Staff Management / Zone Assignments Issues

[KurtWolfgang]

Does anyone know exactly how zone assignment works or if it works at all? Lets say i split a museum into 4 sections. Each section includes a staff room, bathroom, food / drinks, security stands, exhibits, donation bins, and so forth. I create a zone for each one. I assign my staff by expertise (botany experts with floral exhibits). This is all pretty straight forward but the issue comes into play when my staff NEVER stay in their assigned zone. And when i say never it has never worked at all. i cannot seem to find a way to keep anyone in a zone even for a single shift. Janitors or Security (more importantly) will not spread out and stay put. Donation bins fill up within seconds... even when 3 are placed right next to each other. Security comes and collects all 3 but walks away immediately to go into another zone. As well as when security walks out a criminal... They just never go back to their assigned zone. Experts leave to tend to other exhibits (not assigned to them) and assistants go to break and never come back to their assigned stations either. The only management that seems to work correctly is the Job Assignment. When setting your assistants to only work a ticket booth that is all they do but the zone its in doesn't seem to matter at all. Is anyone else having issues with zone assignments or is there a cheeky work around to keep staff in a specific section?

[E↗↗↗↗YA↗↘↗↘HA~~~]

I have the same problem and the answer was, staff would leave the zone to the nearest staff facilities

I have two buildings currently, and I just have one camera room, so the camera room was not assigned any zone but within the area of a zone, and I have qualified security who are not assigned any zone, I suppose he can go to work in that room but there is an icon saying no one working, but actually he won't go to other zone, it means when I want to have just one big analyze room for both zone, I cannot.

Another problem I found is, I selected the whole building as zone A, so the security would patrol everywhere even it is behind the staff door such as staff toilet which is not what I want, so I highlight only the area i want him to appear, but he still kept walking through this corridor (maybe because it is a short cut).

I hope there will be a tutorial or patch soon, it is actually quite fun to manage their work zone and behind the stage.

[KurtWolfgang]

Publicado originalmente por E↗↗↗↗YA↗↘↗↘HA~~~:

I have the same problem and the answer was, staff would leave the zone to the nearest staff facilities

I have two buildings currently, and I just have one camera room, so the camera room was not assigned any zone but within the area of a zone, and I have qualified security who are not assigned any zone, I suppose he can go to work in that room but there is an icon saying no one working, but actually he won't go to other zone, it means when I want to have just one big analyze room for both zone, I cannot.

Another problem I found is, I selected the whole building as zone A, so the security would patrol everywhere even it is behind the staff door such as staff toilet which is not what I want, so I highlight only the area i want him to appear, but he still kept walking through this corridor (maybe because it is a short cut).

I hope there will be a tutorial or patch soon, it is actually quite fun to manage their work zone and behind the stage.

Yes this is exactly the problem im having too. it just seems like the need for a worker overrides the zone you assign them to. which makes sense when it comes to the overall success of the museum as a whole. lets say you assign one assistant to a zone that has no work available but another zone needs them desperately for ticket sales. i get that they may move into a zone in order to fulfill the request. my issue still tho is i have multiple staff in a specific zone for a single job (just in case one of them needs to take a break). but this doesn't seem to matter. other workers from different zones come to take over because they are "available". even tho there are more than enough workers in the target zone to fill the request. i found out the reason behind this was all my workers assigned to the zone aren't staying in the zone as backup. they are being used and borrowed into other sections. which is beyond frustrating. one zone i have constantly says hire more janitors. so i did exactly that. i hired 4 and assigned them there. they walk away and go to sections that they are not needed. and the zone remains "janitors needed". i love the technical behind the scenes optimization to building a museum. i loved it in two point hospital and two point campus. and this was solved in those games because each room you were able to assign a default worker. they never left that room and never disbanded that room while on break even if another room of the same type was struggling.

[E↗↗↗↗YA↗↘↗↘HA~~~]

Publicado originalmente por KurtWolfgang:

Publicado originalmente por E↗↗↗↗YA↗↘↗↘HA~~~:

I have the same problem and the answer was, staff would leave the zone to the nearest staff facilities

I have two buildings currently, and I just have one camera room, so the camera room was not assigned any zone but within the area of a zone, and I have qualified security who are not assigned any zone, I suppose he can go to work in that room but there is an icon saying no one working, but actually he won't go to other zone, it means when I want to have just one big analyze room for both zone, I cannot.

Another problem I found is, I selected the whole building as zone A, so the security would patrol everywhere even it is behind the staff door such as staff toilet which is not what I want, so I highlight only the area i want him to appear, but he still kept walking through this corridor (maybe because it is a short cut).

I hope there will be a tutorial or patch soon, it is actually quite fun to manage their work zone and behind the stage.

Yes this is exactly the problem im having too. it just seems like the need for a worker overrides the zone you assign them to. which makes sense when it comes to the overall success of the museum as a whole. lets say you assign one assistant to a zone that has no work available but another zone needs them desperately for ticket sales. i get that they may move into a zone in order to fulfill the request. my issue still tho is i have multiple staff in a specific zone for a single job (just in case one of them needs to take a break). but this doesn't seem to matter. other workers from different zones come to take over because they are "available". even tho there are more than enough workers in the target zone to fill the request. i found out the reason behind this was all my workers assigned to the zone aren't staying in the zone as backup. they are being used and borrowed into other sections. which is beyond frustrating. one zone i have constantly says hire more janitors. so i did exactly that. i hired 4 and assigned them there. they walk away and go to sections that they are not needed. and the zone remains "janitors needed". i love the technical behind the scenes optimization to building a museum. i loved it in two point hospital and two point campus. and this was solved in those games because each room you were able to assign a default worker. they never left that room and never disbanded that room while on break even if another room of the same type was struggling.

I wish in future there will be a function that can assign the staff working schedule, it is not clear who and when the staff need to work or rest, so we never know why the staff is walking away but not back up, and we also don't know how long the staff will come back to his post, it is a bit messy when later on the museum got bigger

[Raills]

It's very strange that they chose to do it this way.

in hospital you could set it so they staff would take breaks when their needs fell below a certain point, in campus they had class schedules.

Seems like they just didn't bother putting any staff management in this game, because zones seems completely broken

[eightroomsofelixir]

In TPH and TPC, it is possible to adjust when the staff would take breaks if their needs fall below a certain point. This is very helpful since the default threshold is too low (40%, IIRC).

TPM really needs that option, as I found out that my staff would constantly have at least one of their needs below 50% and are still working, dragging down their happiness and effectiveness in the process.

[Snake]

Agree with everything above. Zones generally feel a lot less polished than other areas of the game, like how there isn't zone information when you click on a worker. If you want to find out what zone a worker is in (or assign a zone to a new worker), you have to remember their name, click on the zone menu, click on the job tab for that worker, then scroll down and find the person's name, just to see it.

Just makes it doubly frustrating when you finally micromanage everything, then they don't respect their zones and wander off :D

[E↗↗↗↗YA↗↘↗↘HA~~~]

Publicado originalmente por Snake:

Agree with everything above. Zones generally feel a lot less polished than other areas of the game, like how there isn't zone information when you click on a worker. If you want to find out what zone a worker is in (or assign a zone to a new worker), you have to remember their name, click on the zone menu, click on the job tab for that worker, then scroll down and find the person's name, just to see it.

Just makes it doubly frustrating when you finally micromanage everything, then they don't respect their zones and wander off :D

So far it is still confusing and I think the dev haven't explained clearly this part, it seems a zoned staff would go to other zone for needs, and for work, but a zoned staff would not go to other zone for rooms like workshop, and no one know how it works when more than a few zone/no zone combined.

[Mac]

i'm not to keen on how the zones work, you assign staff to a zone, but that staff member can freely walk where ever they want to, the only downside now is, if there is something that needs doing outside of their zone location, they don't complete that task, they could be standing right next to it, and fully ignore it - for instance, a security guard will walk right past the collection bin and ignore it, if the bin is outside of its work zone .... this is obnoxious lol it actively discourages me from using the the zone function of the game.

If the staff members stayed within their zones i wouldn't mind one bit, but the fact they just, walk off to another part of the museum outside of their workzone is just silly.

[hannahcanada]

Publicado originalmente por Mac:

i'm not to keen on how the zones work, you assign staff to a zone, but that staff member can freely walk where ever they want to, the only downside now is, if there is something that needs doing outside of their zone location, they don't complete that task, they could be standing right next to it, and fully ignore it - for instance, a security guard will walk right past the collection bin and ignore it, if the bin is outside of its work zone .... this is obnoxious lol it actively discourages me from using the the zone function of the game.

If the staff members stayed within their zones i wouldn't mind one bit, but the fact they just, walk off to another part of the museum outside of their workzone is just silly.

Oddly, this is sometimes true sometimes not in my experience? The behaviour of security guards, at least, is very inconsistent when you zone them. If your whole museum is inside one large building (like in the security/theft challenge pop-up), and you have divided it into zones, if a guard is allowed to collect donations they will sometimes completely ignore their assigned zone and wander around collecting. If they are allowed to sit in security chairs, sometimes they'll wander to an unoccupied chair in a different zone, even if there is an unoccupied chair within their zone. Other times, like you said, they'll wander outside their zone but completely ignore their assigned jobs.

As others above have noted, these inconsistencies seem to apply regardless of whether staff rooms and staff bathrooms are available (all needs can be met) within their zone.

[Two Point Abby]

Hey everyone, thanks so much for the discussion and feedback on staff zoning

We are aware of some issues of staff leaving their zones to complete tasks, as you've pointed out here, security guards are especially guilty of this and will wander off to empty donations outside of their zones (seems they can't resist the shiny gold)

The team is working to fix these issues and improve the tools.

It's worth noting too, that staff will leave their zone to fulfil their needs (bathroom, staff room, food, drink etc.) so if you have staff in zones far away from amenities, it may seem like they're wandering around or ignoring their zone, but perhaps they're looking to grab a drink or a snack - it's worthwhile ensuring you have amenities dotted around so your staff (and guests!) can easily get to them

Apologies if this has caused any confusion or frustration too!

[Mac]

Publicado originalmente por Two Point Abby:

Hey everyone, thanks so much for the discussion and feedback on staff zoning

We are aware of some issues of staff leaving their zones to complete tasks, as you've pointed out here, security guards are especially guilty of this and will wander off to empty donations outside of their zones (seems they can't resist the shiny gold)

The team is working to fix these issues and improve the tools.

It's worth noting too, that staff will leave their zone to fulfil their needs (bathroom, staff room, food, drink etc.) so if you have staff in zones far away from amenities, it may seem like they're wandering around or ignoring their zone, but perhaps they're looking to grab a drink or a snack - it's worthwhile ensuring you have amenities dotted around so your staff (and guests!) can easily get to them

Apologies if this has caused any confusion or frustration too!

No confusion caused, i have a toilet and staff room inside the workzone with food and drinks, still wonders off - im glad the team is looking into it, but in my particular case, the staff members has no actual need to leave the zone.

Everytime i say 'the zone', i have to say it like im the vendor from the stalker games with a deep manly voice lol - Hey stalker, welcome to the da zon!

Tbh, i'm not deep into the game yet, i can look past some of this stuff completely, im just happy to know its being looked into ^_^ Thank ya kindly!

[Alethia]

The issue I'm running into is with janitors not wanting to repair the Analysis machine, because it's not in their zones. But I have to have it unassigned, otherwise the experts won't use it. I wish there was a way to overlap zones!

[KurtWolfgang]

Publicado originalmente por Alethia:

The issue I'm running into is with janitors not wanting to repair the Analysis machine, because it's not in their zones. But I have to have it unassigned, otherwise the experts won't use it. I wish there was a way to overlap zones!

If your zoning is working then what I would do is set the analysis room as its own zone. set both a repair janitor and expert you want to do the analysis to that zone.

[ksetrat]

Not being able to overlap the zones is my biggest challenge at the moment. I'm using a lot of angled rooms and not entirely sure how the square zoning works when there is a wall going diagonal through the square.

When I realized the zoning was available, it was a bit late in my career. Trying to rebuild now with the zoning and other tricks I've picked up in mind.

One thing I think has been happening is that the 'queue' of tasks also checks outside the zones for available employees. I have 10 janitors not set up for a zone. I watched as a guest littered, and instead of taking one of the 3 zone assigned janitors that were emptying trash bins (i think), the game summoned a janitor from a few rooms over to clean it. No idea if they were 'available' and that is why they got the task or not.

Other things I would like;
Being able to assign the zone from the employee info panels directly. Doesn't seem like I can do that, have to go to the zone setup and do the employee type filter and scroll through the list to find them and assign.

Sorting options on the employee list view in the zone setup. I have no idea what generates the order of them, but even with me renaming to categorize every employee, I cannot for the life of me find them quickly in the list.

Choose the color of the zone. Doesn't seem to allow interaction to get a color picker for the zone.

Ability to reorder zones in the list.

[KurtWolfgang]

Publicado originalmente por ksetrat:

Not being able to overlap the zones is my biggest challenge at the moment. I'm using a lot of angled rooms and not entirely sure how the square zoning works when there is a wall going diagonal through the square.

When I realized the zoning was available, it was a bit late in my career. Trying to rebuild now with the zoning and other tricks I've picked up in mind.

One thing I think has been happening is that the 'queue' of tasks also checks outside the zones for available employees. I have 10 janitors not set up for a zone. I watched as a guest littered, and instead of taking one of the 3 zone assigned janitors that were emptying trash bins (i think), the game summoned a janitor from a few rooms over to clean it. No idea if they were 'available' and that is why they got the task or not.

Other things I would like;
Being able to assign the zone from the employee info panels directly. Doesn't seem like I can do that, have to go to the zone setup and do the employee type filter and scroll through the list to find them and assign.

Sorting options on the employee list view in the zone setup. I have no idea what generates the order of them, but even with me renaming to categorize every employee, I cannot for the life of me find them quickly in the list.

Choose the color of the zone. Doesn't seem to allow interaction to get a color picker for the zone.

Ability to reorder zones in the list.

Yes the janitor problem you have is the reason mine aren’t doing the job in the zones. I’ve watched two janitors literally switch rooms to do each others jobs when none of them should be leaving the zone at all. Being able to assign a zone at the character info pop up would be incredibly helpful because like you I can’t remember at all. And it doesn’t help that the zone assignment screen doesn’t tell you the perks or anything each person has. How am I supposed to zone a tour guide when I can’t remember which one I just upgraded in the training room.