Cornell Fitness Centers (CFC) Scheduling System Darrell Wilson and Drew McElhare Nick Gerner, Evan Junek, Jonathan Lyons, Greg Poucher

Agenda The Problem The Old Method The Solution Features and Scheduling Demo Results Future Directions

The Problem Many Employees (240 at CFC) –Different work preferences –Limited availability Many Locations (6 at CFC) –Different hours of operation –Various staffing requirements All employees need to be assigned work schedules and all locations need to be adequately staffed

The Old Method Do it by hand! –Availability and preferences by hand –Many rounds of paper scheduling Benefits: –Flexible criteria for defining and prioritizing shifts Problems: –Three days of work for CFC staff! –Update schedule –Communicate changes

The Solution Automate the process! –Availability and preferences electronically –System maintains work schedules Benefits: –Up-to-date, on-line schedules –Identify and resolve schedule conflicts –Much faster!

Features Employee View –Availability and Preference Input –Weekly Schedule Display –Shift Trading Supervisor View –Schedule Management –Schedule Reports –Facility Overviews –“Suggest a user to work”

Scheduling Voluntary Signup –Shifts created at multiple facilities –Employees acquire created shifts Automated Scheduling –Basis for manual additions –Respect employee constraints –Respect facility constraints

Demo

Results Schedules on a best available basis –Foundation for manual additions –Strive for complete coverage –Provide desired hours to employees –Chose shifts based on employee rankings Empirical Results –280 students across 6 facilities: ~30 minutes –80% assigned shifts as requested

Future Directions Functional Improvements –Improve automated scheduling –Improve User Interface –Supervisor Reports Relationship with Cornell University –Cornell Fitness Centers –Cornell Physical Sciences Libraries New Clients?

Questions?