The Scheduler section lets you assign schedule-specific values for a job. In order to generate an accurate and comprehensive weekly schedule, while ensuring that all jobs are automatically scheduled, you must configure the Scheduler section for every job you've created.

Terms and Definitions

Click the image to see a full size screen shot.

Column	Description
Job Rotation Plan	Allows you to apply a rotation plan to a job. You select the previously configured Labor Rotation Plans from the drop-down list.
Assignment Rotation Plan	Allows you to apply a rotation plan to the assignments in the job. You select the previously configured Labor Rotation Plans from the drop-down list.
Balance Schedules	Attempts to schedule the same amount of hours for all employees, if selected. This feature can be particularly useful during slower periods when you want to keep all employees on the schedule. the system will divide the total labor requirements by the number of employees and schedule all of them for the same number of hours.
Scheduling Method	Allows you to determine what criteria is used to prioritize scheduling. By Job Schedule Order. Schedules the employee's Home job first, and then schedules other jobs they are authorized to work. The order is determined in Employee Maintenance. By Seniority. Allows you to have the system create the schedule using employee seniority as the base. By Employee Set. This option is only used by specific clients and should only be chosen if directed to do so by your System Administrator.
Departmental Seniority	Applies the earliest job seniority date in the department and uses that date as the seniority date for all jobs in the same department. Example: For an employee who has a job seniority date of 1/1/2001 as a room attendant and a job seniority date of 1/1/1998 as a houseperson, the departmental seniority date is 1/1/1998 and will be used for determining the assignment of both room attendant and houseperson shifts.
Projected Hours Reduction Method	Allows you to determine how you want to schedule if you have too few employees to cover the projected work. Flat. Creates a schedule with an equal number of hours. For example, if you have 560 hours of available staff but your forecast is for 700 hours, RMS will schedule 80 hours per day as opposed to the 100 hours needed (560/7 = 80). Percent. Creates a schedule based on volume. This selection lets you provide optimum staffing for both high-volume and low-volume days based on percentages. In other words, if you only have staff to cover 80% of your work requirement, RMS will schedule up to 80% of forecast hours for each day.
Planned Shift Sorting Method	Allows you to determine how the Shifts are sorted before scheduling takes place. Each of the methods produce a different weekly schedule. The choice you make is particularly important if the job is typically understaffed. Default. Creates a schedule that starts at the beginning of the week (which you specified when configuring the Property-General tab. If there are not enough available employees, you will be short-staffed at the end of the week. Use this choice when there are a sufficient number of employees to schedule. Peak. Creates a schedule with more hours on higher-volume days and fewer hours on low-volume days. The result may be that high-volume days are covered well, but low-volume days are not. Use this choice often used when there is a shortage of employees to schedule. Modified Peak. Schedules the days that are hardest to fill, first. For example, you may have a lot of employee restrictions on Tuesdays and therefore, fewer employees available on that day. Therefore, Tuesdays would be scheduled before any other days even though Tuesdays may not be your busiest days. Cascade. Begins each iteration of the schedule passes on successive days of the week. For example, if your schedule week starts on Sunday, the first schedule pass will cover Sunday - Saturday, the second schedule pass will cover Monday throug Sunday, etc. By Day. Creates a schedule that starts on the day you specify, and at the top of the list of employees. If you select By Day you will have access to the Day Order list.This scheduling method is similar to Peak, however, you choose the day order rather than having the system automatically order the days. Day Order. Allows you to prioritize which days get scheduled first. By default, Sunday is the start of the work week. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place the days of the week in the priority order you want. Use this choice if you are short-staffed but want to be sure that certain days are fully-staffed. Note that this option is only available if you chose By Day as the Scheduling Method.
Employee Sort Order	Defines the scheduling order for this job. The order you specify determines which employees get scheduled first and how they are chosen. For example, let's say you set the sort order to: 1) Hire Date, 2) Skill Date, and 3) Skill Rank. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place the days of the week in the priority order you want. If you have two employees with the same Hire Date, RMS will progress down the order you specified until it finds a difference and creates the schedule accordingly. If every piece of criteria for two employees are exactly the same, RMS will look at the full-time status of the employees and schedule them before part-time employees. If there are no differences found, RMS will ultimately default to an alpha sort. Full-time. Schedules full-time employees in this job first, and part-time employees second. Job Rank. Schedules employees in this job by skill level. Higher-skilled employees (1 being the highest and 100 the lowest) are scheduled first. Job rank gives the most hours to the most highly-skilled employees. Job Date. Schedules employees in this job by the date the employee was trained for the job. Employees who have worked in this job the longest will be scheduled first. Hire Date. Schedules employees in this job by hire date/seniority. Employees employed the longest will be scheduled first. Alpha. Schedules employees in this job alphabetically. Seniority issues are disregarded. Assignment Rank. Schedules employees in this assignment by skill level. Employee Type. Schedules employees by Employee Type during the scheduling process.
Min. Hours Off	Denotes the minimum number of hours an employee must have off between shifts. If you enter 8 here, and the employee is scheduled from 14:00 - 22:00, the employee will not be scheduled again until 06:00 the next morning. If there is no minimum time off between shifts, enter 0.
Min. Days Off	Denotes the minimum number of consecutive days an employee must have off between shifts. If your policy is to give two consecutive days off, enter 2 in this field so an employee who is scheduled Thursday through Monday will not be scheduled again until Thursday. If you do not have a policy on consecutive days off between shifts, enter 0.
Requires Approval	If selected, schedules for the labor structure level require approval in the Schedule Approvals screen. For more information, see Schedule Approvals.

Warning

The system will NEVER automatically schedule overtime even if you are short-staffed. Overtime must be scheduled manually. If you schedule overtime, the criteria you establish in the Scheduler tab will determine how the overtime is treated.

Configuring the Scheduler Section

Double-click in the Job Rotation Plan and Assignment Rotation Plan and make a selection from the drop-down menus.
Select or de-select Balance Schedules.
Double-click on Scheduling Method and make a selection from the drop-down menu.
Select or de-select Departmental Seniority.
Double-click on Projected Hours Reduction Method, Planned Shift Sorting Method and Employee Sort Order and make selections from the drop-down menus.
Enter an amount for Min. Hours Off and Min. Days Off.

Related topics:

Unable to render {include} The included page could not be found.

Browser not supported