Care Minutes Check Configuration
The Care Minutes Check compares direct care minutes delivered at a facility against the Department's published targets for it, and projects the quarter's likely landing point from the remaining roster. It follows the same pattern as the 24/7 RN Coverage Check: a quick action on Location, a calculated record, and a Flow entry point for automation.
The numerator sits on the Appointment tree and the denominator on the Service Agreement tree, and no report type can join the two. That is why this is a calculation rather than a report, and why its inputs need to be configured deliberately.
This article covers the access model, the data the calculation depends on, and the rules it applies. For the operational view, see Care Minutes in the User Guide.
Access
Permission sets
Maica - Care Minutes Check - Read Access
Read on the object and every field, plus the Care Minutes Check tab
Maica - Care Minutes Check - Create Access
Create, with the five user-entered fields and the calculated fields writable
Maica - Care Minutes Check - Edit Access
Edit, on the same field basis
Maica - Care Minutes Check - Delete Access
Delete on the object
Maica - RACS - Care Minutes Check
The RACS - Run Care Minutes Check custom permission and tab visibility. Object access comes from the sets above
A user who runs the check needs create or edit access as well as read, because running it writes the record.
The calculated fields must be writable, not read-only, for anyone who runs the check. The record page already prevents users typing into them, and the calculation writes them through the running user's own permissions, so a read-only grant causes the run to fail with an access error on the first field it writes.
The running user's own context
The whole feature runs in the running user's context. There is no system-mode path, so a user running the check needs read access to everything the calculation reads, and a Flow automation user needs exactly the same access a person does.
Reads span Appointment, Appointment Resource, Service Agreement, Funding, Aged Care Event and Unavailability. The Unavailability dependency is easy to miss: breaks are Unavailability records, and without read access on them the calculation cannot run.
Where the action appears
Run Care Minutes Check sits on the Location highlights panel. Completed records appear in the Care Minutes Checks related list on the same record, newest quarter first.
The record and its natural key
One record exists per facility per quarter, keyed on Location and Quarter Start. Running the check again for the same pair updates that record in place.
Two validation rules protect the key and the audit trail:
Quarter Start Must Be A Quarter Start
Quarter Start must be populated and must be 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October
Assessed Result Requires Period End
A record carrying a Run Date must also carry an Assessment Period End
The second rule is scoped so it does not block unrelated edits to older records. It also deliberately stops short of making Assessment Period End mandatory outright, because a record may legitimately be created by hand to hold the Department's targets before any run has happened.
Field reference
Entered by the provider
These five are never written by the calculation and survive every re-run.
Total Care Minutes Target
The Department's casemix-adjusted total target for the facility
RN Care Minutes Target
The registered nurse target
Target Source Date
The date the targets were taken from the portal
Notes
Free text
Quarter Start
The quarter being assessed. Set on creation and never moved
Written by the calculation
Assessed period
Assessment Period End, plus the Partial Quarter and Days Remaining formulas
Delivered
Delivered Direct Care Minutes, Delivered RN Minutes, Delivered EN Minutes, Delivered PCW Minutes
Denominator
Occupied Bed Days, Excluded Leave Days
Delivered ratios
Delivered Minutes Per Resident Day, Delivered RN Per Resident Day
Projection
Rostered Minutes Remaining, Projected Total Minutes, Projected Occupied Bed Days, Projected Minutes Per Resident Day, Projected RN Per Resident Day
Comparison
Total Variance, RN Variance, Compliance Status
Data quality
Unfilled Roster Slots, Unverified Past Shifts, Shift Level Sourced Shifts, Break Minutes Deducted, Rostered Break Minutes Deducted
Audit
Run Date, Run By
Appointment Resource carries two formula fields as reporting aids: Direct Care Minutes, which resolves the worker's actual times and falls back to the shift's, and Actual Times Recorded. Both exist for reporting. The calculation does its own arithmetic, because it needs to distinguish states these fields cannot express.
The assessed period
The quarter runs from the selected Quarter Start to three months later, less one day. The assessed period ends at the earlier of the quarter end and yesterday, and that date is stamped on Assessment Period End.
Capping at yesterday keeps the two sides of the ratio aligned. A shift in progress today would otherwise add minutes to a numerator whose denominator stopped at yesterday, biasing every in-flight result high.
Running the check on the first day of the current quarter is rejected before any query or write, since no complete day exists to assess.
The numerator: delivered and rostered minutes
Which shifts are in scope
An Appointment is in scope where it uses the Shift record type, sits at the Location, carries a Type of Registered Nurse, Enrolled Nurse, Personal Care Worker or Assistant in Nursing, is not Cancelled, and has a scheduled start inside the quarter.
Assigned resources count where their status is Accepted or Confirmed. Resources of type Asset are excluded, since a booked room or vehicle would otherwise contribute a full shift of care minutes through the shift-level path.
A shift is attributed to the day it started, so a shift crossing midnight counts wholly in the day it began.
How each shift resolves
1
At least one assigned resource recorded both an actual start and end
Their own times are summed, each worker counted separately
2
No resource recorded actuals, but the shift itself carries actual times
The shift's times stand in for each assigned worker
3
Neither, and the shift's scheduled end has passed
Counted under Unverified Past Shifts. Contributes to neither measure
4
Neither, and the shift is still to come
Counted as rostered minutes
Where some resources recorded actuals and others did not, only the actuals count and the establishment figure never tops them up.
Step 2 multiplies by the resources actually assigned, never by Required Resources. The two are independent: a provider may leave the required count at zero while still rostering staff, and a shift needing five people but filled by two delivered two people's worth of care. A shift with actual times but nobody assigned is therefore reported as unverified rather than as a shift that delivered nothing.
Once the quarter is complete, a shift with no actuals is always unverified, whatever its scheduled end. Nothing can be "remaining" on a closed quarter, so a night shift ending on the first day of the next quarter is not reported as rostered.
Break deduction
Breaks are Unavailability records of type Appointment Break attached to the shift. Only those with a status of Approved are honoured, matching how timesheets treat them, so a pending or rejected break never reduces a reported figure.
Every approved break is deducted, paid or unpaid. The Department's test is time actually providing a service, and no care is delivered during any break. Maica also carries no paid indicator on a break: the Billable flag records whether time can be charged to a client, which is a different question.
Names a resource
Deducted from that worker's minutes only
Names no resource
Treated as shift-wide and deducted once per worker on the shift
Each break is clipped to the window it is being deducted from, so a break recorded outside the worked window deducts nothing and one that overhangs deducts only the overlap. The result floors at zero, so a mis-recorded break longer than the shift cannot drive a figure negative.
The deduction is reported in two separate fields on purpose. Break Minutes Deducted is the audited figure taken off delivered minutes and is the one to reconcile against payroll. Rostered Break Minutes Deducted is a projection over shifts still to come, and folding the two together would put an unaudited number inside an audited one.
Rostered minutes
A shift still to come projects its scheduled duration multiplied by Required Resources, net of breaks. A shift-wide break comes off the per-slot duration before the multiply, since whoever fills each slot takes it; a break attributed to a named worker comes off once, after the multiply, and only where that worker is assigned.
A blank Required Resources resolves to zero rather than one, so such a shift projects nothing. This matches how the Resources Balance field behaves and avoids fabricating a worker from a field the provider never filled in.
Unfilled Roster Slots counts required resources not yet assigned on upcoming shifts.
The denominator: subsidised care days
Occupied Bed Days is subsidised care days, not resident days. It is built in two stages that pull in opposite directions.
Stage 1, gross occupancy
Service Agreements count where they sit at the Location through their Funding, are not cancelled and not draft, carry a funding source of Residential Aged Care, and a funding type of Permanent or Respite.
Start
The latest of the quarter start, the agreement start, and the Entry Date on the resident's accepted Entry event
End
The earliest of the assessment period end, the Discharge Date and the agreement End Date
The entry date clamp matters because nothing ties an agreement start to physical entry. A provider who dates the agreement from bed allocation would otherwise carry genuinely unsubsidised days in the denominator. Where the resident has no accepted entry event the term is simply omitted rather than treated as a blank date.
Discharge Date is honoured separately from End Date because the departure process stamps the discharge date without setting the agreement end date.
Stage 2, non-subsidised leave
Leave is read from Aged Care Event records with an event category of Leave and a status of Accepted. No other status deducts.
SOC_NC
Excluded in full
TC_NC
Excluded in full
HOSP
Excluded from day 29 of the episode, counted from that episode's own start
Anything else, including social, transition care and emergency leave
Claimable. Deducts nothing
An unrecognised event type is treated as claimable, so a new Services Australia code cannot start deducting days on its own.
Leave dates on an Aged Care Event are end-exclusive. The end date is the resident's first day back, so an episode is end - start with no additional day. Service Agreement dates are inclusive and use end - start + 1. Reversing the two is the likeliest source of an incorrect denominator. An episode with no end date is open and runs to the end of the assessed period.
Excluded leave is clamped to the assessed window and to the resident's own agreement spans, then merged, so a day is never deducted twice and leave dated outside a resident's time in care cannot come off another resident's days.
Occupied Bed Days is gross occupancy less excluded leave, floored at zero. Excluded Leave Days is written raw so the two can be reconciled against the Services Australia payment statement.
Projection, ratios and compliance
The projection holds occupancy flat: projected bed days are the assessed days plus the residents still in care on the last assessed day multiplied by the days remaining. No leave is projected forward.
The four ratios are calculated to one decimal place. A zero denominator produces a blank ratio rather than zero, because no residents to average over is a different statement from an average of zero minutes.
Compliance compares the projected figures on a partial quarter and the delivered figures on a complete one. Variance is figure minus target, so negative is under-delivery. Where either target is blank the status is Targets Not Entered and both variances stay blank. Where a ratio is blank the status is left blank rather than reported as Met, because asserting compliance from no data is the one error this feature is built to avoid.
Running from a Flow
Generate Care Minutes Check is available as an invocable action, taking a Location and a quarter start. It handles a whole batch in one call, returns one result per request in the order they were passed, and isolates failures: a request naming an unknown Location fails on its own slot without affecting the others. Requests sharing a facility and quarter collapse onto the single record that key allows.
The Flow's running user needs the same access as a person, per the access model above.
What the check depends on
The calculation reads data your organisation maintains for other reasons, so a facility can produce a result that is technically correct and practically wrong. Five dependencies decide whether the figures mean anything.
Shift types
Only shifts typed Registered Nurse, Enrolled Nurse, Personal Care Worker or Assistant in Nursing are counted. A facility whose direct care shifts carry another type reports zero delivered minutes
Recorded times
Minutes come from actual times, on the worker or on the shift. A shift with neither contributes nothing and is counted under Unverified Past Shifts
Required Resources
The projection multiplies scheduled duration by this field. A blank value contributes nothing, so an unpopulated field understates the projection
Approved breaks
Only breaks recorded as Appointment Break Unavailability records with a status of Approved are deducted. An unapproved or unrecorded break overstates delivered minutes
Targets
Both targets must be entered on the record before any compliance verdict is possible. Without them the check calculates every figure and reports Targets Not Entered
Run the check for a completed prior quarter and reconcile Occupied Bed Days and Excluded Leave Days against the Services Australia payment statement. That is the quickest way to confirm the leave and entry data behind the denominator is sound before anyone relies on an in-flight result.
Targets are keyed in per facility per quarter, so entering them is part of opening each quarter rather than a one-off task.
Last updated
Was this helpful?