Set up a schedule generation strategy

1. In the Engine Context drop-down, in Actions, select one or more of the following contexts. Note that Generate open shifts and Assign initial open shifts cannot both be selected at the same time.
   • Generate open shifts — Generates shifts that are not assigned to any employees.
   • Generate employee shifts — Employee shifts are generated as shifts that are assigned to employees, but open shifts are not created.
   • Assign initial open shifts — Assigns existing open shifts to employees but does not create shifts. Breaks could be re-assigned according to employee break placement rules.
2. In the Actions on Current Schedule section, select one or more of the following actions: 
   • Overwrite existing open shifts — Allows overwriting existing open shifts. This option is not available if Assign initial open shift A shift that is scheduled for a job, but no employee is assigned to work it. is selected.
   • Overwrite existing employee shifts — Allows overwriting existing employee shifts.
   • Treat manually created shifts as locked — Prevents changes to existing assigned shifts that were created or modified manually, as well as shifts generated through shift patterns. Clear this option to allow schedule generation to remove unlocked shifts even if they are assigned to employees.

   Regardless of this setting, schedule generation can assign any open shifts no matter how these were created.

   This option is only available if one or both of Overwrite existing open shifts and Overwrite existing employee shifts is selected.

   • Overwrite open shift breaks — Modifies breaks according to the break placement rules when schedule generation assigns existing open shifts. This option is only available if Assign initial open shift is selected.

Configure schedule generation to use a cost or hours budget to limit the total weekly cost or the total weekly hours.

• For cost, the budget is calculated from worked hours multiplied by wages.
• For hours, the budget is calculated from worked hours.

1. In the Business Constraints drop-down, in Workload, select one of the following:
   • Plan — For locations that use schedule zone A span of time that repeats on a 24-hour cycle, used to measure coverage. Examples include Day, Evening, and Night zones. sets and workload shift sets A collection of shift types that together comprehensively define workload (staffing) requirements for locations., the planned workload is the number of employees (headcount) from the workload planner Tracks and edits staffing plans that define the number of workers that are needed for each shift or schedule zone and job.. If Forecasting is configured and the locations use forecast labor, the planned workload is the labor forecast.
   • Budget — If Forecasting is configured and labor constraints have been applied to the labor forecast, select Budget to use the system-adjusted labor forecast.
   Note:
   If multiple types of workloads have been configured, the Schedule Generation Engine will consider only one type of workload in the following order:
   • Labor Forecast
   • Shift Set Contains a collection of shifts used to define workload (staffing) requirements for locations. Example: An organization has shifts that the majority of employees work: 7 AM-3 PM and 3 PM-11 PM. Workload
   • Zone Set Contains non-overlapping schedule zones that together comprise a full day based on hours of operation for a location. Workload
2. In Budget Type, select one of the following: 
   • None — Do not use a budget type.
   • Budget Cost From Strategy — Cost defined within Budget Limit Per Week.
   • Budget Hours From Strategy — Hours defined within Budget Limit Per Week.
   • Imported Budget Cost — The imported budget cost value from Forecasting.
   • Imported Budget Hours — The imported budget hours value from Forecasting.
3. If you selected a budget type of Budget Cost From Strategy or Budget Hours From Strategy, define an upper limit to the weekly budget amount in Budget limit per week. Enter a positive value for cost or number of hours.

For budget types Imported Budget Cost or Imported Budget Hours, the budget limit comes from Forecasting.

4. If you select a budget type of Budget Cost From Strategy, select a currency in Budget limit per week currency.
5. Select the currency of the employees or open shift wage costs. To use the default currency settings from the system configuration, select None.

Note: The open shift wages for a job are defined in Location Settings, given the corresponding Business Structure Represents the logical structure of an organization as it concerns staffing. It contains the locations and jobs to which an employee may be assigned..

5. Use the Budget tolerance percentage field to add flexibility to Budget limit per week. Specify an integer value greater than or equal to —100%.

• Negative values: The Budget limit per week is considered as a hard limit. The soft limit is the lower bound of the tolerance range. For example, if the defined Budget tolerance percentage is -10, the tolerance range will run from 90% of Budget limit per week to Budget limit per week.

• Positive values: The Budget limit per week is considered as a soft limit. The hard limit is the upper bound of the tolerance range. For example, if the defined Budget tolerance percentage is 10, the tolerance range will run from Budget limit per week to 110% of Budget limit per week.

In the Shift Rules drop-down, specify one or more of the following:

• In Shift template profile to use, select a shift template profile. Shift templates are used to control the borders and content of the shifts generated by the engine. Select one of the following: 

• Current User's Shift Template Profile (Default) — Limit the shift templates used by the engine to only the shift template profile configured in the data access profile of the user generating the schedule. If the user does not have a shift template profile configured in their data access profile, the behavior is the same as the Empty setting.
• All Shift Templates — Use all available shift templates for the schedule generation.

• Empty Profile — No shift template is considered. If there are shift profiles configured, they will be considered. Otherwise, there is no restriction on the borders of the shifts generated by the engine.

• Other listed shift template profiles — Only the shift templates in that profile will be considered.

Note: If shift profile sets are also configured, the shift templates that do not conform to the shift profile sets for a given employee (or for open shifts) will not be used for that employee (or for open shifts). The maximum number of selected shift templates is 50. An error will occur if this limit is exceeded.

• If Generate open shifts is selected in Engine Context > Actions:

  • In Shift profile sets for open shifts, select one or more shift profile sets from the list. Schedule generation can use shift profile sets that define start times, end times, and shift durations when it generates open shifts.

• If Generate employee shifts is selected in Engine Context > Actions:

  • In Shift segment Parts of shifts that are assigned to a job in the business structure, either primary or transfer jobs. tags, select one or more segment tags from the list that the engine can build around when it generates shifts. For example, shift segments that are tagged for Training.

• Allow break in segment tags — Select to allow breaks in shifts that are built around segment tags. For example, allow a break during a long meeting. This option is not available if you have not selected any shift segment tags.

• Ignore break placement rules — Select to not assign breaks within the generated shifts.

• Allow multi-job shifts — Select to allow shifts to contain multiple segments for different jobs. Define the shortest length of shift segments in Minimum job segment length. This option is selected by default. It is not available when Assign shifts to primary job only is selected.

• Assign shifts to primary job only — Select to generate shifts only for the primary job of employees. This option is not available when Allow multi-job shifts is selected.

• In Restrict job transfer set to scheduling context, select the scheduling context from the list. The jobs in the transfer set of the employees that are not in the scheduling context are ignored.

This option is not available when Assign shifts to primary job only is selected.

• Minimum job segment length — This setting considers breaks in the calculation of the minimum segment length (for the calculation before, during or after the job). The default value is 0:00. This option is only available when Allow multi-job shifts is selected.

For example, if you need a minimum two-hour shift segment for a job, the schedule generation engine can produce a shift with one hour for Job1, one hour for a break, and one hour for Job2. The break will be included in Job1 and Job2 for the calculation of the minimum length.

• Single-location type — This setting identifies under which type of physical location (as defined in Jobs and Business Structure) employees can be transferred during the same shift, taking into account their Job assignments and qualifications defined within People Information. This option is only available when Allow multi-job shifts is selected.

Users may need to prevent scheduling employees to be transferred to different physical locations on the same shift, and for example, having to account for an employee spending time traveling between locations.

Do one of the following:

• Select the Location Type at which level transfers are allowed.

• Select None to have no restriction on employee transfers taken into account.

When a Location Type is specified, an employee cannot be transferred on the same shift to different locations of the specified type. However, they can be transferred as follows: 

• On the same shift to other jobs within the same location.

• On the same shift to other jobs in locations whose location type is not the same as the chosen one if there are not any parent locations of the selected location type.

• To a different location of the same location type on different shifts.

The Employee Schedule drop-down is only available when the Generate employee shifts option is selected.

1. In Default Preferences (%), specify percentages for the following parameters, either by dragging the slider bar or by specifying the value in the text field. Valid values are 0 to 100.

• Preferred availability — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of scheduling employees during their preferred availability.

• High value = The preference is more important.
• Low value = The preference is less important.
• To ignore preferred availability, enter 0.

• Employee preferred job — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of scheduling employees to their preferred job.

• High value = The preference is more important.
• Low value = The preference is less important.
• To ignore preferred job, enter 0.

Note: Employee job preferences can be edited in People Information > Timekeeping > Employee Role.

• Preferred hours per week — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of scheduling employees to their preferred number of hours each week.

• High value = The preference is more important.
• Low value = The preference is less important.
• To ignore preferred hours each week, enter 0.

• Preferred day off — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of not scheduling employees during their preferred unavailability periods.

• High value = The preference is more important.
• Low value = The preference is less important.
• To ignore preferred days off, enter 0.

• Most hours per week — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of scheduling employees to their preferred maximum number of hours each week.

• High value = The preference is more important.
• Low value = The preference is less important.
• To ignore the most hours each week, enter 0.
• Earliest Shift — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of scheduling employees to work the earliest shifts in the day.
  • High value = The preference is more important.
  • Low value = The preference is less important.
  • To ignore a preference for the earliest shifts, enter 0.

• Longest shift — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of scheduling employees to work the longest shifts that are available.

• High value = The preference is more important.
• Low value = The preference is less important.
• To ignore a preference for the longest shifts, enter 0.
2. In Availability Override, select one or both of the following options:

• Allow shifts when availability is undefined

• Allow overlap with unavailability

3. In Employee Priority, select one of the following options in the Employee prioritization list:

• None — Setting is not enabled.

• By Group — Select one or more groups from the Group priority list.

• By Custom Field — Select a custom field in the Custom field drop-down.

• By Group then Custom Field — Select one or more groups from the Group priority list, then select a custom field in the Custom field drop-down.

4. In Hours Distribution, select an option for how to distribute hours:

• According to employee preferences

• Equalize hours by priority level

• Equalize hours by group priority

• Equalize hours for all employees

• Priority-based hours balancing — Enter a value to control how hours are distributed amongst employees relative to their seniority as follows:

  • High value = Distributing hours to the more senior employees is less important; encourages fairness between senior and junior employees
  • Low value = Distributing hours to the more senior employees is more important; favors senior employees by to the detriment of junior employees

  • To not control how hours are distributed, enter 0.

  Note:

  When this setting has a value of 100%, employees should receive — as much as possible — the same number of hours worked during the week. Several factors may impact this objective:

  • under- and over-coverage of demand, which is typically the dominant goal
  • minimum and maximum number of hours worked per week, defined per employee
  • shift-length restrictions
  • other factors, such as the employee availability

  For more information, see Configure Hours Distribution for Employee Priority Groups.

  In the Incomparable Employee Group Type list, select either By primary job, Custom group, or Group all employees. If you select Custom group, select an option in Incomparable groups.

1. In the Coverage section:

   Three default coverages are configured: Minimize Overcoverage, Minimize Undercoverage, and Minimize Open Shift Creation. You can select an existing coverage and either Edit or Delete it, or Add a new type of coverage.

   1. To add a new coverage setting, click Add.
   2. In Create Engine Calibration Settings – Coverage:
      1. In Name, select a coverage setting from the list:
      2. Minimize Overcoverage
         • High value = Minimizing over-coverage is more relevant.
         • Low value = Minimizing over-coverage is less relevant.
         • To ignore over-coverage, enter 0.
      3. Minimize Undercoverage
         • High value = Minimizing under-coverage is more relevant.
         • Low value = Minimizing under-coverage is less relevant.
         • To ignore over-coverage, enter 0.
      4. Minimize Open Shift Creation — Enter a value to minimize coverage by open shifts as follows:
         • High value = Minimizing coverage by open shifts is more relevant.
         • Low value = Minimizing coverage by open shifts is less relevant.
         • To ignore over-coverage, enter 0.
      5. Skill and Certification Undercoverage Weight — Enter a relative value to minimize under-coverage of the Skills and Certifications organizational rules as follows:
         • High value = Minimizing under-coverage is more relevant.
         • Low value = Minimizing under-coverage is less relevant.
         • To ignore under-coverage, enter 0
      6. In Weight, enter the weight or use the slider.
      7. In Job Group, select a job group from the list. If there is an existing coverage configured, the associated job group is not available to select.
      8. Click Save.
2. In the Organization section: 
   1. Click Add.
   2. In Create Engine Calibration Settings – Organization:
      1. In Name, select either Weekly Budget Weight or Grouped Arrival Weight. If the Budget tolerance percentage in Business Constraints is set to 0, the Weekly Budget Weight option is not available.
      2. In Weight, enter the weight or use the slider.
      3. Click Save.
3. In the Employee section: 
   1. In Emphasize minimum hours, select one of the following: 
      • None (default) — Setting is not enabled.
      • Weekly Hours — Emphasize the minimum hours per week rules.
      • Period Hours — Emphasize the minimum period hours rules.
      • All — Emphasize minimum hours per week and minimum period hours rules.
   2. Click Add.
   3. In Create Engine Calibration Settings – Employee:
      1. In Name, select an employee setting from the list:
         • Satisfy Minimum Hours — Enter a weight to set a penalty for scheduling fewer than the minimum number of hours each period of time for any employee. This applies to minimum hours per week rules, minimum period hours rules, and schedule event rules of amount type.
           • High value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum hours is more penalized.
           • Low value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum hours is less penalized.
           • To ignore the minimum number of hours each week, enter 0.
         • Satisfy Minimum Days Per Week — Enter a weight to set the importance of scheduling a minimum number of days each week for any employee.
           • High value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum days is more penalized.
           • Low value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum days is less penalized.
           • To ignore the minimum days per week, enter 0.
         • Satisfy Minimum Event Occurrences — Enter a weight to set a penalty for scheduling fewer than the minimum number of event occurrences for any employee, including the minimum number of weekends off.
           • High value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum event occurrences off is more penalized.
           • Low value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum event occurrences off is less penalized.
           • To ignore the minimum number of event occurrences off, enter 0.
         • Overall Employee Preferences — Enter a weight to set the penalty for not accounting for employee preferences in a schedule.
           • High value = The employee preferences are more important.
           • Low value = The employee preferences are less important.
           • To ignore employee preferences, enter 0.

           • Enter the relative importance of each type of employee preference.

           Best practice: To preserve good workload coverage, using reasonable values (for example, maximum 1/10 of the lower penalty among Minimize Overcoverage/Undercoverage) is highly recommended.

         Note: If the sum of percentages for all different preferences does not reach 100%, they will be normalized to sum up exactly to 100%.

         • Worker Type Hour Equalization — Enter a weight to set the importance of the Hour Distribution by Worker Type setting in relation to workload coverage and employee preferences.
           •  High value = Equalization of employee hours is more important.
           •  Low value = Equalization of employee hours is less important.
           •  To ignore equalization, enter 0.
         • Group Employee Days Off Together — Enter a weight to minimize the number of non-consecutive days off that are scheduled for any employee.
         • High value = Scheduling days off consecutively is more important.
         • Low value = Scheduling days off consecutively is less important.
         • To not prioritize consecutive days off, enter 0.
         • Stable Schedule — Enter a weight to set the importance of consistent shift start times between off days. Schedule stability applies to all shifts that are scheduled between these off days and does not carry over from one week to the next. Consistency resets after off periods.
         • High value = Schedule stability is more important.
         • Low value = Schedule stability is less important.
         • To ignore the consistency of shift start times and durations, enter 0.
      2. In Weight, enter the weight or use the slider.
      3. Click Save.

When you have completed the setup:

1. Click Save.
2. Create a schedule generation profile and assign the schedule generation setup to one or more locations. See Configure a schedule generation profile for more information.

In Shift Rules, specify one or more of the following:

• Ignore break placement rules — Select to not assign breaks within the generated shifts.

• Restrict job transfer set to scheduling context — Select the scheduling context from the list. The jobs in the transfer set of the employees that are not in the scheduling context are ignored.

This option is not available when Assign shifts to primary job only is selected.

• Minimum job segment length — This setting considers breaks in the calculation of the minimum segment length (for the calculation before, during or after the job). The default value is 0:00. This option is only available when Allow multi-job shifts is selected.

For example, if you need a minimum two-hour shift segment for a job, the schedule generation engine can produce a shift with one hour for Job1, one hour for a break, and one hour for Job2. The break will be included in Job1 and Job2 for the calculation of the minimum length.

• Single-location type — This setting identifies under which type of physical location (as defined in Jobs and Business Structure) employees can be transferred during the same shift, taking into account their Job assignments and qualifications defined within People Information. This option is only available when Allow multi-job shifts is selected.

Users may need to prevent scheduling employees to be transferred to different physical locations on the same shift, and for example, having to account for an employee spending time traveling between locations.

Do one of the following:

• Select the Location Type at which level transfers are allowed.

• Select None to have no restriction on employee transfers taken into account.

When a Location Type is specified, an employee cannot be transferred on the same shift to different locations of the specified type. However, they can be transferred as follows: 

• On the same shift to other jobs within the same location.

• On the same shift to other jobs in locations whose location type is not the same as the chosen one if there are not any parent locations of the selected location type.

• To a different location of the same location type on different shifts.

In Employee Schedule:

1. In Default Preferences (%), specify percentages for the following parameter, either by dragging the slider bar or by specifying the value in the text field. Valid values are 0 to 100.

• Employee preferred job — Enter a percentage to set the relative importance of scheduling employees to their preferred job.

• High value = The preference is more important.
• Low value = The preference is less important.
• To ignore preferred job, enter 0.

Note: Employee job preferences can be edited in People Information > Timekeeping > Employee Role.

2. In Employee Priority, select one of the following options in the Employee prioritization list:

   • None — Setting is not enabled.

   • By Group — Select one or more groups from the Group priority list.

   • By Custom Field — Select a custom field in the Custom field drop-down.

   • By Group then Custom Field — Select one or more groups from the Group priority list, then select a custom field in the Custom field drop-down.

1. In the Coverage section, three default coverages are configured: Minimize Overcoverage, Minimize Undercoverage, and Minimize Open Shift Creation. You can select an existing coverage and either Edit or Delete it, or Add a new type of coverage.
2. To add a new coverage setting, click Add.
3. In Create Engine Calibration Settings – Coverage:
   1. In Name, select a coverage setting from the list:
   2. Minimize Overcoverage
      • High value = Minimizing over-coverage is more relevant.
      • Low value = Minimizing over-coverage is less relevant.
      • To ignore over-coverage, enter 0.
   3. Minimize Undercoverage
      • High value = Minimizing under-coverage is more relevant.
      • Low value = Minimizing under-coverage is less relevant.
      • To ignore over-coverage, enter 0.
   4. Minimize Open Shift Creation — Enter a value to minimize coverage by open shifts as follows:
      • High value = Minimizing coverage by open shifts is more relevant.
      • Low value = Minimizing coverage by open shifts is less relevant.
      • To ignore over-coverage, enter 0.
   5. Skill and Certification Undercoverage Weight — Enter a relative value to minimize under-coverage of the Skills and Certifications organizational rules as follows:
      • High value = Minimizing under-coverage is more relevant.
      • Low value = Minimizing under-coverage is less relevant.
      • To ignore under-coverage, enter 0
   6. In Weight, enter the weight or use the slider.
   7. In Job Group, select a job group from the list. If there is an existing coverage configured, the associated job group is not available to select.
   8. Click Save.
4. In Employee: 
   1. In Emphasize minimum hours, select one of the following: 
      • None (default) — Setting is not enabled.
      • Weekly Hours — Emphasize the minimum hours per week rules.
      • Period Hours — Emphasize the minimum period hours rules.
      • All — Emphasize minimum hours per week and minimum period hours rules.
   2. Click Add.
   3. In Create Engine Calibration Settings – Employee:
   4. In Name, select an employee setting from the list:
      • Satisfy Minimum Hours — Enter a weight to set a penalty for scheduling fewer than the minimum number of hours each period of time for any employee. This applies to minimum hours per week rules, minimum period hours rules, and schedule event rules of amount type.
        • High value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum hours is more penalized.
        • Low value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum hours is less penalized.
        • To ignore the minimum number of hours each week, enter 0.
      • Satisfy Minimum Days Per Week — Enter a weight to set the importance of scheduling a minimum number of days each week for any employee.
        • High value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum days is more penalized.
        • Low value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum days is less penalized.
        • To ignore the minimum days per week, enter 0.
      • Satisfy Minimum Event Occurrences — Enter a weight to set a penalty for scheduling fewer than the minimum number of event occurrences for any employee, including the minimum number of weekends off.
        • High value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum event occurrences off is more penalized.
        • Low value = Scheduling fewer than the minimum event occurrences off is less penalized.
        • To ignore the minimum number of event occurrences off, enter 0.
      • Overall Employee Preferences — Enter a weight to set the penalty for not accounting for employee preferences in a schedule.
        • High value = The employee preferences are more important.
        • Low value = The employee preferences are less important.
        • To ignore employee preferences, enter 0.

        • Enter the relative importance of each type of employee preference.

        Best practice: To preserve good workload coverage, using reasonable values (for example, maximum 1/10 of the lower penalty among Minimize Overcoverage/Undercoverage) is highly recommended.

      Note: If the sum of percentages for all different preferences does not reach 100%, they will be normalized to sum up exactly to 100%.

      • Worker Type Hour Equalization — Enter a weight to set the importance of the Hour Distribution by Worker Type setting in relation to workload coverage and employee preferences.
        •  High value = Equalization of employee hours is more important.
        •  Low value = Equalization of employee hours is less important.
        •  To ignore equalization, enter 0.
      • Group Employee Days Off Together — Enter a weight to minimize the number of non-consecutive days off that are scheduled for any employee.
      • High value = Scheduling days off consecutively is more important.
      • Low value = Scheduling days off consecutively is less important.
      • To not prioritize consecutive days off, enter 0.
      • Stable Schedule — Enter a weight to set the importance of consistent shift start times between off days. Schedule stability applies to all shifts that are scheduled between these off days and does not carry over from one week to the next. Consistency resets after off periods.
      • High value = Schedule stability is more important.
      • Low value = Schedule stability is less important.
      • To ignore the consistency of shift start times and durations, enter 0.
   5. In Weight, enter the weight or use the slider.
   6. Click Save.
5. Click Save.