Create custom business rules to make Automatic shift planning better reflect your company's policies and planning needs. You can describe rules in plain language, choose whether they are mandatory or optional, and apply them automatically when generating shifts.
Overview
Custom business rules let admins define additional constraints for Automatic shift planning beyond the rules already included in employees' contracts.
You can create rules based on your company's internal policies, collective agreements, or team preferences. Once saved, the rules are considered when Factorial generates automatic schedules.
When and why it should be used
Use custom business rules when your company has planning requirements that aren't covered by employees' contract rules. For example, you can use them to:
- Apply company-specific planning policies.
- Reflect requirements from collective agreements.
- Take team preferences into account.
- Reduce the number of manual changes needed after automatic scheduling.
- Make certain planning constraints mandatory while keeping others optional.
How to use
Create a custom planning rule
- In your sidebar, go to Settings
- In the Time section, select Shift Policies
- Open Planning rules
- Click on Add rule
- Describe the planning rule you want to create in plain language
- Review the rule generated from your description
- Choose whether the rule should be Mandatory or Optional
- Save the rule
- The saved rule will be available to Automatic shift planning
If the automatic schedule does not follow a rule I expected, check that the rule has been saved under Settings → Shift Policies → Planning rules and that its configuration reflects your requirement. If the rule is optional, make sure it is enabled in the Run Auto-schedule pop-up before running the schedule.
Some types of rules aren't currently supported. Custom business rules don't currently support:
- Multi-week rules
- Rules based on employee tenure
- Rules based on competencies
- Rules based on availability
- Rules based on labour cost
Tips and best practices
- Write rules as clearly and specifically as possible so they accurately represent your planning requirement.
- Use Mandatory for requirements that must always be respected.
- Use Optional for preferences that may depend on the specific schedule you're creating.
- Review the generated rule before saving it to make sure it reflects your intended requirement.
- Consider whether a rule should apply to every automatic schedule or only to specific planning runs before choosing its type.
FAQ
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Do I need technical knowledge to create a rule?
No. You can describe the planning requirement in plain language and review the proposed rule before saving it.
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Are custom rules applied automatically?
Yes. The Automatic shift planning process applies saved rules when generating schedules. Mandatory rules are always applied, while optional rules can be selected for each scheduling run.
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Can I turn off a mandatory rule for one schedule?
No. Mandatory rules are always applied to automatic schedules. If a requirement should only apply to certain runs, consider making it optional instead.
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Can I choose which optional rules to apply?
Yes. You can turn optional rules on or off in the Run Auto-schedule pop-up before generating a schedule.
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What types of rules are not supported?
Multi-week rules and rules based on tenure, competencies, availability, or labour cost aren't currently supported.
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Does One create the schedule?
No. One helps you create the rule from your plain-language description. Automatic shift planning applies the saved rule when generating the schedule.