Understanding the occupancy screen

Understanding the occupancy screen

You can use the Occupancy screen to get a summary of how many children occupy each room (or age range) at your nursery over a set period of time. You can get to the Occupancy screen by going to eymanage > Occupancy in the sidebar. 

Customising the occupancy screen
Along the top of the page are fields that let you change how to view the occupancy tracker. Changes are applied by clicking the View button in the top right. The Group by field lets you change between grouping by Week, or by Room.
Grouping by Week
In this view, Weeks are shown as rows, with earliest dates at the top. The columns are broken into groups of either Rooms or Age Ranges, according to the Split by field. Within these groups are the days of the week. You can view these as Full Days, or split into AM/PM sessions, according to the View by field. 

If the split is by Room, you can change which rooms appear on the table from the Select Room(s) field. 

If the split is by Age Ranges, you can alter which ranges appear in the Age Range(s) field:
  1. Click on the field to bring up a list of all the ones being used, with the lower and upper values represented by two boxes under the From and To columns.
  2. Edit these boxes to create a new age range. The right-most column is for Capacity (occupancy limit), which lets you set the maximum number of children for each age range. 
  3. Click the  icon next to an age range to delete it, or add a new one by clicking Add Age Range at the bottom.
  4. Click Save when you’re satisfied with your changes.
Grouping by Room
In this view, Rooms are shown as rows, arranged in alphabetical order, while the columns are the dates and days of the week. Clicking on the Select Room(s) field lets you choose which rooms you want to appear in the table. Using the View by field, you can view the columns as Full Days, split into AM/PM sessions, as Custom time ranges, or Hourly. 

Here are further instructions on how to apply Custom time ranges:
  1. While Grouping by Room, select Custom for the View by field.
  2. Click on the Time Slots field that appears.
  3. Set a time range using the two drop-down menus. 
  4. Click Add Time Range if you want to add an additional time range. Click the  icon next to a time range to delete it. 
  5. Click Save. 
  6. Columns will be updated to show the new time ranges. 

The From-To field shows the current date range for the table displayed on your screen. You can change the start date by clicking on the field and picking from the drop-down calendar.
  1. Grouping by Week displays the occupancy across twelve weeks from the start date on one screen.
  2. Grouping by Room displays the occupancy within one month from the start date.
  3. If you choose View by Hourly while Grouping by Room, the screen defaults to the current date, and displays occupancy across one day.
You can quickly change dates by clicking on the Previous and Next buttons at the bottom of the screen.

Click on the  icon in the top right to get the option to Exclude Absent Children, meaning any children marked absent in their schedules won’t be included in occupancy calculations. 

Finally, click on the  icon in the top right to download the Occupancy table as a spreadsheet. Currently, this feature is unavailable for View by Hourly screen.

Reading the occupancy screen
Within the cells of the table, child occupancy is shown as a number which represents how many children are in that room/age range on a given day. Click on a cell to see details about the children and their sessions. The Avg column shows the average occupancy for each week. 

You can see the occupancy limit in the brackets next to the name of the room/age range at the top of the table e.g. Babies (15). The table cells will change colour depending on how many children are in a room/age range compared to the occupancy limit. Green if it’s under the limit, Blue if it’s on the limit, and Red if it’s over the limit.

Just under the banner of fields at the top, you’ll see a number of options that, when ticked, add additional rows to the table that give a little more insight into child occupancy.

Available Spaces adds a row that shows how many more children can fit into the room/age range before reaching the occupancy limit. 
Occupancy (FTE) adds a row that measures occupancy as a Full Time Equivalent or FTE.
Occupancy (%) adds a row that displays occupancy as a percentage.
Children Starting add a row that shows how many children are starting at the nursery in this room, under each day.
Children Waitlisted adds a row that shows how many children are waitlisted for a room, displayed as a number under each day. This can help to remind you when there is space in a room for a waitlisted child.

Calculating Occupancy %/FTE
eymanage calculates Occupancy % and Occupancy FTE for a given day according to the following factors: 
  1. The nursery's Core Hours, which can be found and edited in Branch/Nursery Settings.
  2. A child's scheduled hours.
  3. A room's capacity.
Occupancy %
Occupancy % calculates the percentage a room is occupied across the whole day by looking at the Total Hours Booked compared to the Total Available Hours.  For the sake of demonstration, let's assume that the nursery's core hours are from 8am to 6pm — 10 hours for a full day — and the child is booked into a room with a capacity of (9). Therefore, on a given day, the Total Available Hours that can be booked in this room is calculated using this formula: 

Total Available Hours = Capacity x Core Hours
or 9 x 10 = 90 hours. 

To calculate Occupancy %, we look at Total Hours Booked as a percentage of the Total Available Hours. If there are 9 children, and each child is booked in for a full day, except one who is booked in for a half day, the Total Hours Booked is 85 hours. To calculate the Occupancy % from there, we use this formula:

Occupancy % = (Total Hours Booked / Total Available Hours) x 100
or (85 / 90) x 100 = 94.4

Occupancy FTE
FTE stands for Full Time Equivalent. Occupancy FTE in eymanage calculates the occupancy value in the form of the equivalent number of children who would be scheduled for a full day at the nursery. For the sake of demonstration, let's assume that the nursery's core hours are from 8am to 6pm — 10 hours for a full day — and the child is booked into a room with a capacity of (9).

For each child, the formula to calculate FTE is: Full Time Equivalent = Hours Booked by Child / Total Available Hours for Child. 
A child booked for 10 hours would have an FTE of 10/10 = 1.0, which is the highest value.
A child booked in for 5 hours would have an FTE of 5/10 = 0.5. With FTE, this child is considered to take up half the occupancy of a full-day child. 

The Total FTE for a day is the Sum of All Individual FTEs. So you may have this spread of scheduled hours: 10, 10, 9, 9, 9, 7, 6, 6, 5.
If you turn those into FTEs, the Total FTE is 1.0 + 1.0 + 0.9 + 0.9 + 0.9 + 0.7 + 0.6 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 7.0. 

An FTE of 7.0 out of a maximum of 9.0 means you have space in this room for 2 additional full-time children.

You can see a summary of average Occupancy % and Occupancy FTE over a period of months or weeks using the Occupancy/FTE Report - Monthly and Occupancy/FTE Report - Average, which you can find under Reports > Standard.

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