Scope of Practice — What It Is and Why It Comes Before Adding Staff

Scope of Practice

A Scope is a specific clinical capability or credential a staff member holds — for example Trauma, Paediatrics, Resus, ALS, Mental Health. Some shifts and streams require staff with specific scopes.

Why this MUST come before adding staff

Scopes are assigned to staff at the moment you add them. If you haven't created your scope catalogue yet, the staff add form has nothing to tick — you'll have to come back and add scopes to every record one by one.

Order: Streams → Craft Groups → Scope of Practice → Add Staff.

Where to find it

Sidebar → Scope of Practice.

Adding a scope

1. Click + Add Scope.
2. Fill in:
   • Name (e.g. ALS)
   • Short code (e.g. ALS)
   • Description (optional, useful for audit)
   • Active toggle
3. Save.

How scopes are used downstream

• Vacancy Planning — a slot can require "1 RN with Resus"; only RNs holding the required scope(s) can be assigned by IRIS
• Master Roster — Grid Assignment Modal pre-filters to staff with the right scopes
• Living Roster — compliance check fires if you assign someone missing a required scope
• IRIS (Generate, Fill Gaps, Apply Master Roster) — never assigns staff who do not hold the required scopes. This is a hard filter, not a preference — IRIS will leave the slot unfilled rather than breach scope requirements

Scope match type on vacancies (All vs Any)

When you set required scopes on a Level 2 vacancy, choose how strictly staff must qualify:

Match type	Meaning	Example
All (default)	Staff must hold every required scope on the vacancy	Resus and Paediatrics both required
Any	Staff must hold at least one of the listed scopes	Resus or ALS acceptable

IRIS, Fill the Gap suggestions, and Apply Master Roster all honour this setting. If no eligible staff exist, the slot stays open — fix the vacancy requirement or update staff scope records rather than expecting IRIS to override.

Note: Configurable AI Rules (Sidebar → AI Rules) are separate from vacancy scope requirements. See Hard Rules vs Soft Rules.

Maintenance — renaming, retiring, splitting

Rename a scope:

1. Edit the scope, change the name, save.
2. The change is immediate everywhere the scope is referenced. Audit logs record the previous name.

Retire an obsolete scope:

1. Edit the scope and toggle Active off.
2. The scope disappears from add-scope pickers but stays in historical reports and on existing staff records.

Split a scope (e.g. Resus → ALS + PALS):

1. Add the two new scopes.
2. Clinician Staff → filter by holders of the old scope.
3. Open each affected staff record → tick the new scope(s) that apply → save.
4. When all are migrated, retire the old scope.

Tip: If you have many holders, ask the Intelligent Roster support team for a bulk re-tag — they have an admin script for it.

Tips & common mistakes

• Don't delete-and-recreate to "rename". Edit-in-place preserves history.
• Retiring a scope doesn't remove it from existing shift requirements. Roster Builders will need to remove it from Vacancy Planning, otherwise rosters will fail to assign anyone (no one holds an inactive scope).
• Keep your scope list lean. Two dozen scopes is plenty; 200 is unmanageable.