ShiftCare’s Carer Client Qualification Matching (Smart Match) feature ensures that the right staff member is assigned to the right client based on specific medical needs, skills, and demographic preferences.
This guide covers how to group Qualifications into Support Needs, assign them to clients, and use Smart Match to generate highly accurate staff suggestions when rostering 1:1 shifts
Prerequisite: Setting Up Staff Qualifications
Smart Match relies on the Qualifications, certifications, and compliance records of your staff members. Before you can create client Support Needs, an Admin must first create the base Qualifications in the system and assign them to your staff members.
If you haven't set up your staff qualifications yet, please read this complete guide.
Creating Support Needs
Support Needs are bundles or collections of Qualifications that can be attached to a client for easier organisation.
For example, a Support Need called 'Childcare' might group together Qualifications such as 'Working With Children Certification' and 'First Aid'.
Navigate to Account > Smart Match.
Click 'New Group' to create a new Support Need.
Give it a descriptive name and description, then select the Qualifications (Requirements) required for this group. You can also assign one or multiple clients to the Support Need.
Clients can also be assigned by clicking the three vertical dots next to a Support Need and selecting 'Add Clients'.
Click 'Save'.
Managing Client Requirements
Once your Categories, Qualifications, and Support Needs are set up, you can assign them to clients to ensure they are matched with appropriate carers.
Navigate to Clients > List > select a client. Scroll down to find the Support Needs and Requirements section.
Disability / Support Need
Here, you can view a list of active Support Needs for the client. Click 'Edit' to add (from the dropdown menu) or remove Support Need options.
Requirements
Here, you can view the Qualification requirements for the client (both attached to their Support Needs and manually added).
Click 'Edit' to:
Add requirements for gender, religion, and languages in the Carer Demographics section*.
Manually add individual Qualifications required for this client in the Carer Requirements section.
*Demographic Matching: Staff only need to match one requirement per demographic type.
Example: If a client requires English and Chinese languages, a staff member who speaks only Chinese is considered a valid match.
Smart Staff Matching
When creating or editing a shift, ShiftCare can suggest the best carer for the job based on the criteria you have set up.
Currently, Carer Smart Matching is only applicable to 1:1 shifts.
Create a new shift by clicking '+ Add Shift' or a cell in the Scheduler.
Scroll down to the Carer section and click 'Suggest Carer ✨'.
The system will display the client's requirements and the top suggested carers. Colour-coded info boxes show the percentage of requirements the carer meets, workload conflicts, and if any requirements are missing. Staff members with zero qualifications will be listed last.
Click 'Show details' to see which requirements the carer meets, along with any workload conflicts.
Click 'Assign' to select carers that are a 100% match, and click 'Assign Anyway' to select carers that are not a 100% match.
You will be able to select carers from the standard dropdown menu regardless of Smart Match settings.
Note: You can also assign carers in the advanced edit page.
All roles are included in Smart Match suggestions, as long as they are marked as 'Available for Rostering' in their Staff Details page.
How Carers Are Ranked
The system sorts staff using the following logic:
Qualifications: Fully qualified staff (100% match) appear at the top. Partially qualified staff appear next, ranked by the percentage of qualifications they match.
Availability: If qualifications are equal, available staff are ranked higher than those with conflicting shifts or unavailability.
Demographics: Gender, Language, and Religion matches contribute to the total match percentage shown.
Note: Incompatible staff are automatically excluded from all suggestions.
Job Board
When posting shifts to the Job Board, you can control who sees the available shift based on client qualifications. Select 'Job Board' from the Carer dropdown menu to post the shift to the Job Board.
This will open a menu where you can customise the following settings:
Applicant Waitlist: Select whether or not carers can join the waitlist when this slot is filled.
Shift Assignment: Select between Approve Automatically (auto-assigned to the first carer that applies) and Require Approval (review applications and select from them).
Teams: Limit the shift to specific teams.
Carer Qualification Matching: Select the strictness of the matching system.
Strict Qualification Matching: Only staff with a 100% match can see and apply for the shift.
Allow Partially Qualified Carers: Staff with some matching qualifications can see the shift.
No Restriction Set: All staff can see the shift regardless of qualifications.
Distance from shift location: Narrow down the staff to only those whose home address is within a certain distance from the shift location (can also be set to 'Any Distance').
By default, the Carer Qualification Matching field is pre-selected with the configuration in Account > Settings > Scheduler > Edit (see below).
Admin Settings and Role Permissions
Admin users can configure the default behaviour for the organisation under Account > Settings > Scheduler > Edit.
Choose if the system should default to Strict Matching, Partial Matching, or No Restrictions.
Roles and Permissions
Navigate to Account > Roles from the sidebar menu. By default, only Admin users can manage matching qualifications.
When creating or editing a custom role, you can choose whether the custom role can manage the qualification matching setup. Read this complete guide for more information on assigning and creating roles.
Report
The Category column in Reports > Report Hub > Staff Document Expiry will be replaced with Qualification. You can also filter by qualification and include the data in CSV exports.
For further assistance with Carer Client Qualification Matching (Smart Matching), please contact our Support team using online chat when you're logged into ShiftCare or email our Support team at support@shiftcare.com.