Adding New Activities
Adding New Activities
Adding a new activity is done under the "Activities" tab on your settings tool bar. To add a new activity, click the Orange plus sign (+). When adding a new activity, there are many settings to look over and select - this article will walk you through each of those to ensure you are setting up your activity to your liking.
Activity Name
Each activity should have their own unique name. For camps who have multiple locations of a similar activity (i.e two basketball courts) be sure to give distinction between the two, whether that is through naming the court, or by simply calling them Basketball 1 and Basketball 2. It is important to assign each activity their own name so when you pull an Excel report, the report can generate properly.
Activity Code
Similar to activity names, activity codes should each be unique to their given activity. You can read more about the use and importance of codes in this article here.
Zones
Assigning an activity to a zone is not required. Zones are helpful by allowing for a smoother transition or shorter travel time between activities. If you need to make any adjustments to your zones, do so first in the zone tab before adding new activities. To learn more about zones, please read our zones article here.
Activity Category
Adding activities to a category can help diversify a group's activity schedule. Although an optional feature, if you do choose to use categories, you must set up the categories first before adding the new activities. It's also important to remember not to over categorize, doing so will put limits on the auto scheduler. Learn more about categories here.
Is this a Meal?
Activities set as meals schedule a little differently. When running the auto scheduler, meals are the first to be scheduled. Additionally, you lose a lot of the other settings options when setting an activity as a meal. If you need an activity to be scheduled first, consider using guaranteed slots, rather than setting it up as a meal.
Activity Priority - Primary vs. Secondary
There are two levels of activities; primary and secondary. Primary activities are scheduled first by the auto scheduler, followed by secondary activities. There are numerous ways you can divide out your activities, or you may choose to leave them all as primary. For more information check out the article on these two classifications here.
Specifics
Schedule Type
If you select an activity as 'Auto' the activity will be scheduled for eligible groups when you run the auto scheduler. If an activity is set to manual, the only way the activity can be scheduled is if you use the camper/group/batch scheduler and manually schedule it yourself.
Days Available
Do you have activities that only run on certain days of the week? Simply uncheck the days you DO NOT want an activity offered and there will never be a chance of it being scheduled on the wrong day.
Period Length
Activities can either be a single period or a double period. If you have double period activities (activities that run during two consecutive periods) we suggest using guaranteed slots to ensure the activity has space to schedule.
Time Range
Similar to the days available function, you can set specific times an activity is open. You can add as many time ranges as needed. The time ranges must be within the periods of your day schedule.
Rainy day Activity
Marking an activity as rainy day schedule "yes" tells the system this activity can happen during rain or inclement weather and will be scheduled when you run the Rainy Day scheduler. When creating activities that occur on rainy days ONLY you'll need to set it to a Manual Scheduled activity (instead of Auto scheduled). For more information see our rainy day scheduler article here.
Availability
Group Schedulable vs Camp Schedulable
If your camp is set up to run activities by groups/cabins you will want to select group schedulable yes / camper schedulable no. If you do camper electives or individual camper scheduling, you will select camper schedulable yes / group schedulable no. Activities can be both if your program is a hybrid of both.
Group Capacity
If an activity is group schedulable you have to set a group capacity. This is the maximum number of groups who can be scheduled at the activity at one time. There will be times when the maximum is not met, but it allows the system the option to schedule more than one group at a time.
Camper Capacity
If an activity is camper schedulable you have to set a camper capacity. This will ensure an activity is not scheduled beyond its per period camper limit. Like the group capacity, this is a maximum allowance and it may not always be reached.
Schedule by Division
Turning this feature on is only applicable when an activity has a group capacity greater than one. If you would prefer the auto scheduler try and pull groups from the same division to be scheduled together, turn this feature on. However, there is no guarantee two groups from the same division will get the activity together. The auto scheduler will try to place two groups from the same division together in that activity, but if one group is not available it will still schedule the first group the activity.
Scheduled Daily
When marked as yes, it allows the auto scheduler to consider the activity for another period during the week. If marked no, once a group gets the activity they will not be eligible for it again until the following week or later. If the activity is using guaranteed slots, mark scheduled daily as no, unless you want them to be eligible to go beyond their guaranteed slot allowance.
Has High pre/post prep time
High pre/post prep time only applies to primary activities. When you select "yes" for high pre-post prep time then a secondary activity will be scheduled before or after the activity. You choose if you want the secondary activity to come first or second in the Camp Settings under Auto Scheduling Rules.
Staffing
The staffing ratio at an activity can either be scheduled per group, or by activity. For more information about staffing, please refer to the articles below:
