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Using Auto-scheduling

Lisa Kirby
  • Updated

What is Auto-scheduling?

Rather than build your schedule shift by shift, you can use Deputy's auto-scheduling features to build a schedule customised to your organisation's needs. 

 

Types of Auto-scheduling

There are several different ways you can use auto-scheduling depending on whether you schedule around the working arrangements you've agreed with your staff or perhaps you prefer to create a schedule to meet the predicted demands of your business.

 

Auto-schedule agreed regular working hours

If you have team members will regular hours they have agreed to work you can use this feature to automatically build the schedule.

Example: Tom has agreed to work 10am-4pm on weekdays and 9am -1pm every Saturday. You can assign these as regular working hours in Tom's employee profile. When you click on Auto-schedule agreed hours a schedule will be created for all employees with regular agreed hours assigned to their profile in the date range you are viewing. Remember to publish your shifts once you are happy with the schedule you have created.

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Note:  If you use Set total hours per period instead of agreed hours, auto schedule will not follow the parameters set by Set total hours per period.  Auto schedule agreed hours can not create/allocate shifts to these employees because it does not know when it could create shifts.

 

Auto-build shift structure and then Auto-fill

If you prefer to create a schedule that responds more to the demands of your business then you can use this feature in a three-step process:

1. Set up your demand signals

2. Automatically build your shift structure based on your demand signals

3. Automatically fill your empty schedule with the most suitable team members

1. Set up your demand signals

Setting up your demand signals should be a one-off task, although you may need to update them or over time to ensure Auto-Scheduling continues to work for the changing needs of your business.  

  • Firstly, you need to determine which metric will be used to determine your labor demand.  You can either simply use the default metric Sales as your demand signal or set up your own custom metric.
  • Once you have decided what metric you would like to determine demand in your organisation then you need to import data for this metric either via:
  • Once you have data imported into your chosen metric, you can then use labor modeling to create rules using the data in your chosen metric to calculate the required number of staff to service all areas of your organisation.
  • If you have known tasks that require a fixed number of staff to complete the task, you can also set up rules to calculate the required team members for this task-based aspect of your business. 
  • Once you have created the rules and calculations you require you can run the labor model to have Deputy calculate the labor demand for each area of your business.
  • You can continue to
    • tweak the data you have input that represents your business demands
    • tweak the rules you have created for each area
    • manually edit the required staff in the required staff editor if you need to override Deputy's labor modeling calculations.

2. Automatically build your shift structure

Once you have set up your business's demand signals and you are happy with the required staff levels that have been calculated, open the Schedule page to the location and date range you wish to schedule for and click on Auto-build shift structure from the drop-down menu.
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In the next pop-up please specify:

  • Shift lengths in hours. You can add more than one shift length, the order will dictate the priority.
  • Shift requirements This refers to the primary logic you would like Auto-Build to use when building your schedule. You can select one of the three options:
    • Required staff - Use the required staff data created in step 1 to determine the number of team members needing to be scheduled in an area (this is the most accurate and recommended option)
    • Minimum Coverage - Looks purely at business operating times and ensures that there’s always a team member working in each area from open until close
    • Based on previous schedules
  • Shift start times. This allows you to select whether team member shift times can start at hourly, 30-minute or 15-minute intervals.

When you click Build shifts Deputy will create empty shifts based on the preferences you added into Auto Build.

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A progress bar will display while Deputy calculates the best shift structure for your business.
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A schedule of empty shifts has now been created in response to your business's demands.
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If it's not quite right you can manually add or delete shifts yourself. Or even start over using bulk delete.

 

3. Automatically fill your empty schedule with the most suitable team members

Note: This function will only fill any empty shifts, it will not automatically fill open shifts.

Once you have your desired empty shift structure from Auto-Build (or even by creating empty shifts manually) you can use the Auto-Fill empty shifts function to fill your shifts with recommended team members.

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A pop-up will appear to select your preferences on how you would like the shifts filled.

  • Cost: Keep cost as low as possible or not important
  • Equal hours: Try to provide equal hours for everybody or not important
  • Learn from me: Learn from past schedules or not important
  • How long do you want to wait?
    • A minute or less (for a good result)
    • A few minutes (for a better result)
    • As long as it takes (grab a coffee, we’ll find the near-optimum result)

Click Auto Fill Shifts.

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A progress bar will display while Deputy calculates the best combination of team members to fill your empty schedule.
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Your schedule will now be filled with recommended team members.
Don't forget to publish your shifts to notify your team members.
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FOR ADVANCED USERS: Advanced Recipes 

In the Auto-fill box there is also a drop-down for Advanced recipes.
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This box allows you to create more articulate parameters behind the autofill process. For example, the following 'recipe' ensures salaried team members work between 40 and 45 hours per week, and makes sure that team members aren't scheduled during early morning and late afternoon regardless of stress profile.

{"scorers":[{"type":"employee_totals","score":10,"params":{"employee_property_name":"Agreement.ContractObject.BasePayRuleObject.RemunerationType","employee_property_match":"2","employee_property_match_type":"eq","compare_value":40,"compare_type":"ge","compare_total":"TotalTime"}},{"type":"employee_totals","score":-20,"params":{"employee_property_name":"Agreement.ContractObject.BasePayRuleObject.RemunerationType","employee_property_match":"2","employee_property_match_type":"eq","compare_value":45,"compare_type":"ge","compare_total":"TotalTime"}},{"type":"field_matches","score":0,"name":"morning_shifts","params":[{"field":"Shift.StartTimeQ.Hour","data":12,"type":"lt"}]},{"type":"field_matches","score":0,"name":"late_shifts","params":[{"field":"Shift.StartTimeQ.Hour","data":18,"type":"ge"}]},{"type":"overlap","score":-10,"params":{"rules":["morning_shifts","late_shifts"],"column":"Shift.Employee"}}]}

For more assistance with advanced recipes, click here.

To begin the auto-fill process, select your preferences and click 'Auto Fill Shifts'.

Read more about Auto-Scheduling from our former CEO, Ashik Ahmed here.

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