How do scheduling rules work? – Assembled

Ever wished your schedule could just check itself? Scheduling rules can help!

Use this article to learn about how scheduling rules work, how they can make it easier to generate schedules from scratch, and how they can help you improve your existing schedules and stay in compliance with laws and regulations.

In this article:

What are scheduling rules?
Why should I use scheduling rules?
What do rules do?
How do I create rules?
What kinds of rules can I create?
How do I manage my rules?

What are scheduling rules?

Scheduling rules are like a safety net for your schedule. They tell us what each person’s schedule should look like, and they make sure your team members get their breaks, don't work too many hours, and follow the policies your company has set up. They can help you spot problems before they happen.

To do this, scheduling rules capture requirements that affect your team’s schedule. For example, you might make sure you’re following local labor laws by creating rules like "everyone must get a 30-minute lunch break" or "people in part-time roles can't work more than 25 hours per week."

Once you’ve created your rules, you can use them to check existing schedules — and generate new schedules that follow all your requirements from the beginning.

Why should I use scheduling rules?

Scheduling rules can help you:

Follow labor laws. For example, check that everyone is getting required breaks and isn't working too long without a rest.
Enforce company policies. Make sure your rules will be followed by everyone who needs to manage the schedule.
Save time. Catch scheduling problems quickly instead of checking every schedule manually. We’ll flag schedules that don’t meet your requirements and help you fix them.
Generate schedules automatically. Soon, we’ll be able to create new schedules that follow all your rules from the start.

What do rules do?

Right now, rules do two things:

They help us tell you about problems

When a schedule doesn't follow your rules, we’ll show you on the Staffing timeline and in your Schedule requests.

When a rule is broken, you’ll find an orange highlight and a warning icon on the schedule row for that person. Each broken rule will have an explanation of the problem, so you can make changes if needed.

You can keep broken rules visible when you need to fix problems, or hide them when you want a cleaner view of the schedule. To simplify your view, select the Hide broken rules button in the lower right corner of your screen.

They help us generate your schedule from scratch

When you're generating a new schedule, we use your rules as guardrails to make sure people are scheduled appropriately. Your rules will help us add the correct meetings and work types, schedule people at the right times, and follow the labor laws that apply to your team.

How do I create rules?

To set up a new scheduling rule:

From the main navigation, select Configure.
Select Scheduling rules.
Select Add rule in the upper right corner, and then select Create manually to set up a new rule.
Choose what you want to manage with your rule.
Configure the rule to match your requirement or policy.
Decide who the rule applies to. You can pick specific people or assign groups of people that share attributes like their team, channel, skill, or site. If you want the rule to apply to different people at different times, add start and end dates to each assignment group.
As you’re building your rule, we’ll check it and let you know if there are any problems right away. If you find any issues flagged at the bottom of the page, go back and make changes to fix them.
When you’re ready, select Save rule.

By default, only admins will have have access to view, create, and manage scheduling rules. If you need to change these settings, visit the Roles and permissions page, select the role you want to edit, and select the Configure tab.

What kinds of rules can I create?

Right now, we support these types of rules:

Working hours

These rules define when people are available to work. Every person on your schedule needs to be assigned to a working hours rule, so we can make sure they’re scheduled correctly.

A working hours rule might contain a group of shifts, like Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Pacific Time. It might also contain a longer pattern of shifts, like weeks or months, if people rotate or have variable schedules.

Working hours will show up on the Staffing timeline as outlined boxes, indicating where a person’s schedule should be. Read more about working hours.

Shifts

These rules define how shifts work at your company — how long they can be, how much rest time is required, how many shifts a person can work before they need a day off, and so on.

For example, you might create one rule that all shifts must be between 8 and 10 hours and another rule that people need at least 24 consecutive hours of rest time in each 1-week period. You might also create a rule for a different kind of shift or rest requirement if someone has an HR accommodation.

Events

These rules describe specific things that must happen during a shift, like lunches, meetings, or prep time. They also define how much flexibility each of these events can have.

For example, in one of your sites, lunches may have to be at a fixed time every day. In another site, lunches can be flexible as long as they’re scheduled within a 3-hour range. To make sure you're following each location's labor laws, you might create event rules to manage lunches for each site.

Productive work

These rules describe what kind of work each person should do during their shift. You can use them to ensure coverage for a specific channel or queue, set priorities for certain people, or help reduce context switching as people move between types of work.

First, check that everyone's profile is updated with their eligible channels, queues, and skills. Next, create a productive work rule to tell us what they should work on.

screenshot of productive work rule being created

Good to know:

Productive work rules aren't necessary for generating a schedule.
If you don't configure them, we'll use your coverage and forecast to schedule your team members for work. People will be scheduled for any productive work event they're qualified for.

How do I manage my rules?

After you’ve created rules and assigned them to your team, you can manage them on the Scheduling rules page.

On this page, you can filter and search to find what you’re looking for. Choose a specific date range to view rules that apply during that time.

You can organize your rules by what they do — or by who they’re assigned to. Let’s look at what’s included in each view.

By rule

This view lets you look at all your rules at once. You can filter, sort, and group the rules here to find what you need.

For example, you can use it to:

Find duplicate rules.
Look for problems, like a rule that requires 2 breaks in each shift and conflicts with another rule that requires 3.
Check who's updated your rules recently.

By person

This view can help you check how you’ve set up rules for a specific person or group.