Scheduling help

[Abby]

I have 23 employess all with varied skills. What I want to do is have a list
of their capabilities, 8 categories to be precise and a list of their days
off everyone works on a rotating schedule, and use a query to assign them to
different positions base on those two factors, obviously without replacement
and as randomly as possible. I have my documents if seeing them would help
anyone better understand so that I can get some help with this... I am using
access and I can get it to query both tables and give me all of the people
capbale of working a given position on a given day, but I'm looking for
something much more specific... I have 11 required positions 4 of those being
the same position staffed 4 times and generally 11-12 people working... any
help would be appreciated!!

 

[JimS]

Use MS Project. It'll handle it for you.

 

[Abby]

I have Office 2003 will infopath work?

Use MS Project. It'll handle it for you.

 

[JimS]

I apologize for being flip. MS Project (and its non-MS ilk) are among the
most complicated computer programs used for business applications. The reason
is the complexity you describe in your question. The programming to select
the right resource for each time frame is an iterative process, so difficult
in Access without VBA.

Basically, you assign a person to a shift, mark the person and the shift
allocated, then do it again until you run out of resources or shifts. The
priority of who works what shift can involve many factors, including skills,
but may also involve less tangible things such as not assigning the same
person to the same position every day. Any programmable solution would tend
to do that, for example.

The other difficulty is multiple skills and making sure the least common
skill is allocated first, so you don't end up assigning someone with a common
skill to a common shift (Position), leaving a position with a less common
skill wanting.

It's very difficult, as you know. Your best bet is to start out simple.
Create a form that shows the people and positions in two list boxes next to
each other. To assign a person to a position, highlight the person and the
position and click on a "assign" button. VBA would need to be written to post
the assignment to the person and the position (perhaps displayed in a third
list box.) Then, requery the two list boxes and continue until you're done.

This does two things. It starts the programming process, and allows the user
to begin thinking more carefully about the rules. Once the user can better
articulate his/her thinking, you can begin to code some of those rules into
"automatic" assignments that can be made, then reviewed, leaving the harder
assignments manual.

As the stepwise refinement of the rules reaches its apex, you have automated
the whole process, with confidence you've implemented the rules effectively.

If someone else has a non-iterative way to accomplish this, post it for Abby.