Managing Scheduling Rules
What are Scheduling Rules?
With scheduling rules, shift administrators have a powerful tool to ensure scheduling compliance across all business units (locations). These rules can be customized in the "Policy" section under Business Settings in the app.
Each ruleset consists of a label, a validity period (open-ended rules are valid indefinitely), and at least one of the five available rule types. These rules are used to calculate the Schedule Health score for each period and location.
Types of Rules
The following rules can be selected as the compliance constraints:
| Constraint | Description |
|---|---|
Minimum coverage |
Minimum number of staff needed per hour block per work area - depends on the coverage data for each location. |
Prioritize critical shifts |
High-importance shifts – marked as "priority shift" in a coverage template – should never be left empty. |
Maximum availability |
Checks caps on daily/weekly/monthly hours per employee as set in employee profiles. |
Minimum availability |
Guarantees a minimum workload per employee per day/week/month as set in employee profiles. |
Respect approved absences |
Flags conflicts where shifts overlap with approved absences. |
How to Create a Ruleset
- Click on your profile icon in the top right corner and then go "Business Settings". In the "Policy" section under "Scheduling rules" click "Add a rule set".
- Create a new ruleset with:
- a clear label
- a validity period (schedules prior to the start date of the ruleset will be ignored; leaving the end date blank will make the ruleset valid indefinitely)
- one, several or – if left empty – all locations
- at least one of the rule types
- Click "Save"
Best practices
Start simple: enable 1-2 rules first.
Create different rulesets for different periods, ie. normal vs peak seasons. If the validity periods overlap, the system will choose the latest of the rulesets. For example, if validity periods overlap, the system will use the most recently defined ruleset. For example, if a ruleset for the normal season has no end date and a peak season ruleset has both a start and end date, the Schedule Health score will use the "Peak Season" ruleset for any overlapping dates.
Remember that schedules can be edited only for a limited period of time (up to 31 days in the past), so not every Schedule Health scores can be optimized retroactively.