Configure stable schedules

A stable schedule consists of shifts that are consistent from week to week so employees can plan their work time more predictably. For example, the schedule can be set to start in the morning (although the actual start times may differ slightly from day to day) instead of starting in the morning one day, evening the next day, and afternoon the following day.

Two system settings and the Stable Schedule Weight value in the Schedule Generator Strategy are used to schedule employees with consistent shift start times within a continuous work period (or stability period). Any day when an employee does not have a starting working shift, the stability period resets. The engine take into account previous schedule period as needed.

For example, the yellow boxes below represent shifts and the gray boxes represent time off. The shifts for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday all start at 10:00. Then the employee has Wednesday and Thursday off. Because the schedule is stable only within continuous days, the schedule start time changes on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

To configure a stable schedule, complete the following steps. Note that a configured stable schedule is a soft constraint and can be used in combination with other scheduling schemes.