Bid Units

Bid Units ancillary data defines types of work and other items that can be included in bids for specific employee types.

Types of work include runs, rosters, extraboard work, and relief work. Bid units can also be create for absence days, volunteer records, waivers, and questions.

When creating bids, you can choose one or more bid units to include. For example, if several bid units are used in a bid, employees could choose absence days, choose rosters, and answer questions in one bid. All bid units in a bid must have the same employee bid order. Typically, bid units are created once, with only occasional updates.

Note: If you assign work using rotas, you must create rota bid units that specify the employee types to include in the rota.
Table 1. Bid Units Ancillary Data
Field Description
Absence Quota Type Absence quota type associated with the bid unit.
Accepted in Bid Requests If selected, the bid unit can be included in bids for OPS-Web Bidding Requests.

OPS-Web Bidding Requests supports roster, run, extraboard, vacation relief, holiday work, optional work, volunteer, and absence bid units.

Accrual Type Accrual type associated with the bid unit.

Accrual types are used with absence bid units to help determine absence quotas.

Agency Group Associated Agencies ancillary group.
Associate With Custom Only Used by agencies who customize extraboard when bidding.
Auto Create Volunteers If selected, when an employee meets the criteria of being in the matching volunteer type group and has bid on a schedule that lets them volunteer for volunteer work assignment, they're automatically added to the volunteer list.
Balance Type

Specifies which of the following balances are affected by the bid:

  • Accrual. Actual count of what the employee has accrued.
  • Eligible. Eligible balances may be less than accrual balances if your agency has set minimum balances needed before employees can draw from the accrual.
Bid Category

Specifies one of the following bid unit categories:

  • Absence
  • Banking (not supported in Employee Self-Service)
  • Custom (not supported in Employee Self-Service)
  • Extraboard
  • HolidayExtraboard
  • HolidayRun
  • OptionalWork
  • PassExtraboard
  • PassHolidayExtraboard
  • PassHolidayRuns
  • PassReliefDayOff (not supported in Employee Self-Service)
  • PassRuns
  • Questions
  • ReliefDayOff (not supported in Employee Self-Service)
  • ReliefRosters
  • ReliefVacation

    If creating a ReliefVacation bid unit to be used for vacation relief packages (used in open runs operational bids), define an Extra Board Type. Extraboard isn't included in vacation relief packages. Any weeks for which the original operator is assigned extraboard will use the Extra Board Type defined for the associated bid unit.

  • Roster
  • Rota
  • Run
  • System/Section
  • Volunteer
  • Waivers
  • WorkPreferences
Bid Order

Specifies one of the following employee bid sequences:

  • S. Sort employees by seniority.
  • VS. Sort employees by vacation seniority.
  • VGSS. Sort by vacation group sequence and, in each vacation group, by regular seniority order. Vacation group order is determined in Vacation Group ancillary data. Vacation groups are assigned to employees in the Employee Profile screen.
  • VGSVS. Sort by vacation group sequence and, in each vacation group, by vacation seniority.
Bid Request Processing Method
  • Daily
  • Daily With Day Off Preference First
  • Weekly
Bid Type Flag
  • All
  • Cross-Divisional
  • Regular
Bid Unit Name Name of the bid unit.
Comments Comments about the bid unit.
Day Off Quotas Needed Number of day off quota records that must be selected for this bid unit.
Days Off Method

Specifies how days off are determined:

  • Custom.
  • Regular. Matches the quotas defined when creating bids.
  • Work Determines Days Off. Employee days off are determined by the days for which no work is selected. Typically, this option is chosen for bid units with part-time runs or PASS runs.
Display Name Description of the bid unit used as a display name.
Employee Type Group Employee Types ancillary group associated with the bid unit.
Extra Board Type Extra Board Type ID for the bid unit, if the bid unit is for extraboard employees.
Job Class Group Job Classes ancillary group associated with the bid unit.
Max Prime Periods Maximum number of absence days or weeks that operators can take during a prime period.

For example, if the Max Prime Periods value is 2, operators can take no more than two weeks of vacation during a prime period, even if they have accrued more vacation time. This value is used only with absence quotas where the Prime Period is selected.

Pick All Vacations If selected, operators must pick all of their absence time during a bid. The absence count includes absences already created in the Employee Profile screen.
Restrict to Accrual Year If selected, all of the dates in the Bidding Calendar where the dates don't have an appropriate accrual year are disabled.

Only used for the Absence bid category.

Sequence Number for determining the presentation sequence of quota types in the Select Quota page of the Employee Bid wizard. You can repeat numbers.

The purpose of sequencing the quota types is to make selection easier by having the most common selections appear at the top of the list.

Service Group For As Need Bid use only.
Shared Work Division Group Division ancillary group to be associated with an optional work bid unit. (The field is disabled for non-optional work bid units.) Also applies to the OPS-Web Bidding Requests add-on module. This lets employees pick optional work from another division during a regular bid.
Volunteer Type Group Associated volunteer group.
Work Type Group Working Status ancillary group associated with the bid unit.

The working status group must include any work type and work subtype to include in the bid unit.