What is a demand sentence?
A demand sentence specifies how many staff members you need for each shift. Additional filters allow you to further refine your demands.
Demand sentences are an intuitive way to express your staffing requirements in a format that is easy to build and easy to read.
What does it do?
A demand sentence tells our rostering AI exactly what you're looking for and feeds that information directly into your roster.
Free users: Demand sentences will highlight any shortages or problems after you've filled in your roster.
AI users: In addition to shortage reporting, your demands are fed directly into AI-generated rosters, ensuring your staffing requirements are met automatically.
How does it work?
In its simplest form, a demand sentence consists of a bound and a shift.
Bounds
A bound has two parts.
Part 1: The starting statement
This determines how strictly the demand should be treated.
Must – The demand must always be met. These are your non-negotiable requirements.
Should – The demand will be met if possible, once all "Must" demands have been satisfied. "Should" statements can be prioritised as high, medium, or low and will be fulfilled in order of importance.
Want (no AI) – Think of this as a pause or hold button for AI roster generation. It is useful when you have a demand arriving in a future roster period, or one that may be going on hold temporarily. The "Want (no AI)" option retains the demand for future use without affecting your current roster. The solver won't try to fulfil it, won't assign any staff to meet it, and won't penalise for understaffing or overstaffing against it.
Part 2: The number and type
This determines the actual number of staff required and whether it is a maximum (at most), minimum (at least), or exact (exactly) number demand.
Shifts
The final part of your demand sentence is the shift or shifts you want the demand to apply to. Simply click the relevant shifts to select them.
Saving your demands
Once your demand is ready, press the Save button to instantly apply it to your roster.
Existing saved rules will appear in white.
Unsaved new rules will appear in green.
Edited but unsaved rules will appear in yellow.
Additional settings
If you have more specific requirements, you can add additional settings through an extensive dropdown menu. Additional bounds are also available, allowing you to further refine your demands.
Note: Sentence demands and table demands are read separately from each other. They can be used together or independently.