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Rules allow you to control shift assignments, availability, work patterns, and other aspects of roster generation so the resulting schedule meets your business requirements. Across the v2 rule schemas, the shared top-level fields are ordered consistently as id, labels, importance, isDesired, filters, targets, options, and periods. Rule-specific fields appear after those shared fields.

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Rule importance

Rules can be configured with different levels of importance:

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Strict rules

When a rule is set to STRICT importance, the solver will never violate it. These rules act as hard requirements that must be satisfied for the roster to be valid. If the solver cannot satisfy all strict rules, it will fail to generate a roster.

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Importance levels

Alternatively, rules can be assigned a regular importance level that indicates how strongly the solver should consider them: VERY_LOW, LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, or VERY_HIGH. The solver will attempt to satisfy rules with higher importance levels more strongly, but may violate them if necessary to satisfy strict rules or other higher-priority requirements.

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Filters

Every rule can receive filters which allow you to make the rule apply only to specific employees or shifts. This provides fine-grained control over which parts of your roster are affected by each rule. Filters can target entities in two ways:
  • By ID: Specify exact IDs of employees or shifts that the rule should apply to
  • By labels: Specify labels that employees or shifts must have for the rule to apply
For example, you might want a rule that only applies to employees with the label "senior" working shifts with the label "night". This allows you to create complex, targeted rules for different groups of employees and shifts.
Below is an example of a HIGH importance rule that applies to employees with the id employee-1 and employee-2 working shifts with the label night.
{
  "id": "rule-123",
  "labels": ["night-shifts", "senior-staff"],
  "importance": "HIGH",
  "filters": {
    "employees": {
      "ids": ["employee-1", "employee-2"]
    },
    "shifts": {
      "labels": ["night"]
    }
  }
}
Note that each rule will have additional fields specific to the rule type.

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Available rules

Availability

Specify when employees are (preferably) available for work.

Utilization

Control the minimum and maximum utilization of employees over specific periods.

Cooldown

Define minimum rest periods between shifts for employees.

Consecutive

Control the minimum and maximum number of consecutive shifts.

Pattern

Define work patterns that employees should follow.

Periodic Rest

Ensure employees get rest periods at regular intervals.

Period Distribution

Control how work is distributed across different periods.