How does standby scheduling work?

Standby schedules are configurable by organization.  This feature may be ON or OFF for your organization.  If you need to turn it in, see the following article:

https://support.timesync.com/hc/en-us/articles/210251366-Enabling-Standby-Scheduling

Standby Scheduling Summary

If your club has standby scheduling enabled, Schedule Master will allow you to make a secondary schedule for a period of time when the aircraft is already booked.  You will have a chance to make this schedule the primary schedule if the original schedule is cancelled. To do this, you must confirm your standby schedule within the allotted time frame.

The time frame allotted for confirming your standby schedule is determined by your organization and is shown on the Standby Policy page in the Group Info|Scheduling Policy menu. (This time frame depends on the amount of time left before the schedule start and has a minimum and maximum value.) If the time frame for confirmation expires, your standby schedule will be deleted. There is an additional parameter (also shown on the Standby Policy page) that determines when a standby schedule (that has not been made primary) will be deleted. For example, if this parameter was set to 1 hour, Schedule Master will delete any standby schedule 1 hour before the start of that standby schedule. Because of this, a standby schedule will not be offered as an option if you are within 1 hour of the start.

You will not be able to make a standby schedule if one of the following conditions exist:

• There are already 2 standby schedules for the same period of time for this resource.
• You have another schedule for the same period of time for another resource within this category (assuming that you are not authorized for overlapping schedules and the the resource you are trying to book does not allow overlapping bookings).
• The timeframe you are trying to book is within the timeframe that the schedule should already be confirmed.
• You are editing a schedule.  If you would like to cancel your existing primary schedule to create a standby schedule, you will need to do this in 2 steps - to cancel and then add the new schedule.  However, if you would like to keep your schedule and add a standby, you should add a standby for a smaller timeframe that does not overlap with your existing booking.
• You are booking a lesson (i.e. aircraft and instructor).  This is because an unconfirmed standby will be cancelled, leaving you with only an aircraft or instructor, which sometimes violates the rules of the student booking.  If you are OK with the standby getting cancelled, you should schedule the aircraft and instructor separately, which will allow for the standby schedule.

Making a Standby Schedule

There are multiple ways to make a standby schedule.  If you enter a resource and schedule time that is not available, you will be presented with a checkbox for making this a standby schedule. To continue to make the standby, check the checkbox and click 'Make Schedule.'

As an alternative, you can right click a schedule for a list of available options, one of which may be a standby schedule.  

 If your standby schedule is successfully made, you will see it depicted in gray.  In the image below the standby schedule and the key for a standby schedule is outlined in red.

Confirming a Standby Schedule

If the resource and entire time frame become available and your standby schedule was first*, your schedule will become the primary schedule, and you will have a chance to confirm.  If this is the case, an automated email message will be sent to your primary email address and the schedule will be outlined in red - as indicated in the key.  To confirm your standby, click the schedule and click the 'Confirm this schedule' button.

If you do not confirm your schedule within the allotted time frame (as defined on the Schedule Policy page), it will be cancelled.