Limitations of the Matching Algorithm

When you have multiple staffing requirements with the same job, team, and day part/job time, differing only in attribute values (for example, activity, docket), the algorithm first matches shifts according to the staffing requirements that have the highest priority and/or matching attribute values (in accordance with the highest ranked sort criteria). Shifts will not be matched with any subsequent staffing requirements, even though they may also match. (The system considers these shifts to be matched to a staffing requirement already and will not be processed when reconciling subsequent staffing requirements.)

For example, imagine the attributes are configured based on activity, then docket, and you have the following two staffing requirements defined for the same day parts or job times:

  1. Team IT, Job CLERK, activity 0, docket blank, priority 1. Staffing Levels required: 2 each day Monday to Friday
  2. Team IT, Job CLERK, activity blank, docket AUTODOCKET, priority 2. Staffing Levels required: 2 each day Monday to Friday

In this case, three staffed shifts are created with the staffing requirements for the same time under Monday— three IT team employees are assigned to CLERK with activity 0 and docket AUTODOCKET. These shifts could be matched to either of the defined staffing requirements, however, the first requirement will be matched before the second due to priority and because it requires a specific activity that matches the available activity.

All three of the staffed shifts will be matched with the first requirement, even though there are only two shift requirements for Monday. (A message indicating that the first staffing requirement is overstaffed will be generated.) When the second staffing requirement is being reconciled, there are no remaining shifts to match against, since all shifts were matched with the first staffing requirement. Two unstaffed shifts will be created for the second staffing requirement, even though there is potentially one staffed shift that could be matched with it after the first staffing requirement was satisfied.