Demands

Demand is the need for workforce and defines how many employees you need at work at any given time in the planning period. Specifying demands in the payload is done using the Demands property.

Demand schema

object

Show properties

object

List of days on which this demand exists. Multiple demands can exist on the same day.

Show days – properties

array of date (date)

List of dates in the schedule. Only allowed in CALENDAR payloads.

array of dayIndex

List of day indices in the schedule. Only allowed in RECURRING payloads.

array of dayOfWeek

List of days of the week. Will apply to all days in the schedule that match any of the specified weekdays.

array of object

List of shift demands that exist on the days specified in the days field.

Show shiftDemands – item structure

string

required

Unique identifier for the shift.

integer

Minimum number of employees needed to cover the demand. The solver will try to cover the demand with at least this number of employees. If not specified, will be equal to ideal.

integer

required

Ideal number of employees needed to cover the demand. The solver prefers to cover the demand with exactly this number of employees.

integer

Maximum number of employees needed to cover the demand. The solver will never assign more employees to cover the demand than this number. If not specified, will be equal to ideal.

array of object

List of requirements on the attributes that an employee must meet to be eligible to cover this shift demand.

Show attributeRequirementGroups – item structure

array of object

Show attributeRequirements – item structure

string

The category of the attribute.

array of string

The targeted values for this requirement.

string (enum: NONE | ANY | ALL)

Default: “ALL”.

integer

Minimum number of required employees that match the requirement.

number

Priority of this demand. Increasing a demand’s priority will make the solver prioritize it compared to demands, but also compared to constraints. Default: 1.

array of object

List of time demands that exist on the days specified in the days field.

Show timeDemands – item structure

string

required

Unique identifier for this time slot.

integer

Minimum number of employees needed to cover the demand. The solver will try to cover the demand with at least this number of employees. If not specified, will be equal to ideal.

integer

required

Ideal number of employees needed to cover the demand. The solver prefers to cover the demand with exactly this number of employees.

integer

Maximum number of employees needed to cover the demand. The solver will never assign more employees to cover the demand than this number. If not specified, will be equal to ideal.

number

Priority of this demand. Increasing a demand’s priority will make the solver prioritize it compared to demands, but also compared to constraints. Default: 1.

The Automatic Rostering API allows you to define demand for workforce in two different ways:

ShiftDemand allows you to specify demand by stating which shifts you need on which days, and how many people you need working those shifts.
TimeDemand allows you to specify demand by stating how many employees you need at different times of day throughout your schedule. The API will then assign shifts to cover the demand at those times.

A request to the Automatic Rostering API should either specify all demand as ShiftDemand, or all demand as TimeDemand. A combination of both is currently not supported.

Choose which type of demand suits your needs, then find below some pointers on how to configure the Demands object for your use case.

ShiftDemand

If you have already configured Shifts in your request, then using these to specify ShiftDemand is very simple. Consider the following example.

The following shows how to specify that on days 1 and 2 you require 2 people to work Shift A and 2 people to work Shift B, while on day 3 you only require 2 people working Shift B.

{
  "demands": [
    {
      "days": {
        "dayIndices": [0, 1]
      },
      "shiftDemands": [
        {
          "shiftId": "shift-a",
          "ideal": 2
        },
        {
          "shiftId": "shift-b",
          "ideal": 2
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "days": {
        "dayIndices": [2]
      },
      "shiftDemands": [
        {
          "shiftId": "shift-b",
          "ideal": 2
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Attribute requirements

In principle, all employees assigned to a demand must be compatible with the attribute requirements on that demand. However, it is also possible to specify a minimum number of assigned employees that must be compatible.

The first demand requires all employees to be able to drive. For the second demand, at least one of the assigned employees should be a nurse.

{
  "demands": [
    {
      "shiftDemands": [
        {
          "shiftId": "shift1",
          "ideal": 2,
          "attributeRequirements": [
            {
              "id": "competences",
              "values": ["driving"]
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "shiftId": "shift2",
          "ideal": 2,
          "attributeRequirements": [
            {
              "id": "personnelGroup",
              "values": ["nurses"],
              "min": 1
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

TimeDemand

When demand is defined as the time periods for when employees are needed. Based on the available shifts, the solver then assigns employees to the shifts that are able to cover this demand.

Getting started

Concepts

Entities

Other

Demand schema

ShiftDemand

Attribute requirements

TimeDemand