October 19th 2023, Release Note: WFM UK | Revenue-Based Scheduling: Auto-Scheduler

Summary

Release date: October 19th 2023

Before switching on, please reach out to your dedicated Fourth representative.

This functionality is only supported for Fourth's Revenue-Based Scheduling (full Labour Productivity Schedule by Demand, Performance Edition) customers and interacts with their existing workload metrics. If any adjustments to customer workload metrics are needed, they will require the expertise of Fourth’s Labour Productivity consultancy team. Please be aware that there will be an additional charge for these services.

It’s important to note that inaccurate or poor-quality data, whether from your workload rules or sales data, can have a significant impact on the output. If you are seeing abnormal or unexpected results, it’s likely due to data issues.

In such cases, we strongly recommend having your data reviewed by Fourth's consultancy team. To explore this further, or for detailed assistance, please reach out to your dedicated Fourth representative.

• Enabled by default? - No
• Set up by customer Admin? - Yes
• Enable via support ticket? - No
• Affects configuration or data? - Yes

What’s Changing?

A new 'Auto-Scheduler' tab on the Scheduling page will allow for the creation of open shifts needed to fulfil the configured Labour demand. The system will automatically suggest the number of shifts needed in each job role and time slot to deliver the required number of team members.

Each location has its own set of metrics that are used in the labour demand generation.

• Fixed Tasks - Fixed labour demand
• Minimum Staffing Levels - Minimum required labour demand by job role
• Variable Workload Rule - Variable workload rule, increasing labour demand based on the number of sales items

Reason for the Change

The Auto-Scheduler generates the shifts needed to fulfil each area's labour demand, allowing businesses to avoid overstaffing or understaffing. This functionality also takes away the emotional connection of creating shifts for employees.

Customers Affected

All Revenue-Based Scheduling customers who have activated the functionality. 

Video Guide

Release Notes

Configuration

The Auto-Scheduler needs to be enabled for each Revenue-Based department.

• Go to Settings > Departments and select the Department for which to enable the Auto-Scheduler
• Tick the box against Auto Scheduler Enabled - applying this setting only will fulfil the labour demand by job role and not by area
• Fulfil Labour Demand By Area - by applying this setting as well, the Auto-Scheduler will generate the shifts needed to fulfil the area's labour demand

Fig.1 - Department setting for enabling the Auto-scheduler

Once the Auto-scheduler is enabled, the Auto Scheduler settings appear just below the admin settings:

Fig.2 - Auto Scheduler settings menu

Additional Settings

To see the open shifts generated on the Demand graph and on the Schedule page, some extra settings need to be applied by an administrator.

• Go to the Scheduling home page
• Select Settings Setup & Management
• Select Edit against the required Organisation
• Under 'Organisation Configuration' scroll down and tick the box against Include Open shifts in Labour Demand Graph

Fig.3 - Org. setting Include Open shifts in Labour Demand Graph

• Still in the 'Organisation Configuration' scroll down and tick the box against Open shifts enabled

Fig.4 - Org. setting Open shifts Enabled

• Then Save

At Location level, Open Shifts Enabled must be also enabled by an administrator user. 

• Go to Settings > Locations > Find Location and select Edit
• Tick the box against Open shift Enabled and select Save

Fig.5 - Location setting Open shifts Enabled

Shift Generation Settings

The Auto-Scheduler has been implemented to allow for each Location to have its own set of Auto-Scheduler settings against individual Areas.

• Logged in at the required Location, go to Settings > Auto-Scheduler > Settings (left side menu)

Each Area will be listed, with the following options:

• Exclude - excludes any shift generation for the labour demand of the selected Area.
• Min Shift Length by Area - allows for the user to configure the minimum shift length for a job role within the selected Area of that Department
• Max Shift Length by Area - allows the user to configure the maximum shift length for a job role within the selected Area of that Department
• Late Shift Start Time - the Latest shift start time of a shift within the selected Area. 
• Overstaffing Position - when shifts are created, if there is not enough labour demand to fulfil a minimum shift length this is where overstaffing is set to occur
  • Equal overstaffing (before and after the required hours)
  • After overstaffing is after the required hours the shift starts when the required hours are needed
  • Before overstaffing is before the required hours all required hours are at the end of the shift
• Correct percentage for overstaffing  - when there is labour demand that needs fulfilling, the system checks how many hours will be deployed when a shift is created. If the Correct percent for overstaffing is less than the required demand, no shift is created
  • For example, if a shift had a minimum length of 4 hours, the 'Correct %' was set at 50% and only 1 hour was fulfilling labour demand, then a shift would not be created. If it was set to 25% then a shift would be created
• Always Overstaffing - if enabled, at least a shift duration of the minimum shift length will be created to always fulfil labour demand

Fig.6- Auto Scheduler settings

Running Auto-Scheduler

• Go to the Scheduling tab
• Select the AutoScheduler tab on the left side and then Run Auto-Scheduler

Fig.7 - Auto Scheduler tab and button

A pop-up will be displayed.

• Select the days of that scheduled week to have shifts created for - all days will be selected by default - and then select Create Shifts

Fig.8 - Select the days of the week for which you would like to generate shifts

Auto-Scheduler will calculate and generate the shifts needed to fulfil the forecasted labour demand and assign them as open shifts. Shifts will only be generated for current and future days. Any past days will automatically be disabled from shift generation.  

Fig.9 - Generated shifts

On the above example, the Auto-Scheduler algorithm has generated 226 shifts and 3 shifts on Monday for the job role with initial C and time slot 17:15- 20:15.

In the new Actions menu, the following actions are available:

• Run Auto Scheduler - it will run the algorithm again if no changes are done since the previous run, no new shifts will be generated and a message will appear onscreen (see Fig.8)
• Convert as Open Shifts - it will assign all shifts in the auto-scheduler in the open shifts area
• Delete Unassigned Shifts - the shifts that are not assigned or moved to the open shift area of the Schedule could be automatically deleted

Fig.10 - Actions

Fig.11 - No new shifts have been generated

• By selecting a day from the Schedule, the same day is selected in the auto-scheduler as well. If you click on the deployment graph this same day will be opened
• You can assign shifts from the auto-scheduler by clicking/tapping (if you are using a tablet) scrolling to the employee and then clicking/tapping again
• You can use the filters in the refinement bar to make the assignment process even more easy:

Fig.12 - Refinement bar filtering options

1- You can search by the name of the employee so that you can assign them a shift generated from the auto-scheduler

2 - You can filter the auto-scheduler shifts by area and at the same time the Schedule is also filtered by the same area

3 - You can filter by a job role, it will filter the Schedule and the Auto-Scheduler shifts. 

4 - You can use this arrow to hide the auto-scheduler and see the Schedule on the whole screen, by clicking on the arrow again you will display again the auto-scheduler.