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Rules, auto-scheduling, and viewing conflicts

Rules are a very powerful feature of the system. They restrict your schedule, so that the employees are scheduled the way you want them to be. However, add rules conservatively, because the more rules you have, the harder it is to fill your schedule needs and the more computer processing time it takes to see conflicts and to auto-schedule. You can override any rule. Rules are considered in the following situations.

When auto-scheduling

When viewing conflicts (ie., when in Show Conflicts mode)

When employees swap shifts (if permitted)

When employees sign up for OPEN, ie., unassigned shifts (if permitted)

A rule can always be broken by the manager. If you are breaking a rule, you can see the conflict in "Show Conflicts" mode when in the Current or Recurring Schedule. The auto-scheduler will never break a rule when assigning an employee to a shift. The system breaks down your schedule to each shift, and then looks at all the employees to see (a) who is allowed to do the shift, and (b) out of those employees allowed to do the shift, who is best. There are two types of rules: eliminating rules, and preferencial rules.

Remember, all rules can be overriden by the manager.

Eliminating Rules

Eliminating rules have the effect of either eliminating an employee from being assigned to a particular shift, or allowing it. There is no in-between or gray area. For each shift, the employee assigned to that shift is either permitted to be on the shift, or not. Here are all the eliminating rules you have to choose from currently in the system, most commonly used first:

No employee should be scheduled for more than his/her maximum hours
Abbreviation when rule is violated in "Show Conflicts" mode: "OVER MAX HOURS"

This rule prohibits any employee from being scheduled on a shift that would cause that employee to exceed his/her maximum hours for the week (or. more uncommonly, the multi-week schedule period). You can choose for the employee maximums to apply weekly, or per scheduling period, which can be several weeks. This is a very common rule.

No employee should be scheduled during any time declared UNAVAILABLE for the employee
Abbreviation when rule is violated in "Show Conflicts" mode: "UNAVAIL"

This rule prohibits any employee from being scheduled on a shift during a time declared unavailable for the employee in the Recurring or Current Availability sections. If any portion of the shift falls during a time declared unavailable for the employee, the employee is prohibited from being on the shift.

With this rule, employees are considered to be available all times except those specifically declared unavailable.

Only schedule employees for shifts that fall within the time declared AVAILABLE for each employee
Abbreviation when rule is violated in "Show Conflicts" mode: "AVAIL"

This rule prohibits any employee from being scheduled on a shift unless the shift falls within a time period declared available for the employee in the Recurring or Current Availability sections. If any portion of the shift falls outside time declared avaiable for the employee, the employee is prohibited from being on the shift.

With this rule, employees are considered to be unavailable all times except those specifically declared available.

Only schedule employees who are qualified for the shifts
Abbreviation when rule is violated in "Show Conflicts" mode: "NOT QUALIFIED"

This rule prohibits any employee from being scheduled on a shift unless the employee has been specifically qualified for that type of shift in the employee record (found in the "Employees" section). For example, if the task for a shift is "Customer Service", and an employee is only qualified for the tasks, "Technical Support" and "Networking" in his/her employee record, the employee is prohibited from being assigned to the shift. If, however, the shift is not attached to any particular task, that is, the task chosen for the shift when it was created or last changed was "NONE SELECTED", the employee is permitted to be assigned to the shift. Tasks were used as an exmaple here, but this applies to any location, department, task, time of day, or other user-defined category.

No employee should be scheduled more than this number of days in a row
Abbreviation when rule is violated in "Show Conflicts" mode: "MAX DAYS IN A ROW"

This rule prohibits any employee from being scheduled on a shift that would cause the employee to be working for more than the indicated number of days in a row. When adding or editing this rule, enter the maximum number of days in a row you would want an employee to be scheduled at the "Number of days" prompt. Make sure you submit any changes.

No employee should be scheduled if he/she just worked this number of hours ago
Abbreviation when rule is violated in "Show Conflicts" mode: "SEPARATION"

This rule prohibits the same employee from working shifts too close to each other. For example, if John Smith works an 8 hour shift from 12pm to 8pm, you don't want to schedule him for a shift that starts at 10pm that night! To avoid these situations, use this rule. When adding or editing this rule, enter the number of hours of separation you want between shifts for the same employee, at the "Number of hours" prompt. Make sure you submit any changes.

Never allow a shift to be shorter than indicated here

This rule prohibits a shift from being too short. When adding or editing this rule, enter the smallest number of hours you would want a shift to be, at the "Number of hours" prompt. Make sure you submit any changes. This rule normally used only in very specialized situations.

Preferencial Rules

Preferencial rules have the effect of preferring certain employees over others. A preferencial rule will never outright eliminate any employee from working any shift. Instead, preferencial rules determine which employees, out of those that have not been eliminated by any eliminating rule, should be chosen first to do any given shift. These rules are used primarily for auto-scheduling. However, they can also be used to give assistance when manually assigning employees to shifts in the Recurring or Current Schedule. When you manually assign an employee to a shift in "Show Conflicts" mode, you can see the employees ordered in the drop down list, according to your prefrence rules.

It is easiest to choose just one preferencial rule. If you have only one preferencial rule, you will not need to be concerned with the "Maximum" and "Factor" settings (at the top of each preferencial rule). You can combine preference rules, but if you choose to combine them, it is recommended that you speak with a technical support specialist to help you set up the preferencial rules.

Here are all the preferencial rules you have to choose from currently in the system, most commonly used first:

Schedule employees with the least hours already scheduled first.

This rule is commonly used to simply even out the number of hours each employee gets scheduled. As the auto-scheduler goes through open shifts assigning employees, it will choose those employees who have a greater need for hours, that is, those employees who have not been scheduled much yet. This has the effect of keeping everyone's hours as even as possible.

Schedule employees with highest rank first

This rule is used to give priority to certain employees over others. In each employee record, there is a place to enter a number called the "Rank". This can be based on seniority, if you wish, or any other criteria. With this rule, those employees with the highest rank will be scheduled before those with lowest rank.

Schedule employees with lowest rank first

This rule is used to give priority to certain employees over others. In each employee record, there is a place to enter a number called the "Rank". This can be based on seniority, if you wish, or any other criteria. With this rule, those employees with the lowest rank will be scheduled before those with highest rank.

Schedule employees who prefer to work, first

This rule is used to give employees some choise in when they are scheduled. The auto-scheduler, when there is a choice, will attempt to schedule the employees who have indicated a preference in the Recurring or Current Availability sections. (Preferences can be indicated by the manager, on behalf of the employee as well.) It will also leave those who indicate they can work, but would prefer not to, as a last resort.

APPLICATION OF RULES

Show Conflicts

If you are in the Recurring or Current Schedule, you can choose View | Show Conflicts from the top drop down menu. Doing so will allow you to see any shifts that are breaking any of your rules, and which rules are being broken. In each shift box there will be a list, in red, of which rules are being violated if any (rules descriptions are highly abbreviated to save room on the page).

Also, Show Conflicts mode can give you assistance when manually assigning shifts. When editing a shift, you can see the employees ordered strategically in the drop down list. Those employees who are not permitted to work the shift, fall to the bottom. Those employees who are permitted to work the shift are at the top. The employees who can work the shift at the top are ordered by who is best for the shift, with the best employee for the shift at the very top. For each employee you will see "GOOD" next to the employee's name if he/she can work the shift, and if the employee would be violating a rule to work the shift, you can see which rule he/she would be violating. You can choose any employee you want, even if he/she is not permitted by the rules. The system will only alert you to a broken rule, but will not stop you from breaking it.

Make sure each rule that you want to apply to the "Show Conflicts" function has a check mark in the rule next to the prompt, "Enforce this rule when in Show Conflicts mode". By default, each rule applies to the "Show Conflicts" function.

Auto-scheduling

The auto-scheduler will attempt to assign an employee to every open (unassigned) shift you have in the week you are scheduling. It looks for the best employee for each shift

Make sure each rule that you want to apply to the auto-scheduler has a check mark in the rule next to the prompt, "Enforce this rule when auto scheduling". By default, each rule applies to the auto-scheduler.

Swapping shifts

If you are allowing employees to swap shifts, rules can be considered when employees swap shifts. If two employees try to make a swap that violates any of the eliminating rules, the swap will not go through and the employee trying to accept the swap receives an error message.

Make sure each rule that you want to apply to the swapping shifts has a check mark in the rule next to the prompt, "Enforce this rule when employees switch shifts". By default, each rule does not apply to swapping.

Signing up for open shifts

If you are allowing employees to sign up for open shifts, rules can be considered when employees sign up. If an employee tries to sign up for a shift that violates any of the eliminating rules, he or she will receive an error message, and will not be able to take the open shift.

Make sure each rule that you want to apply to the auto-scheduler has a check mark in the rule next to the prompt, "Enforce this rule when employees sign up for shifts". By default, each rule does not apply to sign ups.

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