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Shift Type Requirements

Open Shift Type Requirements

Requirements define staffing and who may work each staffed shift. Add coverage for the working shifts and dates you need. Preferred staffing and coefficients are optional refinements.

Real scenario example

The anonymized ward requires three senior nurses on N+ every day. It also sets N to a minimum of 12 and a preferred level of 13 from All Nurses w/o Students. Similar rules cover day and evening shifts. The preferred count is the ward's desired staffing. The minimum is one lower to leave a narrow escape when perfect coverage is impossible. A very large negative weight strongly discourages that shortfall. This is a near-hard preference, not an ordinary choice between 12 and 13. The three N+ senior slots are separate from, and additional to, the 12–13 ordinary N slots.

Senior and general staffing requirements from an anonymized ward

The current example warns about 140 date/shift-type pairs without fixed staffing totals: A on workdays and D~, E~, N~, and K on all dates. Review every warning. An undefined pair can receive an unexpected number of assignments unless other rules control it.

Add coverage requirements

  1. Select Add Requirement.
  2. Select one shift type or group.
  3. Enter Required Number of People.
  4. Select Qualified People and Dates.
  5. Select Add.

Staffing behavior

  • With no preferred value, required is an exact staffing level.
  • With a preferred value, required is the hard minimum and preferred is the hard maximum. The weight penalizes the gap from preferred.
  • Qualified People forbids everyone else from the selected shifts and dates. Use ALL when everyone is eligible.
  • A shift group has one aggregate total across its member shifts.

Refine staffing

Set Preferred Number of People and a negative weight when staffing may vary between a hard minimum and maximum. Leave it empty for an exact requirement. When the preferred level is effectively mandatory but a small shortfall must remain possible, set the minimum one below the preferred level and use a penalty that dominates ordinary preferences. Choose the actual headcount with the ward. The example's numbers are not universal targets.

Shift-type coefficients change how assignments contribute to that aggregate. Leave them at 1 unless the workplace rule requires another contribution. Do not define overlapping coefficients for a shift and a group containing it.

Resolve warnings

Add a requirement for every undefined date and working-shift pair. Review duplicate coverage and remove unintended overlap. Intentional layered requirements are valid, and the solver applies all of them.

Continue with Shift Requests or go directly to Optimize and Export.