Shift Planning Configuration#

Estimated time to read: 13 minutes

Prepare the model introduced in Shift Planning before starting the scenarios. Follow the configuration steps in dependency order, or use the prepared master data.

Planner Role Features#

An administrator assigned to PlannerRole can complete the entire tutorial. Before configuration, create this Role and provision User accounts for the planner and 16 operating Employees.

During configuration, use PlannerRole as the Owner Role of the Certifications, Shift Plan, and Workgroups. Link the planning User to ControllerPlanner and assign the operating Employees as its subordinates.

A separate planner account is optional. If it has no administrator access, assign it to PlannerRole and grant the features below; use an administrator for configuration.

Table: PlannerRole features for the planning exercises

Configuration#

Follow the steps in dependency order to prepare the model for the exercises.

Organization and Calendar#

Create the following objects from the Business Data menu, completing each row before continuing.

Table: Organization and Calendar foundation

Teams and Shifts#

Before starting, confirm that ProductionCalendar exists, with the operational day starting at midnight on the current day.

1. In Business Data > Team, create the following Teams, selecting ProductionCalendar for each one. Select Create after entering the name, Calendar, and code for each Team.

   Team	Calendar	Code
   TeamA	ProductionCalendar	A
   TeamB	ProductionCalendar	B
   TeamC	ProductionCalendar	C
   TeamD	ProductionCalendar	D

   Table: Teams and codes

   Team ATeam BTeam CTeam D

   

   

   

   

2. In Business Data > Shift Definition, create ControllerDayShift using ProductionCalendar. Add the three eight-hour Shifts below, keep Cost Overtime Factor at 1, and leave Non-working times empty. You may customize the shift colors according to your preference.

   Shift	Start Time	End Time	Code	Team Pattern
   Shift 1	00:00	08:00	1	AADDCCBB
   Shift 2	08:00	16:00	2	BBAADDCC
   Shift 3	16:00	00:00	3	CCBBAADD

   Table: Shifts and TeamPattern values

   Each character identifies the Team for the corresponding day of the eight-day rotation. Reading the three patterns at the same position gives the Teams assigned to Shifts 1, 2, and 3 for that day; the remaining Team is off.

   For example, position 3 gives D / A / B, with Team C off. All three patterns have eight codes, and all referenced Teams belong to the same Calendar as the Shift Definition.

   Shift Plan DetailsShift Plan Shifts

   

   

3. Open ProductionCalendar > Week Definition > Manage, apply the ControllerDayShift to Monday through Sunday, and select Save.

   All seven weekdays use the complete Shift Definition. Team days off come from the rotation, rather than non-working weekdays in the Calendar.

   

Generate Calendar Days#

Select a date interval for the exercise, allowing at least 16 consecutive days to inspect two complete eight-day cycles.

1. Open ProductionCalendar > Calendar Days, select the date interval, and select Generate.

2. Complete the wizard with the following values, and select Generate.

   Setting	Value
   Start Date	The first date of the selected interval.
   End Date	The last date of the selected interval.
   Number of days	Confirm the displayed count matches the selected interval.
   Start Position	1, corresponding to the first character of each Team Pattern.
   Existing Calendar Days handling	Generate only missing days; do not override existing days.
   Fiscal information	Review the automatically calculated values against the fiscal settings of the Calendar.

   Table: Calendar Day generation settings

   Check the cycle boundary: day 8 has Teams B / C / D on Shifts 1 / 2 / 3 and Team A off; day 9 restarts with Teams A / B / C and Team D off. The same eight-day pattern repeats for longer intervals. Every date must have three staffed shifts, with no Team assigned to more than one shift that day.

   Useful Documentation

   For the illustrated procedures in this section, see:

   • How to: Generate Calendar Days

   

Employees and Certifications#

Create the planner and the 16 operating Employee records using the provisioned User accounts, then assign and grant the Certifications needed for their work. Use the actual account identifiers for the environment.

1. In Business Data > Employee, create ControllerPlanner first, then the operating Employees in the matrix below. Select the provisioned User for each Employee and apply these shared values:

   Setting	Value
   Area	ControllerProduction.
   Calendar	ProductionCalendar.
   Employee Number	A unique identification number.
   Type and Cost Center	The values approved for the environment.
   Require Clock-In	false for this calendar exercise.

   Table: Shared Employee settings

   Shift Planner EmployeeB1 Employee

   

   

2. Open ControllerPlanner > Subordinates > Assign. Select all 16 operating Employees and select Assign. Verify that they are Active and that ControllerPlanner is their manager.

3. In Business Data > Certification, create ControllerAssemblyOperator and ControllerTestTechnician, applying the same settings to both:

   Setting	Value
   Type	The Certification Type approved for the environment.
   Owner Role	PlannerRole.
   Allow Manual Grants	true.
   Allow Self-Granting	false.
   Allow Granting By Manager	false; this exercise uses owner-role authority.
   Validity period	Unset.
   Enable Trainees	false.

   Table: Certification creation settings

   Assembly CertificationTest Certification

   

   

4. Confirm that both Certifications are Active. On each Certification, open Employees > Assign and select the Employees in its column below. Leave Granted unset and select Assign. Verify the resulting Assigned state before granting.

   Team grouping	Assign ControllerAssemblyOperator to	Assign ControllerTestTechnician to
   TeamA	A1, A2, A3	A3, A4
   TeamB	B1, B2, B3	B3, B4
   TeamC	C1, C2, C3	C3, C4
   TeamD	D1, D2, D3	D3, D4

   Table: Employee Certification assignment matrix

   The Team column identifies the intended planning groups; this step assigns Certifications, not Team or Workgroup positions. The planner manages these Employees but does not receive the operating Certifications in this exercise.

5. In the Employees section of each Certification, select the assigned records and Grant. Verify that every association is Active. Assignment alone does not establish qualification; the grant gives the Employee the Certification.

   Assembly Certification EmployeesTest Certification Employees

   

   

Resource Personnel Requirements#

Complete this optional step to calculate Workgroup Personnel Requirements from Resource Personnel Requirements.

Open the Personnel section of each Resource and select Manage. Under Personnel Requirements, add the following Certification requirement to each Resource:

Table: Resource Personnel Requirements

Quantity 1 requires one qualified Employee; Allocation 1 means full allocation. Select Update on each Resource to save the settings and requirement.

Shift Plan and Workgroups#

1. In Business Data > Shift Plan, select New and complete the following settings:

   Setting	Value
   Name	ControllerProductionShiftPlan.
   Calendar	ProductionCalendar.
   Owner Role	PlannerRole.
   Rules	Leave empty for this exercise.

   Table: Shift Plan settings

2. Continue to Workgroups. Add ControllerAssembly and ControllerFinalTest, setting Owner Role to PlannerRole for both.

3. In Workgroup Settings, add the following Resource and Step/Facility associations:

   Workgroup	Resources	Step	Facility
   ControllerAssembly	ControllerAssemblyBench01, ControllerAssemblyBench02	AssembleController	PortoFactory
   ControllerFinalTest	ControllerFunctionalTester01	TestController	PortoFactory

   Table: Workgroup production associations

   Add each Resource only once within the Shift Plan. Each Step/Facility pair is valid because its Step belongs to Area ControllerProduction, which belongs to PortoFactory; keep each pair unique within its Workgroup.

   This tutorial does not cover the use of rules in Shift Plan requirements. Any rules added when configuring the Shift Plan must use the Shift Planning scope to validate working time requirements.

   Note

   Configure the workgroup within the Shift Plan entity. Do not configure the Workgroup entity itself for this step.

4. For each Workgroup, enter the following Personnel Requirements explicitly:

   Workgroup	Position (Certification)	Quantity
   ControllerAssembly	ControllerAssemblyOperator	2
   ControllerFinalTest	ControllerTestTechnician	1

   Table: Workgroup Personnel Requirements

   Resource requirements describe individual equipment; Workgroup requirements define staffing for the group. They are configured separately.

   Note

   If you completed the preceding Resource Personnel Requirements step, select Calculate Personnel Requirements for each Workgroup instead of entering the requirements manually. Confirm that the calculated quantities match the table above.

5. Select Create and reopen ControllerProductionShiftPlan to check the saved configuration.

   Shift Plan DetailsShift Plan Assembly WorkgroupShift Plan Test Workgroup

   

   

   

Shift Plan Calendar Days#

Before starting, confirm that the Shift Plan and all operating Employees are Active, their required Certifications are Active, and the selected interval already has Calendar Days. Continue as the User linked to ControllerPlanner. If you prepared the model with a separate administrator account, switch to that planner User now.

1. Open ControllerProductionShiftPlan and select Manage Employee Teams and Workgroups.

   Employees within each Team	Workgroup	Position
   Employees 1, 2, and 3	ControllerAssembly	ControllerAssemblyOperator
   Employee 4	ControllerFinalTest	ControllerTestTechnician

   Table: Normal assignments for every Team

   Set the Team of each Employee to the corresponding TeamA, TeamB, TeamC, or TeamD from the matrix. Set Workgroup and Position together, using a Certification the Employee currently holds. Keep each designated replacement in Assembly for the baseline.

2. Inspect Summary for all four Teams. Each must have three Assembly Operators against a requirement of two, and one Test Technician against a requirement of one. Select Save and Close.

   

3. Select Generate Shift Plan Calendar Days and use these settings:

   Setting	Value
   Start Date and End Date	The same interval used for Calendar Day generation.
   Override employee non-working days	Disabled.
   Override employee non-working times	Disabled.
   Override employee temporary assignments	Disabled.

   Table: Employee Calendar Day generation settings

   Select Generate.

   Earlier Calendar Day generation defined the dated shifts and Team rotation; this separate operation creates individual Employee Calendar Days from those records and the saved Team, Workgroup, and Position assignments.

4. Open the Calendar view of the Shift Plan and select both Workgroups in the filters. Select the third date of the generated interval as the exercise date, counting the start of the interval as day 1. With Start Position set to 1 during Calendar Day generation, verify the Employee Calendar Days against the following table:

   Shift / status	Team	Employees	Expected coverage
   Shift 1: midnight-8:00 AM	TeamD	D1-D4	Three Assembly Operators and one Test Technician.
   Shift 2: 8:00 AM-4:00 PM	TeamA	A1-A4	Three Assembly Operators and one Test Technician; use this Team and shift for the exercises.
   Shift 3: 4:00 PM-midnight	TeamB	B1-B4	Three Assembly Operators and one Test Technician.
   Off-duty for the operational day	TeamC	C1-C4	Employee Calendar Days exist, but the Employees are not scheduled to work.

   Table: Exercise-date verification

   Confirm that all 16 Employees have records and that no absence, pool, availability, or temporary-assignment exceptions affect the exercise baseline. Each operating shift deliberately has one more Assembly Operator than required.

   

Non-Working Calendar Day and Time Type#

As the administrator, prepare the following non-working day and time types before starting the scenarios. These custom entries are separate from the nine system calendar-day types. If you use a separate planner account, return to it for the scenarios.

1. Open Administration > Tables > Lookup Tables and select EmployeeCalendarNonWorkingTimeType.

2. Open the Data tab and check whether Absence-Hours already exists. If it does not, select Add and enter the following values. Preserve the existing system entries.

   Field	Value
   Name	Absence-Hours
   Description	Absence-Hours
   Enabled	Yes

   Table: Non-working time lookup entry

3. Open Administration > Tables > Lookup Tables and select CalendarDayType.

4. Open the Data tab and check whether Absence already exists. If it does not, select Add and enter the following values. Preserve the existing system entries.

   Field	Value
   Name	Absence
   Description	Absence
   Enabled	Yes

   Table: Non-working day lookup entry

5. Open Administration > Tables > Generic Tables and select CalendarDayType.

6. Open the Data tab and check whether Absence already exists. If it does not, select Add and enter the following values. Preserve the existing system entries.

   Field	Value
   Type	Absence
   IsWorkingDay	false
   Code	A
   BackgroundColor	Choose a color for this absence type.
   ForegroundColor	Choose a text color that contrasts with the background.
   IsSystem	false

   Table: Custom non-working calendar-day type

7. Select Save. If the entry already existed, verify its non-working and non-system settings instead of adding a duplicate.

Master Data#

The tutorial master data was prepared and tested in Critical Manufacturing MES 12.0 and provides the configured model described in this tutorial.

If you use the master data instead of completing the configuration steps, select a date interval and run Generate Calendar Days on ProductionCalendar. Then run Generate Shift Plan Calendar Days for the same interval.

This is the Master Data file used to create this model.

Next Steps#

With the model configured, continue with these scenarios in order:

1. Calendar Day Types - inspect the calendar day types.
2. Cover Employee Absence - cover an absence with a qualified temporary assignment and verify staffing.