Creating an optimal roster for a team of employees based on forecasted demand and taking into account extensive labor agreement rules & constraints.

Based on last weeks sales, last planning, predicted weather, revenue and reservations, a clear demand can be generated used as base occupation per skill, per location, per time block.
Collective Work Agreements are numerous and complex. Our optimisation already takes into account hundreds of specific employee constraints. Not enough? Simply create your own work rules.
Not only automagically generate a plan in seconds, but define what is important in the optimisation. Is financial wage cost minimisation more important than fairness? It's just a parameter. Our advanced mathematical solver engine can handle any request.

Input

Shift scheduling is about fairly distributing shifts among employees according to capacity requirements, specialism constraints, preferences, shift types and CAO agreements.

{
  "solver": "SHIFT",
  "demand": [ ... ],
  "employees": [ ... ],
  "options": {
    "shiftBlocksPerDay": 24
  }
}

The structure of a basic workforce planning model is as follows:

Property	Value
demand	Array of Shift Demands
statutes	Array of Statutes
employees	Array of Employees
options	A list of options for the scheduling problem

Shift Demands

{
  "shift": {
    ...
  },
  "skill": "Kitchen"
  "prefDemand": 2,
  "minDemand": 1,
  "maxDemand": 3
}

The list of shift demands represents the workstation/skill shift blocks to which it is required/necessary to assign (an) employee(s).

Property	Value	Description	Required
shift	Shift Block	the shift block object	Required
skill	String	the skill/workstation	Required
prefDemand	Integer	the preferred demand for that shift block	Required
minDemand	integer	the minimal demand for that shift block	Optional
maxDemand	integer	the maximal demand for that shift block	Optional

Shift Blocks

{
  "date": "2018-11-14",
  "index": 0,
}

A shift block object consists of a date and a unique index for that block on that date. In combination with the number of shift blocks per day (see: Options), the user has full control of the detail/granularity of the demand profile that can be modeled. Please note, that an index larger than shiftBlocksPerDay can be provided: to model demand from the day after that should logically by filled in with shifts starting this day. E.g. an index 26 (with "shiftBlocksPerDay": 24) represents 01:00 of the following day.

Property	Value	Description	Required
date	String	the date of the shift block (in "YYYY-MM-DD")	Required
index	Integer	the index of the shift block	Required

Statutes

{
  "name": "FIX",
  "minShiftLength": 3,
  "maxShiftLength": 11,
  "minRestBetweenShifts": 12,
  "maxConsecutiveWorkDays": 6,
  "maxHrsPerWeek": 50,
  "minHrsPerWeek": 10,
  "shiftStart": 0.0,
  "latestShiftStart": 24.0,
  "shiftEnd": 22.0,
  "minHoursMonth": 100,
  "maxHoursMonth": 200,
  "overTimeThreshold1": 9.0,
  "overTimeRaise1": 1.2,
  "overTimeThreshold2": 11.0,
  "overTimeRaise2": 1.5,
  "overTimeWeeklyThreshold1": 38,
  "overTimeWeeklyRaise1": 1.5,
  "nightlyThreshold1": 20.0,
  "nightlyRaise": 1.5
}

The list of statutes contain CAO specific parameters and the information with respect to the renumeration of the employees.

Property	Value	Description	Required
name	String	the name of a statues: e.g. "FIX", "PARTTIME", "STUDENT", ...	Required
minShiftLength	Integer	The minimum number of hours in a shift for an employee	Required
maxShiftLength	Integer	The maximum number of hours in a shift for this employee	Required
minRestBetweenShifts	Integer	The minimum duration (in hours) of a rest period between two shifts for this employee	Required
maxConsecutiveWorkDays	Integer	The maximum days consecutive that this employee can be working	Required
maxHrsPerWeek	Integer	The maximum number of hours this employee can be working in a week	Required
minHrsPerWeek	Integer	The minimum number of hours this employee should be working in a week	Required
shiftStart	Double	The earliest this employee can start working (expressed as decimal in 24 hour-format)	Required
latestShiftStart	Double	The latest this employee can start working (expressed as decimal in 24 hour-format)	Required
shiftEnd	Double	The latest this employee can work on a day (expressed as decimal in 24 hour-format)	Required
minHoursMonth	Integer	The minimum hours per month this employee should be working	Required
maxHoursMonth	Integer	The maximum hours per month this employee should be working	Required
overTimeThreshold1	Double	The first time threshold for overtime (expressed as decimal in 24 hour-format)	Required
overTimeRaise1	Double	The raise after the first time threshold for overtime (e.q. 1.2 means a 20% raise per hour)	Required
overTimeThreshold2	Double	The second time threshold for overtime (expressed as decimal in 24 hour-format)	Required
overTimeRaise2	Double	The raise after the second time threshold for overtime (e.q. 1.2 means a 20% raise per hour)	Required
overTimeWeeklyThreshold1	Integer	The number of hours per week after which a "weekly overtime" raise should be given	Required
overTimeWeeklyRaise1	Double	The weekly overtime raise (e.q. 1.2 means a 20% raise per hour)	Required
nightlyThreshold1	Double	The time threshold to be considered for a night raise (expressed as decimal in 24 hour-format)	Required
nightlyRaise	Double	The raise after the first time threshold for overtime (e.q. 1.2 means a 20% raise per hour)	Required

Employees

{
  "name": "E0",
  "statute": "FIX",
  "skill": [
    "Kitchen",
    "Restaurant",
  ],
  "hourlyPay": 11,
  "efficiency": 1,
  "preferences": [
        {
          "start": "2019-08-09T18:00:00",
          "end": "2019-08-10T02:00:00"
        }
      ],
  "hoursWorkedThisMonth": 0,
  "lastRestDate": "2019-03-04"
}

The employees to assign to the shift block demands are defined as follows.

Property	Value	Description	Required
name	String	Employee name or reference	Required
statute	String	The statute of the employee	Required
skill	Array of Strings	The skills/workstations this employee can man	Required
hourlyPay	Double	The hourly wage for the employee	Required
efficiency	Double	The efficiency of the employee: e.g. two new employees (efficiency: 0.5) are needed to replace an employee with more experience	Required
preferences	Array of shift preference objects	The preferred working hours for this employee.
hoursWorkedThisMonth	Integer	The number of hours this employee has already worked this month	Required
lastRestDate	Date	The date of last 36-hour rest period for this employee (in "YYYY-MM-DD")	Required

Shift preferences

The shift preferences for the employees can be submitted using shift preference objects:

Property	Value	Description	Required
start	LocalDateTime	The start of the preferred shift	Required
end	LocalDateTime	The end of the preferred shift	Required

Assignments

Assignments can be submitted in the solve request to the workforceplanning model for different reasons:

To fix certain pre-defined assignments (set "locked" : "true");
To set holidays, days-off or sick leave for an employee (set "locked" : "true" and set the skill of this assignment to a skill for which there is no demand given in the model, e.g. "skill" : "Unavailable");
To communicate the performed shifts of the last day of the previous planning period (i.e. last week);

 {
  "id": 1,
  "date": "2019-03-07",
  "employee": "E0",
  "skill": "Restaurant",
  "startDateTime": "2019-03-07T00:00:00",
  "endDateTime": "2019-03-07T21:00:00",
  "locked": true,
  "countAsWorkingHours": false,  
  "costs": { ... }
}

Property	Value	Description	Required for Input
id	Integer	A unique identifier for the assignment	Required
date	LocalDate	The date of the assignment.	Required
employee	String	The name of the assigned employee	Required
skill	String	The skill/workstation this employee is assigned to	Required
start	Integer	The starting shiftblock	Required
duration	Integer	The duration, expressed in shiftblocks	Required
startDateTime	LocalDateTime	The starting hour for the assignment	Optional
endDateTime	LocalDateTime	The end hour for the assignment	Optional
locked	Boolean	If this assignment is locked for the optimization or not.	Optional
countAsWorkingHours	Boolean	If this assignment should be included in working hours per week/ month etc. constraints.	Optional
costs	Costs	The cost object associated with this assignment (see under)	Optional

Solution

{
  "E0": [
    {
      "date": "2018-11-14",
      "index": 4
    },
    {
      "date": "2018-10-14",
      "index": 5
    },
    {
      "date": "2018-10-14",
      "index": 6
    }
  ],   
  "E1": [
    {
      "date": "2018-11-14",
      "index": 8
    }
  ]
}

When the problem is solved, the solution object returns the assigned Timeblocks per employee.
The assignments can also be found in the ShiftAssignments object. The assignment submitted in the solve request (if any) will be added to the ones constructed to solve the problem.
Once solved, The following objects can also be retrieved from the Employees object:

Hours
Costs

In addition, an aggregate Costs object can also be retrieved from the json, combining the costs of all employees.

Hours

{
  "hours": 12,
  "nightTimeHours": 2.5,
  "overTime1Hours": 0,
  "overTime2Hours": 0,
  "weeklyOverTimeHours": 0
}

Property	Value	Description
hours	Double	The total number of hours assigned to this employee this planning period
nightTimeHours	Double	The number of hours, after the night threshold, assigned to this employee this planning period
overTime1Hours	Double	The number of hours, after the first daily overtime threshold, assigned to this employee this planning period
overTime2Hours	Double	The number of hours, after the second daily overtime threshold, assigned to this employee this planning period
weeklyOverTimeHours	Double	The number of hours, after the weekly overtime threshold, assigned to this employee this planning period

Costs

{
  "hourCost": 132,
  "nightTimeCost": 13.75,
  "overTime1Cost": 0,
  "overTime2Cost": 0,
  "weeklyOverTimeCost": 0
}

Property	Value	Description
hourCost	Double	The hour cost for this employee this planning period (excl. overtime, nightime, ...)
nightTimeCost	Double	The cost associated with the hours, after the night threshold, for this employee this planning period
overTime1Cost	Double	The cost associated with the hours, after the first daily overtime threshold, for this employee this this planning period
overTime2Cost	Double	The cost associated with the hours, after the second daily overtime threshold, for this employee this this planning period
weeklyOverTimeCost	Double	The cost associated with the hours, after the weekly overtime threshold, for this employee this this planning period

options

{
  "shiftBlocksPerDay": 24,
  "includeShiftPreferences:": false  
}

The definition of the options.

Property	Value	Description	Required
shiftBlocksPerDay	Integer	The number of blocks in a day	Required
includeShiftPreferences	Boolean	Whether the shift preferences should be accommodated maximally	optional
startDate	Date	A reference date for this planning period	optional