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DESCRIPTION
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People Placer v2.0 is a shareware program and unregistered copies may be freely distributed.  It may be evaluated at no charge for up to 30 days.  The price is $249.95 should you elect to keep it beyond the 30-day evaluation period.

People Placer automatically schedules your employees for specific times and jobs over any span of time you would like.  It works well for staffing weekly or monthly schedules of a factory, hospital, department store, restaurant or virtually any other business that employs anywhere from 5 to 5000 people.

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PROGRAM FEATURES
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* Easy to use
* Generates easy-to-read printed schedules either by "Employee" (for individual handout) or by "Department" (for posting and/or for management and supervisor reference)

FOR EMPLOYEES
* Individual Hours per Day and Hours per Week (Minimum, Maximum and Ideal)
* Individual Capability (Qualification) Ratings for any or all jobs
* Individual Non-availability - Vacation, Leaves, even weekly repeating times (e.g. "not available every Tuesday from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM)
* Individual Personal Preferences for Jobs and Times
* Ranking - handles multiple types of seniority (e.g. "Overall", "Department") for consideration of work hours and exercising personal preferences

FOR JOBS AND TIME PERIODS (WORK SHIFTS)
* Supports multiple locations and departments
* Ranking - allows for ranking of jobs for times when there may not be enough employees to fill all job slots that are listed
* Handles daily recurring time periods (e.g. "Day Shift", "Swing Shift", "9 to 5"), as well as those that occur only once per week (e.g. "Mon 9 - 3") and even multiple day shifts (e.g. such as may be used by a fire department).
*Shift Splitting - When all else fails while filling job slots, People Placer splits time periods (shifts) to take advantage of individual employees' specified maximum number of hours per day

SCHEDULING CONTROL
* Any automatically generated schedule can be manually changed in part or in total
* Allows for manual assignment of individual employees to specific job slots, and People Placer will then automatically "fill in the blanks."
* Multiple Options for how hours are to be stair-stepped for employees
* When creating a new schedule, People Placer refers to the established "permanent schedule" to assure that adequate "rest time" is provided between times of work.
*Multiple Options for how to handle assignment of employees of different qualification levels and/or optional categorical rankings

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USING YOUR EXISTING DATABASE
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If you are knowledgeable in database management, have an extremely large number of employees and wish to export your employee data for the initial input (or even ongoing input), you may do so from outside the application.  People Placer uses standard dBase tables as its database, so you may export data to it from your company's database using the appropriate protocols.  It is a good idea to first sort the employee names to a "Temp" table, preferably by date of hire (this will automatically take care of the seniority ranking). Then, simply append your employees' names from there to People Placer's table, to the "EmpName" field of the empty "EmpBase" table (EmpBase.dbf), one per record (or row).  Once this has been done, you will need to assign a unique number to each employee (max of 4 digits) with the "EmplNr" field. You can take care of the seniority ranking ("Rank" field - also max of 4 digits) at the same time. The simplest way to do both is to duplicate the record number:

Sample Script:

MinHourDay=4  && (or the minimum number of hours per day for your employees)
MaxHourDay=12 && (or the maximum number of hours per day for your employees)
IdealHourDay=8 && (or the ideal number of hours per day for your employees)
MinHourWeek=20  && (or the minimum number of hours per week for your employees)
MaxHourWeek=60 && (or the maximum number of hours per week for your employees)
IdealHourWeek=40 && (or the ideal number of hours per week for your employees)
rn=1
Use c:\Rapid Print\People Placer\EmpBase.dbf
Do while eof()=false
Goto rn
Replace EmplNr with rn
Replace Rank with rn
Replace MinHrDay with MinHourDay
Replace MaxHrDay with MaxHourDay
Replace IdHrDay with IdealHourDay
rn=rn+1
EndDo
Use

People Placer will automatically self-correct variations and empty fields in categorical ranking if you elect to use this option.  So you needn't be concerned with these fields.


If you wish to set up a script or two to automatically update People Placer's database from your existing one, first examine the table(s) that People Placer use(s).  The field names and field types are very logical and simple to figure out.  The only other table that you might wish to continually update would be the "EmpUnavail.dbf" file.  Enter a couple of different types of periods of non-availability for an employee from within the People Placer application and see how the data then resides in the table.  From there you should be able to appropriately construct your script.

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People Placer was written to run on a PC in a Windows 95, Windows 98 or NT environment.

It is available at no charge for up to 30 days. If you elect to keep it, the price after the trial is $249.95.  By that time, I'm sure you will agree that People Placer is not only a time saver, keeps your employees happy, and repeatedly comes up with the "best possible" schedule, but also saves your company that amount of money many times over.

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GETTING STARTED
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After unzipping the downloaded file, double-click on the Setup.exe file and follow the panel instructions to install People Placer.  In the unlikely event that you ever elect to uninstall the program, you may do so by going to Add/Remove Programs under Settings (from your Start button at the lower left of your desktop), and choosing People Placer as the program to remove.

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Thank you for your interest in People Placer.

Visit our web site:  www.peopleplacer.com

You may contact us at any time with questions or comments.

E-mail: thefolks@peopleplacer.com
