Minimum Break Hours Between Days

Definition: The Minimum Break Hours Between Days base rule type ensures people have X number of hours off to rest between days before they are available for a working opportunity.

Note:

This is the most expensive base rule for performance considerations. If possible, a rule with this base rule should be used last (in a sequence of multiple rules) and if possible used at the List level so that the total group of qualified and available candidates have been reduced through previous rules before using this rule.

Return value: Values of type Boolean.

Source: Person Assignments, the Staffing Table (Checked roster records); Shift pattern.

Sorting: If this base rule is used for sorting in a List Target or a List, then people with a True return value are preferred (sorted to the top) over other candidates in an ascending sort; otherwise they are pushed to the bottom of the list in a descending sort.

Arguments	Values
*Minimum break hours	The minimum number of hours the person must have off of work between days. The rule factors the start of the last shift the day before and the start of the next shift the day after the target working opportunity to determine whether a minimum break is required. If TRUE, this rule adds X time to the end time of the shift worked the previous day to the start time of the target working opportunity AND also checks the next day; if TRUE this rule deducts X time off from the start time of the next day’s shift to the end time of the target working opportunity. *Denotes a required value.
Day Begin	The time of day that a shift must start in order to enforce the minimum hours of rest. Defaults to midnight 00:00. Format: ##:##

Arguments

Values

*Minimum break hours

The minimum number of hours the person must have off of work between days. The rule factors the start of the last shift the day before and the start of the next shift the day after the target working opportunity to determine whether a minimum break is required. If TRUE, this rule adds X time to the end time of the shift worked the previous day to the start time of the target working opportunity AND also checks the next day; if TRUE this rule deducts X time off from the start time of the next day’s shift to the end time of the target working opportunity. *Denotes a required value.

Day Begin

The time of day that a shift must start in order to enforce the minimum hours of rest. Defaults to midnight 00:00. Format: ##:##

Simply put, this rule checks to see if the person has rested X amount of time between days.

To determine whether a person is fatigued the rule builds three Roster days to factor: the target day of the working opportunity, an assignment that started the previous day, and an assignment starting the day after the target working opportunity; hence three Roster days.

EXAMPLES:

Suppose the minimum break rule starts at midnight and requires people to rest 7.5 hours between days. The image below shows an assignment on FEB 7th starting at 10PM and ending at 2AM. The next assignment is on FEB 9th which starts at 5AM and ends at 1PM. This means this person will pass the 7.5 hours of rest period on both sides of any working opportunity or opportunities on FEB 8th between 5:30AM and 9:30PM.

The next image now shows one additional assignment on FEB 8th starting at 5:30AM and ending at 1PM.

Using the same rule, this person can pick up additional work anytime between 1PM and 9:30PM as shown in the next image.

The next image shows an assignment for Feb 8th that would fail using the same rule because the assignment overlaps the person’s rest period.

Generally, the day begins at midnight and this base rule defaults to midnight, however when the previous day begins can be redefined based on your criteria using the Day begins setting.

Now let’s move the day begins to 1AM!

Same rule except the day begins at 1AM. As shown in the image below the assignment starting on FEB 8th at 12:30AM starts the previous day because the day begins at 1AM.