> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.assetinfinity.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Workforce settings
> Skills and what authorises them, certifications, shifts, worker types and training courses.
## Skills
What a person can do. Skills are used by:
* [Maintenance plans](/maintenance/plan-builder), to say what a round requires.
* **Routing**, to rank who could do a job.
* [Dispatch](/work/dispatch), to warn before you send somebody who cannot do it.
* The [skills matrix](/workforce/skills), to find where you have only one person.
Keep the list at the level work is actually described. "Mechanical" is too coarse to route on;
"replacing a mechanical seal on a centrifugal pump" is too fine to maintain.
## Skill categories
Group skills — mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, welding, civil — so a long list stays
navigable.
## Certifications
Formal tickets with **expiry dates**.
The difference from a skill matters: a skill is a capability, a certification is an authorisation
that **stops being valid on a date**. An expired certification stops an assignment rather than
warning about it, and expiry raises a [notification](/config/notifications) ahead of time.
## Certification types
The kinds you track — pressure systems, electrical isolation, confined space, working at height —
each with its usual validity period, so entering somebody's certificate fills the expiry in.
## Shift definitions
The patterns your plant works: a day shift, a night shift, a rotating pattern. Shifts decide who is
available when, which is what [capacity](/work/capacity) weighs and what
[dispatch](/work/dispatch) reads.
Availability comes from shifts, working windows and leave together, with one place owning the
precedence between them. Get the shift definitions right and everything downstream follows.
## Worker types
Employee, contractor, apprentice, agency. Types can carry different rates and different rules about
what work they may be given.
## Training courses
Courses that lead to a skill or a certification. Useful when the [skills matrix](/workforce/skills)
shows a row with one mark in it and you need to do something about it.
## Related topics
- [Setting up the plant](/setup/overview.md)
- [The skills matrix](/workforce/skills.md)
- [Technicians](/workforce/technicians.md)
- [The capacity plan](/work/capacity.md)
- [Administered lists](/config/administered-lists.md)