Understanding Scheduling Rules & Priorities
Rules allow Mesh AI to seamlessly capture labor regulations, organizational HR policies, union requirements, and any other unique scheduling constraints. The Mesh autoscheduler engine uses these rules to automatically assign members to shifts and generate optimized recommendations.
Administrators can easily manage these constraints at any time by clicking "Add or Remove Team Rules".
The 5-Tier Rule Priority System
To give you granular control over your scheduling, Mesh AI categorizes rules into five distinct priority tiers. The scheduling engine processes these hierarchically, ensuring absolute requirements are met first before adjusting for preferences.
🔴 Critical: These are absolute, mandatory requirements that must be prioritized with the highest urgency. They are strictly enforced by the autoscheduler and are not flexible under any circumstance.
🟠 High: These are also mandatory requirements, but they rank lower in priority compared to Critical rules. They allow for a minor degree of flexibility during the automated scheduling process.
🟡 Medium: These rules act as strong preferences. The goal is for the system to accommodate them as often as possible, but there is clear room for flexibility if conflicting constraints arise.
🟢 Soft: These represent minor or ideal preferences. The scheduling engine will only address these after all Critical, High, and Medium rules have been successfully fulfilled.
🔵 Flexible: These rules adapt dynamically based on specific conditions defined in your Statement of Work (SOW)—such as seasonal variations, holidays, or periods of reduced physician availability.
How the Autoscheduler Handles Conflicts
Mesh AI builds your schedule from the top tier down. If the system encounters a scenario where it is mathematically impossible to satisfy every rule, it will still suggest the best possible schedule. However, it will explicitly flag which shifts violate a rule and provide a detailed reason so administrators can review and make manual adjustments.