Interpreter Scheduling: A Week of Assignments That Holds Through Sick Calls and Time Moves

Sixty requests a week and calendars that keep moving

Interpreter scheduling runs on a policy with an order to it. A request that calls for a certified interpreter gets one, certified staff are offered work before contractors, video is used only where the policy allows it, on-site assignments leave travel time between clinics, and nobody is booked over an existing calendar event. Applying that order once to a week of requests is careful work. Applying it again every time something changes is where weeks go wrong.

Requests and the interpreter roster sit in Airtable, availability lives on each interpreter's Google Calendar, the policy and certification list are documents in Drive, and clinics post changes in Slack or by email. The confirmation sheet the clinics receive is built from all four, so a duplicate line or a request nobody filled can slip into it unnoticed.

Who works in the room

New requests and questions about assignments land with Nova, the room's default agent, even when nobody is mentioned. The room guidelines send anything about the confirmation sheet to Ada. When an interpreter calls in sick, Myco reads the message from Slack and opens a thread for Nova whose first message lists every request on that interpreter's list, then takes the work back to draft notices once the coordinator approves the new assignments. An automation opens the next week's scheduling thread every Thursday morning.

How a scheduling week runs

The policy order is written into the room guidelines as well as the scheduling folder, so every agent applies the same precedence. Nothing reaches a calendar or a clinic before the coordinator has seen it.

When a clinic, an interpreter or a certificate changes mid-week

A clinic writes that ten of its requests were entered with the wrong language. Eight were right after all and two should be Arabic. Nova rewrites the language on all ten, so each record shows it was checked, and re-matches only the two that changed. Another clinic moves a request from 9:00 to 11:30. That change touches the start time and nothing else, and if the new time collides with the interpreter's calendar, Nova raises it with the coordinator instead of swapping the interpreter on its own.

A sick call needs the same discipline. The coordinator wants to see every request on that interpreter's list, including the ones after their return that stay put, so nothing is assumed. Nova proposes replacements in policy order, Ada re-checks the sheet lines that moved, and Myco drafts the notices for clinics and replacement interpreters. When the manager updates a certification, the same precedence decides who is offered the work first.

What the checks catch

• An interpreter who looks free in Airtable but already has an event on Google Calendar at that hour
• A duplicate line on the confirmation sheet, or a line for a request that was never filled
• A time move that also changed the interpreter or the status, which the clinic did not ask for
• A sick-call summary that skips the requests left unchanged, so the coordinator cannot tell they were checked
• A certification change applied out of order, giving a contractor work that a certified staff interpreter should have been offered first

What stays with people

• Approving every assignment before a calendar event is created
• Sending each confirmation and change notice, which Myco prepares as a Gmail draft
• Deciding what happens when a moved request no longer fits the assigned interpreter's day
• Signing the weekly close-out per language

Integrations in this workflow

Kylon is not an interpreter scheduling system and does not try to be one. It works across the tools language services already has and holds the coordination between them. Nova books on interpreters' calendars through a lasting grant the coordinator approved for this room.

• Airtable
• Gmail
• Google Calendar
• Google Drive
• Slack

• Airtable holds the requests, the interpreter roster and every assignment
• Google Calendar shows each interpreter's existing commitments and carries every confirmed booking
• Google Drive keeps the scheduling policy, the certification list and the draft confirmation sheet
• Gmail carries confirmations and change notices, each one a draft the coordinator sends
• Slack is where clinic schedulers and interpreters outside the room post sick calls and time changes

Where to start

Pick one week and one service line. Connect the Airtable base with your requests and roster, connect the interpreters' calendars, and write the one rule in the room guidelines: an agent may match and propose, and the coordinator approves every assignment before anything is booked.

“The policy order is the same on Friday as it was on Monday, even after five changes.”

Set it up with your agent

Open a new Room, add your agent and paste this prompt. It connects the tools, builds the App with you and asks for your rules one step at a time, and nothing goes out until a person approves it.