Reference: Optimization Engine Performance Recommendations
This topic describes configuration decisions you can make as well as Workday-delivered settings you can enable that can help you improve the performance of the Optimization Engine when it generates schedules.
Configuration Decisions
Configuration Decision
| Description
| Navigation
|
Decrease the number of workers in each scheduling organization. | Simplifies and speeds up the schedule generation process. | Create Scheduling Organizations task |
Tighten the minimum and maximum shift lengths. | Reduces the variations of shifts that you're sending to the Optimization Engine. A smaller range of minimum and maximum shift lengths enables more flexibility to create labor demand. | These fields on the Validations tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task:
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Use a larger demand period length. | Decreases the number of labor demand variables. Workday recommends using a 30 minute or 1 hour demand period for optimal performance. Example: A 15 minute demand period length will increase the potential shift start time by 50 percent compared to a 30 minute period length. | The The Demand Period Length prompt on the Settings tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task |
Configure specific availability for workers. | Significantly improves performance even if you don’t configure it for all the workers in your tenant. When workers are available anytime, the Optimization Engine must evaluate a greater amount of potential solutions. |
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Use the Consistency setting. | Prioritizes solutions where workers maintain consistent shift assignments across multiple weeks, which enhances engine performance. | The Consistency row on the Scheduling Engine Settings tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task. |
Eliminate meals or adjust meal placement windows. | A no-meal configuration improves performance. Meal placements multiply the number of potential shifts, and a large meal placement window increases the meal placement options and the number of schedule variations the Optimization Engine must evaluate. If meals are required, use a 2-slot window for meal placements. |
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Use budget as a constraint. | Reduces possible schedule variations by forcing the engine to choose a solution within the budget constraints. | Clear the Exceed Labor Budget check box on the Scheduling Engine Settings tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task |
Limit schedule tags on workers. | Limits the shifts workers qualify for, reducing the number of potential schedules the engine evaluates. | The Tags tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task. |
Decrease the maximum number of shifts allowed in a day. | Reduces the number of possible shifts that Workday could assign to workers, improving performance. | The Maximum Daily Shifts row on the Validations tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task. |
Enable fewer tags for multiple role assignments (multiple shifts per day). | Reduces the number of possible shifts that Workday could assign to workers, improving performance. | When the Maximum Daily Shifts validation is enabled and the Maximum Daily Shifts field on the Validations tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task has a value greater than 1, decrease the number of tags you’ve enabled for multiple role assignment in the Enabled for Multiple Role Assignment prompt on the Tags tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task. |
Workday-Delivered Settings
Setting
| Description
| Location
|
Allow Meals as Gaps | When you enable this option, the Optimization Engine treats scheduled meals as covered time, not coverage gaps, and the Schedule Workers report doesn’t display meals as undercoverage blocks. Improves performance by reducing the number of variations the engine must evaluate during schedule generation. | The Allow Gaps for Meals check box on the Scheduling Engine Settings tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task. |
Enable Single Meal Placement | When you enable this option, the Optimization Engine only generates the first valid meal placement slot for any eligible shift, rather than evaluating many different options. This setting is ideal for organizations that offer workers flexible ad-hoc or demand-based meal times but still require a meal to be scheduled for shifts that meet meal criteria. We recommend that you use the Enable Single Meal Placement setting together with the Allow Meals as Gaps setting. | The Enable Single Meal Placement check box on the Scheduling Engine Settings tab of the Edit Scheduling Settings task. |
Enable Time Out Override | When you enable this option, Workday increases the time available for the Optimization Engine to run to 10 minutes for each attempt for a maximum of 3 attempts. This provides the engine more opportunity to find an optimal schedule solution before timing out. You can use this setting with asynchronous schedule generation using the Mass Generate Schedules for Organizations task to run schedule generation as a background job. | The Enable Time Out Override check box on the Edit Tenant Setup - Scheduling task. |
Enable Configurable Start and End Times | When you enable this option Workday filters out shifts which do not align with the start and end times you configure. You can use this setting to restrict the possible shifts that the Optimization Engine considers for the schedule. | The Start Time Limits and the End Time Limits drop downs on the Scheduling Engine Settings tab of Edit Scheduling Settings task |
Configuration Testing
You can use the Schedule Generation Complexity Estimator to see how different combinations of configurations and settings will impact the performance of the schedule generation process. Download the Schedule Generation Complexity Estimator.
This tool is intended for estimation purposes only. Workday doesn’t guarantee the accuracy of the results.