Automatic Generation of Employees Shifts

Small Story

Back when I was based in Switzerland, I had been told that Les Bains de Saillon had hard time providing work schedules to their restaurant employees, as this is far from an easy task. I went to the F&B Manager and the Director with an offer: a web app generating the weekly planning for their employees. Two months later, crafting such planning drop down from several hours to 15 minutes!

Project Overview

The task was not easy as they had 7 different food points, 14 different shifts, and more than 30 employees with different contract type.
A correct planning must follow legal laws (for instance, at least 11 hours off between two days at work) and logic rules (an employee cannot serve be at two different locations at the same time!). In total, I counted 15+ rules.
This define a correct schedule, but not a good one! After discussing with stakeholder, I could identified 4 objectives: minizing the cost (obviously!), trying to give consecutive days off, etc.
Finally, as I wanted the software to be used, I drastically minimize the entry pain by adapting to their current workflow: you use Excel files? It will generate Excel files! You colored diner shift in blue? It will do so!