# Skills

Source: https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/scheduling/setup/workers/skills

> Build a catalogue of what your workers can do, record what each Participant is looking for, and see how well a worker fits when you roster.

Scheduling add-on - This feature requires the Scheduling add-on, which is available on Astalty Premium. See How to enable Scheduling.

## Overview

**Skills** are a catalogue of the things your workers can do, for example *Auslan*, *Meal Preparation*, or *Comfortable with Pets*. You build the catalogue once for your organisation, then use it from both sides:

- **Workers hold skills.** Record what each Support Worker can do on their profile.
- **Participants desire skills.** Record what each Participant is looking for on their Preferences page.

When you roster, Astalty compares the two and shows how much of what the Participant wants that worker actually has.

By default, only Admins can manage the skill catalogue, change a worker's skills or view the Worker Skills report. Support Workers do not see skills on worker or Participant profiles.

> **Skills never block a roster**
>
> A skill match is **information only**. Astalty never hides a worker, greys them out, or marks them unavailable because they are missing a skill. Every worker who would otherwise be suggested still appears, and you can still assign anyone. The only thing a skill match changes is the order workers appear in and the chip shown next to their name.

## Skills vs Qualifications

This is the most important distinction to get right before you start building your catalogue.

|                            | **Qualifications**                                                       | **Skills**                                                              |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| What it is                 | A compliance record, such as a certificate, check, or clearance          | A capability or preference-fit signal                                   |
| Has an expiry date         | Yes, and it is checked against the shift time                            | No                                                                      |
| Has a level or proficiency | Yes                                                                      | No, a skill is just a name                                              |
| Effect when missing        | Surfaces as a failed check, and outranks skills when workers are ordered | Only lowers the worker's position among workers who are otherwise equal |

**Do not record a compliance requirement as a skill.** Things like an NDIS Worker Screening Check, a Working with Children Check, a First Aid certificate, or a driver's licence belong in Qualifications, because they expire and they need to be checked as at the time of the shift. Skills have no expiry and no pass or fail, so recording a certificate as a skill gives you no warning when it lapses.

Use Skills for the softer things that help you pick a good fit but should never stop a shift going ahead, such as languages, cooking, comfort with animals, hoist experience, and particular interests.

## Creating and managing the skill catalogue

The catalogue is shared across your whole organisation, and skill names must be unique.

1. Go to [Settings > Users](https://app.astalty.com.au/settings/users).
2. Scroll to the **Skills** card.
3. Click **Create Skill**.
4. Enter a **Name** and click **Create**.

A skill is only a name. There is no category, description, proficiency level, or expiry date, so keep names specific and self-explanatory, such as *Auslan* rather than *Communication*.

To change a skill's name, use the actions menu on its row and click **Edit**, then **Update**. Renaming a skill updates it everywhere it is used; it does not create a new one.

The Skills table can be searched by name, sorted by **Name** or **Created**, and filtered by **Status** (Active or Archived). It defaults to showing active skills only.

## Assigning skills to a worker

1. Go to [Users](https://app.astalty.com.au/users) and open the worker's profile.
2. Find the **Skills** card.
3. Click **Edit**.
4. Tick each skill the worker has in the **Select Skills** list, then click **Update Skills**.

The card lists the worker's skills as chips, or shows *No skills assigned.* where none have been set. Only active skills appear in the list. If the list is empty, no skills have been created in Settings > Users yet.

## Setting a Participant's desired skills

Desired skills sit with the Participant's other matching criteria, directly below Required Qualifications.

1. Go to [Participants](https://app.astalty.com.au/participants) and open the Participant's profile.
2. Select **Preferences** from the Participant profile menu.
3. Scroll to the **Desired Skills** card.
4. Click **Edit**, tick the skills you want workers to have in the **Select Desired Skills** list, then click **Update Desired Skills**.

![The Desired Skills card with an Edit button and an arrow pointing to the highlighted chips Mandarin Speaking, Comfortable with Pets and Community Access & Outings.](https://docs.astalty.com.au/assets/skills-participant-desired-skills-card.png)

Record what genuinely helps for this Participant rather than everything that would be nice. Every skill you add becomes part of the denominator in the match, so a long wishlist makes every worker look like a poor fit.

For the Participant's other matching criteria, including age, gender, ethnicity, and preferred or incompatible workers, see [Participant Preferences](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/scheduling/setup/participant-preferences).

## How skill matches appear when rostering

Wherever Astalty suggests Support Workers, including [Unassigned Shifts](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/scheduling/unassigned-shift), the [Shift Board](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/scheduling/shift-board-workflow), and support creation, a **Skills** column shows a chip for each worker.

### Direct supports

The chip reads as matched skills out of desired skills, for example **2/3 skills**. Hover over it to see which skills matched (green dots) and which are missing (grey).

![The Support Workers suggestions for an unassigned shift, with an arrow pointing to the highlighted Skills column showing a green 3/3 skills chip, blue 2/3 and 1/3 skills chips and a grey 0/3 skills chip.](https://docs.astalty.com.au/assets/skills-worker-suggestions-skills-column-guide.png)

The colour shows how the worker fits:

- **Green** - the worker has every skill the Participant wants.
- **Blue** - the worker has some, but not all, of them.
- **Grey** - the worker has none of them.

The match is exact and one-directional. The denominator is always what the *Participant* asked for, so extra skills a worker holds that nobody requested do not improve their match. A worker with fifty skills and a worker with exactly the two requested both show **2/2 skills**.

> **No chip is not the same as 0**
>
> If a Participant has no desired skills recorded, **no chip appears at all** for that shift. That is different from a grey **0/3 skills** chip, which means you know what the Participant wants and this worker has none of it. A blank column means the Participant's preferences have not been captured yet.

### Group supports

On a group support the chip counts **Participants, not skills**, for example **2 of 3 Participants**. That means the worker is a complete fit for 2 of the 3 attendees who have desired skills recorded:

- An attendee only counts toward the total if they have at least one desired skill. Attendees with none are left out of both numbers.
- A partial fit counts as **not** matched in the headline number. Hover over the chip to see the per-Participant breakdown, which shows exactly which skills matched and which are missing for each attendee.
- Attendees whose attendance has been cancelled, and archived Participants, are not counted.

When you build the group support itself, each attendee gets their own **Support Worker** dropdown. Every worker in that list carries a compact star chip, such as **2/2**, scored against that attendee's desired skills rather than the group as a whole. Hover a chip for the same matched and missing breakdown.

![A new group support's attendee card for Bernice Hudson with the Support Worker dropdown open, an arrow pointing to the highlighted star chips, 3/3 for Alexzander Nader and 2/3 for John Smith and Allie Robel, and a tooltip on the 3/3 chip listing the matched skills Mandarin Speaking, Comfortable with Pets and Community Access & Outings.](https://docs.astalty.com.au/assets/skills-group-support-worker-dropdown.png)

### Where skills sit in worker ordering

Skills are the **last** thing Astalty considers when ordering suggested workers. Workers are ordered by, in priority order: incompatibility with the Participant, availability, preferred status, Participant preference checks, qualification checks, how many previous shifts they have done with the Participant, and only then their skill match.

In practice this means skills break ties between workers who are already equal on everything that matters more. They never move an unavailable or incompatible worker up the list.

## Archiving a skill

There is **no way to delete a skill**. Retire one you no longer use by archiving it instead.

1. Go to [Settings > Users](https://app.astalty.com.au/settings/users) and find the skill in the **Skills** card.
2. Open the actions menu and click **Edit**.
3. Click **Archive**, then confirm.

Archiving a skill:

- Removes it from the lists you pick from on worker and Participant profiles.
- Hides it on worker profiles and Participant Preferences pages, even where it is still linked.
- Excludes it from every skill match, so it can neither be desired nor counted as held.
- Removes it from the Worker Skills report, and from that report's Skills filter.

> **Archived skills are dropped the next time a profile is saved**
>
> Archiving does not immediately unlink workers and Participants. The links stay in place but are hidden. Because only active skills can be saved, **the next time you save that worker's skills or that Participant's desired skills, the archived skill is silently dropped**.
>
> That means unarchiving a skill later restores the catalogue entry, not the links. Anyone whose skills were saved while it was archived will need it added back.

### Archived skills keep their name

Archiving does not free up the name. If you archive *Auslan* and then try to create a new skill called *Auslan*, Astalty rejects it and tells you an archived skill already uses that name.

You have two ways out, both reached by setting the **Status** filter on the Skills card to **Archived**:

- **Unarchive** the existing skill and carry on using it, or
- **Edit** the archived skill and rename it, which frees the name for the new one. You do not need to unarchive it first.

## The Worker Skills report

**Reports** > **Team** > **Worker Skills** lists every rosterable worker alongside the skills they hold, so you can see coverage across your team and find who has a particular skill. See [Worker Skills Report](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/reports/worker-skills-report).