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[Immortal-D]

Technically this is about a mod, but is still Fortress-based, and I imagine like 90% of Dorfs use it at this point.  Anyways, custom Roles is one of those things that you think about, but always get too caught up in playing to ever bother with, similar to creating Macros & Blueprints.  I did briefly toy around with Optimization.  However, I found the level of detail there to actually be too much, it was overwhelming.  I finally set aside ~40 minutes to read and create.  Wow, lol.

Using custom Professions is a little slower than Optimization/Roles, since you have to examine every Migrant.  However, setting up the Professions is significantly faster and less mentally intensive, resulting in a net gain of time spent.  Plus I tend to run large-ish Forts, so weighing a job against personality & population is less meaningful for me.  The end result is a mass-production of Professions, very neat and orderly.

All of my Farmers have Brewing, Cheese Making, Herbalist, etc.  I run enough of them to negate the few who detest being outdoors and subsequently barf on the food as they are making it.  I merged Mason, Mechanic, and Stonecrafter.  All Professions, even the non-haulers, have important 'hauling' activities such as Levers & tending patients/prisoners.  The best part is I can still assign specialty labors after a Profession, if say for example one of my Farmers is also an experienced Bowyer.

So yeah, really pleased that I took the time to learn this, especially b/c I can now sort my Dwarves by Profession name and get a much more accurate picture of what my labor pool looks like.

Edit: Per request, this is my custom Professions file (not to be confused with Roles, which uses personality, weighted average, etc.); Click Me!

Few things to note:
1. Super-specialty labors like Pottery & Bee Keeping have no Profession.  Should I want to start one such industry, I manually assign a Dwarf.
2. Medical skills have no Profession.  If a migrant is skilled in one of the Medicine items, I just re-enable that labor after assigning a Profession.  Also helps to ensure I only have my Chief Medical Dwarf with Diagnostician enabled.

[vanatteveldt]

What I did last game is create a small number of professions such as peasant (hauling plus food-related) and clothesworker (hauling+cloth-related), and then have two generic professions "artisan" (hauling) and "expert" (nothing). Artisans get a single job such as weaponsmithing besides their hauling duties, and when they get any good I move them to expert so they only get the job. That was 5 minutes to set up and works pretty well imho.

[PyroTechno]

I haven't really messed around with the high-level functions of Dwarf Therapist. I know just enough to tell you that Super Labor is a placeholder right now.

[Goatmaan]

I run large forts too, and simply could not do it without dwarf therapist!!

My tip to everyone, use a no labor enabled one, and name it sword, m.s.,s whatever.. save it then rename it axe,m.a,a or whatever rinse and repeat for all weapon types.

Now when you want an axe squad use therapist to find the ones you want, give them the axe template, wich wipes their labors, AND adds axe to their name!!
Makes finding them in the military screen a breeze

      Goatmaan

 P.s. ok now who's gonna help ME draft 30 ten dwarf squads?

[Immortal-D]

I've never needed to disable all labors from my recruits.  With a proper training schedule, they shouldn't have any free time.  As for drafting, what do you need help with?  Adding Dwarves to a squad should be the easiest part, relatively speaking.

[Goatmaan]

I use the no labors to ensure they don't leave the fight.
But its mainly for the axe,sword,spear,xbow it adds to the end of their name.
If you have 300+ dwarfs, remembering who likes axe, or bolts isn't an easy thing.
 Scrolling thru the list you easily find Urist McNobody Axe.

I waited way too long to screen my dwarfs... I have 3 ten dwarf xbow squads, 1 ten dwarf axe squad.
My mega projects are almost complete.
I have between 270 to 345 idlers. 
Those will be filtered into squads.
Not really my idea of fun. (Sarcastic "help" needed)

The fun comes AFTER their trained!!     

  Goatmaan

[Sanctume]

Custom Profession text helps identify the dwarf in the combat reports from the enemy's pov.

[Aussiemon]

I have a simple process:

1. Check the skills of a migrant.
2. If they're useless, assign them the custom profession "Serf"
3. Open Dwarf Therapist after the wave, give them the Serf labors (Farming, Plant Gathering, Fish Cleaning)

You should use a dedicated Brewer though.  Last I'd read, booze has a hidden quality rating. I only need two full-times for massive forts.

EDIT: I was misinformed. Value of the stack is what matters. Still, there's something to be said for speedy legendary brewers.

[faberdonax]

Could you share your custom professions with us? Maybe in a file to import in dwarf therapist (is this possible at all?). Or maybe listing the enabled skiils in each profession one by one... Last question: how do you manage hauling? THANKS in advance for your time (and congrats!).

[Innocent Dave]

Unless they have specific skills I'm after, all my new arrivals get designated as 'serf', a generic role mainly involving hauling.  Then I promote the skilled ones to proper labours as I build the relevant industries.  It allows easy control over my labour pool, lets me know if I need to care when someone dies, and I never run short on haulers!

No idea how I ever managed without it.

[Immortal-D]

Per request, this is my custom Professions file (not to be confused with Roles, which uses personality, weighted average, etc.); Click Me!

Few things to note:
1. Super-specialty labors like Pottery & Bee Keeping have no Profession.  Should I want to start one such industry, I manually assign a Dwarf.
2. Medical skills have no Profession.  If a migrant is skilled in one of the Medicine items, I just re-enable that labor after assigning a Profession.  Also helps to ensure I only have my Chief Medical Dwarf with Diagnostician enabled.

As to how I manage hauling... you're gonna have to be more specific.  Use Wheelbarrows and Minecarts when possible, keep plenty of Bins, etc.  The only time that I use a quantum stockpile is when I am removing boulders from normal stockpiles.

[escondida]

Aussiemon: Be careful about allowing unskilled dwarves to farm. It's a labor to which skill is vital, unless you're okay with dwarves wasting your seeds for very little food return. You'll be able to feed a fort of 250+ with piles of food left over with 2-3 dedicated and skilled farmers, farming a single 1x7 farm plot for each crop (more for pig tails, thanks to their usage in the clothing industry). You'll have even more absurd stacks of food if you use fertilizer on top of that.

Personally, I have a Plebian super-labor set up (so much nicer to just click a single box than to drill down the menu to the profession, and it's really nice to have the labors view shorn of all the no-skill jobs, which are now lumped into that single box), which gives the asignee all the unskilled-except-for-speed labors, except (a) unimplemented ones such as alchemy, (b) ones where you can't have more than one dwarf doing the job, such as beekeeping, and (c) mining, woodcutting and hunting [EDIT: and (d) fishing, because I don't need the whole fort's population gossiping by the river.]

Any dwarf who migrates to the fort with a decently high skill level in a skilled labor gets to do that job, unless I already have that profession well-covered. If my population is full or near-full and I don't have a profession covered, I grab the youngest adult dwarf available and start training them up in that job. Miners I choose from the unskilled population, let them train to legendary +5, then replace with a new pleb...except my initial miners, who have other skilled professions as well and are highly honored for being founders of the fort.

[Psieye]

My 'drone' profession is every labour (except mining/woodcutting) where skill only affects speed not quality.

2. If they're useless, assign them the custom profession "Serf"
3. Open Dwarf Therapist after the wave

Same, except I give them the nickname 'D' to mark them.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

Do custom professions allow existing labours to remain enabled? If not, I'll continue just setting all the unimportant/unskilled labours to most dwarves and leaving the ones they arrived with in place.

[Immortal-D]

Do custom professions allow existing labours to remain enabled? If not, I'll continue just setting all the unimportant/unskilled labours to most dwarves and leaving the ones they arrived with in place.

Yes.  Say for example a Farmer is also skilled at Surgery, just give him the 'Farmer' Profession and manually re-enable his Surgery labor.