crimsoncoder637 / shift-scheduler

Shift Scheduler

Shift-Scheduler

Synopsis

Shift-Scheduler is an employee shift scheduling program specifically designed for the Instructional Technology Center (ITC) of Haverford College. Given time slots that need to be covered, Shift-Scheduler generates a schedule based on workers' preferences. Shift-Scheduler was my first side project that I worked on after taking an introductory Computer Science course. The scheduler was used to schedule student workers' shifts from Fall 2015 to Spring 2017. Since I have graduated from Haverford College, the project is no longer maintained, but if any of ITC employees is interested in maintaining the project, I would be happy to provide any help needed.

Implementation

Shift-Scheduler uses a randomized greedy algorithm with heuristic in combination with iterative method. It attempts to assign a shift to the worker who prefers the shift the most while balancing the number of hours among workers and ensuring all time slots to be covered.

Input Format (csv)

A preference of a time slot for a worker is specified from 0 to a certain number, where 0 means unavailability, and higher number means stronger preference.

Example

time, Amy, Bob, Charles, Dave
MON-08:30-09:00, 0, 1, 2, 0
MON-09:00-09:30, 1, 1, 1, 0
MON-09:30-10:00, 1, 2, 0, 0
MON-10:00-10:30, 2, 2, 0, 3
MON-10:30-11:00, 2, 2, 2, 3
...

See sample_data_small.csv or sample_data_large.csv for detailed examples.

Usage

Basic Usage (with default iterations of 1000)

$python schedule.py input.csv output.csv 

To specify the number of iterations

$python schedule.py input.csv output.csv --iterations 2000

Constraints Customization

Constraints must be updated in accordance with a input file. Constraint variables can be found in models.py.

####Example

MAX_HOURS = 8.25 # targeted hours per worker
MIN_SHIFT_HOURS = 1 # minimum hours of a shift
MAX_SHIFT_HOURS = 4 # maximum hours of a shift

License

MIT