How does SMART allocate daily hours?
SMART is a monthly forecast based on the productivity/hours forecast set (How is SMART calculated?). It identifies historical trends to suggest how many hours should be scheduled each day in order to meet the monthly productivity/hours forecast.
The manual primary cost driver will always be included, but SMART may identify the best correlation with hours is from the day before/after, and it may differ from weekday to weekday, or season to season. SMART will also use other drivers that machine learning (ML) identifies which have strong correlation, but will use additional drivers if the correlation to the hours is high enough. This includes drivers that are not added in the cockpit. Users with HQ administrator rights can view which drivers are being used each day via the tools icon in the cockpit.
Since SMART does not only use the primary cost driver for a specific day, it is not always easy to understand why SMART has suggested the hours that it has for that day.
Example 1: Primary cost driver increases but SMART hours decrease
The above Housekeeping department uses ‘Room Nights (Previous day)’ as their manual primary cost driver. Looking at the graph, you can see the SMART forecast always forecasts a drop in hours each Sunday. However, in the table, the primary cost driver increases every Sunday.
This is a pattern that SMART has recognised from the past. SMART looks at the last 365 days, disregarding any outlier days. Housekeeping usually staffs less on Sundays, and cleans rooms from the weekend on Monday. SMART will recognize such trends and schedule the future using a similar pattern to what was done historically.
Note: If there is a significant change in how staff are being scheduled, due to a restructure, for example, it will take some time before SMART recognizes the new pattern. Therefore, department heads should use SMART as a starting point for how to allocate hours over the month to reach the forecasted goal. There will always be factors that SMART cannot predict.
Example 2: No clear correlation between Primary cost driver and SMART hours
In the above Meeting & Events cockpit, you can see a sharp decrease in hours during the first week of the month. This contrasts with the primary cost driver in the table, which is showing an increase of M&E revenue during the week.
It may be that SMART has identified other drivers with a higher correlation for this period. For example, it may have identified that 2 days before an event, there is usually more hours scheduled (for set-up preparations) and during an event, less hours are needed. Or perhaps not all revenue is usually posted on the day of the event, but a day or two after, and therefore hours are needed before the revenue is reported.
As SMART is looking at many factors, it is not always possible to pinpoint exactly why that many hours were forecast for a specific day. It is, however, a useful guide based on historical trends and can help get staffing at an appropriate level.
Example 3: Cost driver Live forecast is not accurate
If the Live forecast for the manual primary cost driver has been inaccurate compared to actual results in past periods, SMART will most likely not use the primary cost driver to determine daily allocation of hours. It will, instead, look at other drivers that have been more reliable in the past.
In the below example, you can see that often the Actuals Vs. Live forecast has a very high deviation. SMART will likely find a cost driver that is more aligned with the actual historical results. This means that when you are reviewing the cockpit, you may see no correlation between the manual primary cost driver and the SMART forecast.
Example 4: SMART Forecast consistently too low/high compared to actuals
In the below graph, the SMART forecast is predicting considerably less hours than scheduled. This is because the productivity forecast is very high compared to actual productivity. SMART will always allocate hours based on the monthly productivity/hours forecast, which in this case is making the number of SMART hours suggested too low.
In instances where the hours/productivity forecast is unrealistic, the staffing guide will be a better guide on how best to schedule staff. The staffing guide uses historical trends to recommend hours based on what the department should be able to achieve. It does not take into consideration monthly forecasts or manual min/max settings.
Example 5: SMART always shows same hours each day
SMART forecast respects the manual min/max settings as set in Tools and Settings (this setting is visible dependent on user rights). If the setting is not set up correctly, it may distort the SMART forecast.
In the below example, min/max has the same values set for both minimum and maximum hours per day. This means that SMART has no flexibility. It will always schedule 50 hours per day regardless of activity levels at the hotel.
Example 6: SMART hours month total is different from monthly forecast
Min/max settings can, in some cases, prevent SMART from forecasting the same number of hours as the monthly forecast. In the below example, the month forecast is 176 hours, but due to the Min/Max settings, SMART can only allocate 168 hours for this month.
As SMART is based on past staffing patterns, it will recognize certain patterns, even if min/max values are not set. If min is set to 0 and max not enabled, the same department would get a daily allocated SMART as seen in the example below. Now the forecasted hours of 176 are allocated, and, depending on weekday and season, there has been a pattern of not using the exact same numbers of hours Monday-Friday:
Example 7: SMART allocates hours during a holiday when the property is closed
If a department is closed but SMART still allocates hours during the period, there can be two reasons:
- Limited historiсal data available
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- SMART has a built-in detection of minimum and maximum staffing, but if not enough history is available to establish the levels, it uses yearly min/max values, i.e., what is most often used as min/max. If the department is then closed, it will still allocate minimum staffing based on the specific weekday.
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- You have set a default min/max. This applies to all days in a year, including all holidays.
To resolve this, you can set a manual min/max staffing for the holidays. Open the cockpit tools and click on ‘Min/Max Hours Per Day’. Select the holiday in question and click on the pencil to edit. For the weekdays you will be closed, enable max hours, and set the maximum staffing to 0, then save.
SMART always follows manually set min/max hours, and will now allocate 0 hours on those days.
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Getting started
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- Arrivals/Departures
- Data elements required from PMS
- Manual Export PMS – Fidelio
- How to do a manual PMS export from Opera
- Manual Export PMS – Picasso
- Manual Export PMS – Protel
- Manual Export PMS – Spirit Web
- PMS – Cenium
- PMS – Citybreak
- PMS – Fidelio
- PMS – Opera
- PMS – Protel
- How to do a manual PMS export from HotSoft
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Video tutorials
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- Administration Labor cockpit [14:49]
- Bar and Pub Labor cockpit [12:21]
- Breakfast Labor cockpit [12:05]
- Consolidated view in Benchmarking and Management Perspective [3:20]
- Flash Report Onboarding [6:27]
- Flash report overview [2:25]
- Food cost cockpit [6:21]
- Kitchen Labor cockpit [11:28]
- Labor Cockpit Onboarding [18:16]
- Labor cockpit overview [3:12]
- Live forecast 1/5 navigation [5:05]
- Live Forecast 2/5 Rooms [5:05]
- Live forecast 3/5 meeting & event [5:40]
- Live forecast 4/5 food & beverage [6:11]
- Live forecast 5/5 breakfast [7:19]
- Live forecast onboarding [6:06]
- Live forecast overview [2:58]
- Management perspective overview [3:06]
- P&L Planning 1/10 Purpose and benefits [2:25]
- P&L Planning 10/10 How to approve forecast and budget or target [2:34]
- P&L Planning 2/10 Navigation [4:26]
- P&L Planning 3/10 How to build a total [4:29]
- P&L Planning 4/10 Three ways of inserting figures [4:32]
- P&L Planning 5/10 How to add a sub account [1:42]
- P&L Planning 6/10 How to build a constant [2:42]
- P&L Planning 7/10 Staff module [2:48]
- P&L Planning 8/10 How to add a staff member [1:33]
- P&L Planning 9/10 How to revise and submit a forecast [3:01]
- PMI Planning Staff Module Overview [3:07]
- Repair and Maintenance Labor cockpit [13:01]
- Restaurant Labor cockpit [12:30]
- Schedule 1/8 Navigation [5:12]
- Schedule 2/8 How to create a labor cockpit schedule [4:29]
- Schedule 3/8 How to add a team member [2:07]
- Schedule 4/8 How to create a shift code [3:30]
- Schedule 5/8 How to add shift codes to team members [3:41]
- Schedule 6/8 How to create a rotating schedule [3:20]
- Schedule 7/8 How to replace shift codes for a period [2:00]
- Schedule 8/8 How to create split shifts between departments [2:42]
- Stewarding Labor cockpit [11:38]
- Timesheet Onboarding [4:14]
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- Articles coming soon
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- Administration Labor cockpit [14:49]
- Bar and Pub Labor cockpit [12:21]
- Breakfast Labor cockpit [12:05]
- Food cost cockpit [6:21]
- Front office Labor cockpit [12:05]
- Housekeeping Labor cockpit [11:20]
- Kitchen Labor cockpit [11:28]
- Labor Cockpit Onboarding [18:16]
- Labor cockpit overview [3:12]
- Repair and Maintenance Labor cockpit [13:01]
- Restaurant Labor cockpit [12:30]
- Schedule 1/8 Navigation [5:12]
- Schedule 2/8 How to create a labor cockpit schedule [4:29]
- Schedule 3/8 How to add a team member [2:07]
- Schedule 4/8 How to create a shift code [3:30]
- Schedule 5/8 How to add shift codes to team members [3:41]
- Schedule 6/8 How to create a rotating schedule [3:20]
- Schedule 7/8 How to replace shift codes for a period [2:00]
- Schedule 8/8 How to create split shifts between departments [2:42]
- Stewarding Labor cockpit [11:38]
- Timesheet Onboarding [4:14]
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- How to create a pre-populated new plan for Budget or Forecast [3:02]
- How to edit a plan [3:52]
- P&L Planning 1/10 Purpose and benefits [2:25]
- P&L Planning 10/10 How to approve forecast and budget or target [2:34]
- P&L Planning 2/10 Navigation [4:26]
- P&L Planning 3/10 How to build a total [4:29]
- P&L Planning 4/10 Three ways of inserting figures [4:32]
- P&L Planning 5/10 How to add a sub account [1:42]
- P&L Planning 6/10 How to build a constant [2:42]
- P&L Planning 7/10 Staff module [2:48]
- P&L Planning 8/10 How to add a staff member [1:33]
- P&L Planning 9/10 How to revise and submit a forecast [3:01]
- PMI Planning Staff Module Overview [3:07]
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- PMI GoGreen - Cockpit overview [2:49]
- How to create a pre-populated new plan for Budget or Forecast [3:02]
- PMI GoGreen - Water [3:04]
- PMI GoGreen - Missed opportunities [2:57]
- PMI GoGreen - Register actual consumption [2:24]
- PMI GoGreen -Towels & linens [3:02]
- PMI GoGreen - How to prevent food waste [3:03]
- PMI GoGreen - How to reduce energy waste [3:08]
- PMI GoGreen - Waste [3:04]
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PMI Release notes
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- KPI targets enhancement - July 2024
- NextGen Rooms Live forecast statistics and pickup data enhancement - July 2024
- Date picker enhancement - July 2024
- Update to NextGen Rooms Live forecast - June 2024
- P&L planning accounts enhancement - June 2024
- Weather normalization enhancement May 2024
- Update to NextGen Rooms Live forecast page: Sense check updates, May 2024
- PMI adoption index enhancement May 2024
- PMI adoption index enhancements - April 2024
- Consolidation OTB enhancement - April 2024
- Update to NextGen Rooms live forecast page: Personal view options, Mar 2024
- User administration enhancements March 2024
- GM daily digest enhancement March 2024
- PMI Index calculation updates for 2024
- KPI targets enhancement February 2024
- KPI targets enhancement - January 2024
- CO2 factors enhancement - September 2024
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- GoGreen benchmarking
- GoGreen index calculation enhancement
- PMI adoption index: Help videos for measurements
- Activity log enhancement
- Arrivals and departures forecast enhancement
- KPI upload tool enhancement
- GoGreen Food waste cockpit enhancement
- GoGreen Doing cockpit enhancement
- Benchmarking: PMI Index value updates based on time period selected
- GoGreen cockpit: Highlight months missing data on 12 month graph
- KPI targets enhancement - January 2023
- Goal distribution tool enhancement - September 2023
- Planning set up enhancement: Roll forward forecast
- Live forecast enhancement: Editing ARR values
- User administration release note
- New page view of Rooms live forecast - Dec 2023
- Show all articles ( 1 ) Collapse Articles
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- 15th of March – Ability to reverse Benchmarking calculation
- 15th of March – Possibility to add department type as an additional dimension when using Account ID in the P&L report
- 15th of March – Print a list of all unmapped accounts on chain level
- 15th of March – Printing to excel and PDF
- 16th of March – Introduction to PMI
- 26th of April – Room Live Forecast – Change to pickup fields
- Import status enhancement - September 2022
- 7th of September – Information/calculation rows in PMI schedule
- 9th of August – Export to Google Sheets
- 9th of June – PMI Advanced settings – Period locking
- GM daily digest enhancements
- PMI adoption index: Option to filter scores by group and export scores
- Profit center Live forecast: Automatically switch between OTB and revenue driver
- SMART Forecast enhancement - September 2022
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Onboarding
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- Onboarding roles – Breakfast
- Onboarding roles – Finance
- Onboarding roles – Food cost
- Onboarding roles – Front Office
- Onboarding roles – Housekeeping
- Onboarding roles – Kitchen
- Onboarding roles – Restaurant and Meeting & Event
- Onboarding roles – Stewarding
- Onboarding roles – Repair and Maintenance
- GM Introduction to PMI
- Onboarding roles – Bar and Pub
- Onboarding roles – Administration
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GM's corner
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PMI homepage
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PMI planning
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- Setting productivity targets and hours
- How to set productivity targets and/or hours in Budget & Forecast module
- How to work with Rooms Budget and forecast
- How to work with non-rooms Budget and forecast
- Use Forecast/Budget hours from Cockpit in P&L Staff module
- What is Room revenue planning?
- Express planner overview
- How the Express planner works
- Express planner: Settings explanation
- Operational targets overview
- How to input a budget in PMI
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- Accounts overview
- How to populate and edit accounts
- How to approve a forecast or budget in PMI
- How to copy from reference
- How to edit and update using the staffing tool
- How to make a profit forecast
- How to set up a weekly Live forecast
- How to add a comparison year in P&L
- How to modify a P&L report
- Planning Menu – Tools and View Options overview
- Planning staff module overview
- How to build a report
- How to add staff and manage staff cost
- Staffing screen overview
- How to input a budget in PMI
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Cockpit
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- Labor cockpit overview
- Labor Cockpit Preparations
- Labor cockpit cost driver
- SMART forecast explained
- How does SMART allocate daily hours?
- Using arrivals and departures as a cost driver
- Closing Profit Center or Cockpit
- How to work with labor cost
- Min/Max explanation
- Parent and sub-cockpits explained
- Staffing guide explained
- Timesheet overview
- How to link KPI targets to a cockpit
- How to calulate arrivals and departures in the Labor cockpit
- Types of cockpits in PMI explained
- What are the daily and weekly routines in the Labor cockpit?
- Understanding the importance of including outsourced labor hours in PMI
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- Labor cockpit schedule
- How to make a schedule
- How to revise a schedule
- PMI Schedule: Information, Calculation rows explanation
- Predefined shift codes
- Printing a schedule
- Revise staff
- Schedule 1/8 Navigation [5:12]
- Schedule 2/8 How to create a labor cockpit schedule [4:29]
- Schedule 3/8 How to add a team member [2:07]
- Schedule 4/8 How to create a shift code [3:30]
- Schedule 5/8 How to add shift codes to team members [3:41]
- Schedule 6/8 How to create a rotating schedule [3:20]
- Schedule 7/8 How to replace shift codes for a period [2:00]
- Schedule 8/8 How to create split shifts between departments [2:42]
- Scheduling
- Split Shifts Between Departments
- The Schedule Tools & View menu
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Live forecast
- Live forecast overview
- How to set up a Live forecast: configuration settings
- Live forecast tools and personal view settings
- PMI prediction explained
- Pickup explanation
- Profit center Live forecast: Automatically switch between OTB and revenue driver
- Revenue driver explained
- Segment OTB
- Submit Live Forecast to Forecast (monthly routine)
- NextGen Rooms Live forecast overview
- Rooms Live forecast: Weekly routine overview
- Rooms live forecast: How to work with auto Live forecast
- NextGen Rooms live forecast: Personal view options
- Rooms Live forecast: Sense check mode explained
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Data analysis views
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Administration
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GoGreen
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- Comparative data explained
- Data table general explained
- Formula/Calculations explained
- Goal charts and YoY comparison explained
- GoGreen Learning page overview
- How to edit a GoGreen plan
- How to set up a Plan
- Intro to NextGen GoGreen Planning
- Main chart explained
- Plan values explained
- Save your progress explained
- Sense check mode explained
- Unit price explained
- Volume/usage/consumption explained
- How to do a monthly forecast routine in NextGen Planning
- How the GoGreen targets are calculated
- Show all articles ( 1 ) Collapse Articles
- GoGreen Doing Cockpit overview
- GoGreen index overview
- GoGreen benchmarking
- GoGreen index: How are the measurements calculated?
- GoGreen Learning page overview
- Useful links for sustainability and environmental management best practice
- GoGreen targets explanation
- How to make a manual entry in a GoGreen cockpit
- Weather normalization explained
- Weather normalization overview
- GoGreen home page overview
- CO2 factors overview
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FAQ
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- How can I see the hours that are imported to PMI?
- How do I enter the rates?
- How do I know if I am scheduling according to activity?
- How does PMI summarize the hours?
- How is productivity calculated?
- What are fixed hours?
- What are non-productive and productive hours?
- What are the rates and how are they calculated?
- What is a cost driver?
- What is min/max hours?
- Why do the planned hours in the Timekeeping System (TKS) not match PMI?
- Why is the total number of hours for the month too low/high?
- What is SMART?
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- How do I estimate my Closing Inventory?
- My food cost % is wrong (too high/low). Why is that?
- My turnover days are set to 32. What does that mean?
- What are my routines in the Food cost cockpit?
- What do I enter in the Purchase column?
- What is opening and closing stock?
- What is the recommended number of turnover days?
- What is turnover days and how is it calculated?
- Where do I change my food cost forecast?
- Why is opening and closing stock important?
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- Can one employee work in two departments?
- How do I add a shift code?
- How do I copy hours into the unspecified row (Timekeeping system excluded)
- How do I create a rotating schedule?
- How do I make a new schedule?
- How do I navigate the tools in the schedule?
- What are timekeeping system (TKS) excluded hours for?
- How do I add a schedule to my cockpit?
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- How do I copy to Live forecast?
- How do I submit my Live forecast to forecast?
- How do I reset the pickup for a full month?
- Why do I have a red triangle to the left of the date?
- What is Pickup statistics?
- What are covers?
- What are the seasons in PMI?
- What do the pickups show and why are they sometimes negative?
- What is a revenue driver?
- What is the difference between Forecast and Live forecast?
- Why does on the books in PMI not match what we have in our PMS?
- How do I calculate ARR and ADR?
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- Can I edit the figures in the Flash report?
- Different view options in the Flash report
- How am I performing compared to my forecast/budget/last year?
- How can I print the report?
- How can I switch between viewing daily and monthly figures?
- How do I check what segments add to the total daily figure?
- How do I edit my covers?
- Why are my room/guest nights wrong?
- What is the Flash Report
- Why is my revenue wrong?
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- How do I know if the mapping is correct?
- How do I know where accounts should go in PMI?
- How do I map the categories in Timekeeping (TKS)?
- I cannot see my department in Timekeeping System (TKS) mapping. How do I see it?
- There is a position missing in the Timekeeping system mapping. How can I fix this?
- What are Categories in PMI Timekeeping system?
- What is Departments in Timekeeping system (TKS) mapping?
- What is mapping accounts?
- What is mapping – timekeeping system?
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