wish to use the Confirmed status internally as a final check on the scheduling of a Job.
By default the system will send a Booking Confirmation notification to relevant parties when a Job has been Assigned, however, if you wish to add the Confirmation step to your workflow, the system can be configured to only send Booking Confirmations when a job has been Confirmed; similarly you can send automated Booking Confirmation Reminders to Interpreters if the Job Confirmation is a required step by them. This configuration will be covered in further detail in the Configuration training documents.
Bulk Confirmation
If Jobs are being Confirmed by your agency, this can also be done in bulk, for example, you may wish to Confirm all Jobs under a single Booking (recurring Jobs) at once, or Confirming all Jobs for the following day.
- Go to the ‘Home’ menu and select ‘Manage Jobs’
- Apply a date filter if required using the Filter button - you can manually enter a date range or you can select one of the predefined date ranges or use the date range choosers and then Close the dialog
- You can further refine the data in the grid/table by using any dropdown menus in the column headers or typing a value as appropriate
- Use the Reset Columns button to add/remove columns from the grid, for example the Bking ID if you wish to Confirm all Jobs under a specific Booking
- Use the tick box at the top of the grid to select all Jobs - note that by default 25 Jobs will be shown per page, if you need to select more than that you must first expand the number of records per page using the dropdown menu at the very bottom of the page prior to selecting the all Jobs box
- Using the Bulk Actions dropdown menu, select Confirm Jobs
- You will receive a pop up dialog summarising the Confirm action, select Confirm Jobs to proceed
If you wish to send Confirmation emails only, but not update Job status to Confirmed, you can use the Bulk Actions dropdown menu and select Send Email Confirmations.
You will receive a pop up dialog allowing you to select Interpreter and/or Customer Confirmations, and click the Send button.