Is this new in the SRH update? Page 85.

"These preferences will be used during the manual next-day short call award/assignment process only if Crew Scheduling has determined that the pilot will be needed for short call. These preferences will not increase a pilot’s chances of being “needed” for or assigned a shortcall period. During the manual process, if there are not enough pilots within a given short-call group who have submitted preferences to be first in sequence for short call, Crew Scheduling will determine the pilots needed for short call using inverse seniority order. Pilot preferences will then be considered in seniority order among those pilots."

If this language is new, then it looks like we essentially just lost the If Needed capability for short call. The scheduling committee was previously stating that the company programmed the automated system wrong but now they appear to be saying that there is zero If Needed capability unless you're assigned via the "manual" process.

Someone please tell me that I'm wrong.