Work pattern scheduling

To understand how work-pattern-based scheduling preferences work, it is important to understand how the scheduling engine creates schedules using the work patterns you assign to your employees.

When the scheduling engine creates a schedule for an employee, it uses the set of work patterns that are linked to the employee to determine the types of shifts that it can assign.

Each employee is assigned shifts from only one work pattern Set of shifts in WFM (usually a weekly set of shifts) that are assigned to employees. A work pattern typically includes one or more shifts and possible days off for one week. per week (or month if monthly-based work patterns are defined). The scheduling selects shifts (and, therefore, start times) from that single work pattern. It cannot select shifts from multiple work patterns.

Example: Scheduling with one work pattern assignment

An employee has work pattern X assigned to her (from the User Management Module that an administrator uses to create a profile for each employee in their organization. module, under Employees and Work Rules).

Work pattern X has a shift Work period in WFM that has a definite length. that can start at any of the following times: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 am,

Schedule Result: Employee can be scheduled for a shift that starts at any of the start times (6-11 a.m.).

Example: Scheduling with multiple work pattern assignments

An employee has work patterns A and B assigned to her (from the User Management module, under Employees and Work Rules).

  • Work pattern A has a shift that can start at 6, 7, or 8 am.

  • Work pattern B has a shift that can start at 9, 10, or 11 am.

The scheduling engine selects either work pattern A or work pattern B to generate the employee’s shift assignments.

Schedule Result:

  • The employee starts at either 6, 7, or 8 am for the entire week.

    Or

  • The employee starts at either 9, 10, or 11 am for the entire week.

Because the scheduling engine uses only one work pattern, it is impossible to schedule a combination of 6–11 shifts throughout the week.

Related topics 

Work pattern preferences