Why ScheduleDrafter?

Fair.

Fridays for Fridays. Weekends for weekends. When the schedule is fair, no points are exchanged. When the schedule is unfair, Friday night for a Wednesday day, weekdays for weekends, nights for days, dinner time for lunch. Points are exchanged. Scheduledrafter leads the evolution to fair and transparent scheduling. The market is open. Any trade or schedule is possible and acceptable. Why? Because the point system will make it fair in the end. No longer will you have to beg for that extra shift on a Friday. No longer will you have to beg for overnights. Your employees will take unwanted shifts happily because they will be rewarded with points, and points mean preference in following schedules. If your employees are not valuable to your operations, then by all means continue with whatever you currently use. On the other hand, if you want to show them the respect they deserve and treat them in a fair and transparent manner. Scheduledrafter welcomes you.

Let the Games Begin.

Users in a schedule rule over their own schedules. Users choose their sacrifices. They work nights and holidays to not work weekends. They wash dishes to not clean the floors. They work all nights one month, so as not to work any the next month. Sacrificing preference for control or control for preference. Each user in a schedule earns and loses points from their “play”. As users accept less desired schedules, they earn points. When users accept more desired schedules, they lose points. Points dictate the schedule. Fair. Simple. Infinitely gameable.

Points Determine Pickorder.

Like every kindergartener knows. Being first is everything. At scheduledrafter, no need for shoving, pushing, complaining, emailing. Each user controls their destiny. Most points. Front of the line. Least points. Back of the line. Their place in line is determined by a point system. Points accrue as schedules complete. If a user receives the best (in work normally weekdays and mornings), then they pay for that desirable schedule in points. If they receive the worst (working nights and weekends), they are rewarded for their hard schedule with points. In the next schedule, Autoscheduler gives preference to users at the front of the line i.e. users with the most points. Likely the user with the best schedule before will get the worst schedule next.

Users Determine Points.

Who determines the point system? Your users. They tell us what they think of the scheduler on Ranklist. Scheduledrafter then uses advanced algorithms and statistical norms to allocate points. High ranking schedules cost points. Low ranking schedules are awarded with points. When scheduling work, normally the weekday mornings are the most desirable. Therefore weekday and mornings cost the most points. Working nights and weekends earns points. When scheduling play (soccer, football, movies), weekends are most desirable and cost points. Playing on a weekday normally earns points. All of it is accounted for with Scheduledrafter’s point algorithms.

Automated Scheduling.

Hands off.. schedulers can be as hands off as they want. Once the schedule is templated, Autoscheduler, Ranklist, and users handle the rest.

Autoscheduler takes into account every user’s preferences and points as it works through a schedule. Points dictate user pick hierarchy. Ranklist conveys user pick preference. Managers just “Set it and forget it” as Roncoe used to say. The less manual manipulation by managers, the fairer the game. First pick, Normal and Last Pick settings for each user allow different levels of users, so a scheduler can put their senior, normal, and per diem users on different points systems.

Experiment.

Experiment yourself or hand over control to a new manager and experience their creativity. Let your employees mock up their own visions of the schedule on Scheduledrafter and show it off. Our test users join every schedule and are free to use. They happily join every schedule, instantaneously. Experiment with them and encourage your managers to experiment with them

The Evolution of Scheduling.

Most schedulers run restaurants, little leagues, nursing wards… Integrating the cutting edge theories and techniques of scheduling should be Scheduledrafter’s job not theirs. Scheduling is hard… Computational complexity theory designates it NP-hard. Non-deterministic polynomial-time, hard to be exact. Beneath the skin of scheduledrafter hides all that stochastic optimization, genetic algorithms, colony optimization, simulated annealing, quantum annealing, coordinated descent, and the rest of what operations research, applied mathematics, and computational physics offer to the world of scheduling. Simply a mouse click away.

Set Minimum and Maximum Hours for Every Employee. Minimize payroll and maximize productivity.

Scheduledrafter allows managers to set the minimum and maximum hours for each employee at each position. Max hours are the max hours a user can receive for the scheduling period for that position. Minimum hours are the minimum hours a user must receive for a position for a scheduling period.

Autoscheduler adheres to these rules when crafting the schedule, balancing payroll with productivity.

Managing Differentials and Different Locations Made Easy.

Do you have night workers? No problem. Simply create a “night” position for them. “Night Nurse” for example. Then set your minimum and maximum hours according to who works those shifts the most. Your true night people get the highest maximum hours for night positions and maybe even required minimum hours. The users that fill in those positions will only receive a small amount of max hours at that position. Weekends, same thing.

Multiple locations. Just need new positions. “Bartender night south” is the night bartender at the south location. Fill in workers receive only small amounts of max hours. Or maybe the same max hours but the regular workers of the position receive min hours. Both settings are respected by Autoscheduler.