AI Scheduler
Generating capacity-aware work plans from your tasks, staff availability, and constraints
The AI Scheduler looks at your unassigned tasks, checks staff availability and capacity, and recommends who should do what and when. Instead of manually working out the daily plan, you generate a recommendation and then accept it -- or adjust it first.
AI Scheduler page
This article refers to a live TurfWise screen. Media is omitted here so the written steps stay current across releases.
When would you use this?
- At the start of the day when you have multiple unassigned tasks and need a plan quickly
- When you want to balance workload across the team based on capacity
- After staff changes (someone calls in sick) and you need to redistribute work
- When you want to check whether the day's workload is realistic before the morning briefing
What happens when you use it
The AI Scheduler reads your task pool from Work Planning and your staff availability, then generates draft assignments. These appear on a schedule grid showing who does what and when.
The assignments are drafts until you accept them. Nothing is committed to Work Planning until you click Accept. This means you can review, adjust, and regenerate as many times as you need.
Once accepted, the assignments are written to Work Planning as scheduled tasks.
How to use this page
Set the date and view
Use the date controls to pick the day you want to plan. You can also switch between:
- Day -- plan a single day (the most common use)
- Week -- see the full week at a glance
- Month -- a broader view
The scheduler builds recommendations for the selected date range, not the whole season.
Check the capacity summary
Before generating, look at the summary panel at the top. It shows:
- Total staff and available staff for the day
- Available capacity (total hours across all available staff)
- Shift window -- when the working day starts and ends
- Tasks to schedule -- how many unassigned tasks are waiting
If the task count shows zero, there's nothing to schedule. Go back to Work Planning and add or unassign some tasks first.
Generate a recommended plan
Click Generate Recommended Plan in the AI panel. The scheduler runs and produces draft assignments.
You'll see:
- Task bars appear on the schedule grid, placed against staff rows
- A summary showing how many tasks were scheduled, how many failed, and the utilisation percentage
- Any conflicts or warnings flagged in the conflict panel
Review conflicts
If the conflict panel shows issues, review each one before accepting. Common conflicts include:
- Capacity limits -- a staff member is assigned more work than their shift allows
- Assignment collisions -- two tasks overlap in time
- Availability issues -- a task is assigned to someone who is absent or in training
Blocking conflicts (shown in red) must be resolved before you can accept the plan. Warnings (shown in amber) are informational -- you can accept with warnings present.
Accept the plan
When you're satisfied with the plan, click Accept. This commits all draft assignments into Work Planning as scheduled tasks.
After accepting, check the Work Planning page to confirm everything looks correct.
You can adjust before accepting
Turn on Manual edits to drag and drop assignments between staff and time slots before accepting. Each manual move is validated against constraints, so you'll be warned if a move creates a conflict.
How to read the outputs
After generating a plan, the page shows several key numbers:
- Scheduled tasks -- how many tasks were successfully assigned
- Failed tasks -- how many couldn't be placed (usually due to capacity or constraint issues)
- Utilisation (%) -- how much of the available capacity is used
Treat utilisation as a risk signal
If utilisation is near 100%, even small delays or interruptions will break the plan. Leave some buffer for reactive work. Around 80-85% utilisation is usually a realistic target.
What the different outcomes mean
- "No schedulable tasks detected" -- There are no unassigned tasks for this date. Add tasks in Work Planning or change the date.
- "X tasks ready for AI scheduling" -- Tasks are waiting. Click Generate.
- "AI could not schedule any tasks" -- The solver ran but couldn't find valid assignments. Check conflicts and constraints, then try again.
- "Plan generated, but blocked by conflicts" -- A plan exists but has blocking issues. Resolve them in the conflict panel before accepting.
- "AI recommends this plan for today" -- The plan looks good. Review and accept.
Common problems and fixes
- "Nothing to schedule" -- Go to Work Planning and check that you have tasks for the selected date that aren't already assigned to someone.
- "The plan doesn't include a specific task" -- The scheduler only picks up tasks that are unassigned and not completed or cancelled. Check the task's status and assignee in Work Planning.
- "Accept button is disabled" -- There are blocking conflicts that must be resolved first. Check the conflict panel.
- "Manual drag isn't working" -- Make sure Manual edits is turned on. The toggle is in the controls area near the view switcher.
- "The plan assigned too much to one person" -- Check that staff contracted hours and shift patterns are configured correctly in Settings. The scheduler uses these to calculate capacity.
Good habits that prevent issues later
- Generate the plan early. Running the scheduler before the morning briefing gives you time to review and adjust, rather than rushing.
- Keep task estimates accurate. The scheduler uses estimated duration to fill capacity. If estimates are inflated, the plan will under-schedule. If they're too low, it'll over-schedule.
- Update staff availability before generating. If someone is off sick but you haven't logged it, the scheduler will assign them work.
- Don't accept blindly. Always review the conflict panel and spot-check a few assignments before clicking Accept. The AI does a good job, but it doesn't know about things like "Tom always does the greens on a Monday."
- Clean up task statuses in Work Planning daily. Tasks left as "pending" from last week will reappear as candidates for scheduling.
Where this fits in TurfWise
The AI Scheduler sits between your task pool and your daily plan:
- Input: unassigned tasks from Work Planning, staff availability, shift patterns, and constraints
- Output: scheduled assignments committed back into Work Planning
Once accepted, the scheduled tasks appear in the Gantt view on Work Planning and feed into cost tracking, reporting, and performance analytics.
Where to find it
Open Work > Planning and then click the Scheduler tile in the navigation bar, or go directly to /work-planning/scheduler.