Smart Planner: intelligent AI-powered scheduling
Smart Planner: intelligent AI-powered scheduling
Smart Planner is an AI-powered scheduling assistant. It analyzes your establishment’s history, employee habits, legal constraints, and your preferences to automatically generate an optimized schedule in just a few minutes.
No more spending hours manually building your schedule week after week: Smart Planner takes care of it for you.
Why use Smart Planner?
- Time saving: generate a full schedule in minutes instead of hours
- Automatic compliance with legal constraints: minimum 11 hours rest, maximum 6 consecutive days, weekly working hours
- Planning based on your habits: the AI learns from your history to replicate what works best
- Skills and section awareness: each employee is placed where they usually work, with the right skills
- Cost optimization: option to minimize costs while maintaining required coverage
- Fairness among employees: balanced shift distribution, including less desirable shifts (evenings, weekends)
How to activate Smart Planner
Step 1: Activate the feature in settings
- Go to Settings > Schedules > Smart Planner
- Enable the “Activate Smart Planner” toggle
- Configure the settings according to your needs (see the Settings section below)
- Click Save
Smart Planner settings page — General settings with the activation toggle, default prompt, and analyzed history.
Step 2: Start generation
- Go to the Planning page (Schedules > Manage)
- Select the desired department
- Navigate to the week you want to schedule
- Click the “Generate with AI” button in the toolbar (top right)
The “Generate with AI” button appears in the top right of your weekly schedule.
The generation process
When you start a generation, a panel opens on the right side of the screen. The AI works in 8 successive steps, each displayed in real time:
The “Smart Planning” panel shows the progress of the 8 steps with live statistics. Shifts appear in real time in the schedule on the left.
The 8 steps:
Steps | Description |
|---|---|
History | Analyzes your past schedules to identify trends. |
Trends | Identifies each employee’s recurring preferences (days, working hours, sections). |
Forecasts | Predicts staffing needs based on revenue and trends. |
Availability | Checks each employee’s holidays, absences, and unavailability. |
Legal constraints | Ensures compliance with rules: 11 hours of rest, maximum 6 consecutive days, weekly hour limits. |
Budget | Optimizes costs if the option is enabled in the settings. |
Compatibility | Checks team affinities if the option is enabled. |
Shifts | Creates shifts in your schedule. |
Each step displays a progress indicator:
- Grey circle: pending
- Animated purple circle: in progress
- Green circle with checkmark: completed (with execution time, e.g. “0.7s”)
Live statistics
During generation, live statistics are displayed at the bottom of the panel:
- Generated shifts: number of shifts created out of the estimated total (e.g. “68 / ~104”)
- Scheduled employees: number of employees assigned out of the total available (e.g. “23 / 23”)
Shifts appear directly in the schedule as they are created—you can watch the schedule fill up in real time!
Generation result
Once the 8 steps are completed, the panel displays “Schedule successfully generated!” along with a full summary:
104 shifts generated for 21 employees in under a minute — the schedule is complete with sections (Kitchen, Cleaning, Sales, etc.) and breaks correctly assigned.
Health score:
A score out of 100 indicates the overall quality of the generated schedule:
- 80–100 (green): excellent, the schedule respects all constraints
- 60–79 (orange): good, with a few points to review
- 0–59 (red): important alerts require your attention
Alerts
If issues are detected, they are displayed as alerts:
- Red alerts: critical violations (excess working hours, insufficient rest)
- Blue alerts: informational messages (employee unavailable, open shift created)
Positive points:
Good news are also highlighted:
- “100% coverage”
- “Cost under budget”
- “All legal constraints respected”
Click “OK, generation complete” to confirm and close the panel.
Identifying AI-generated shifts
Shifts created by Smart Planner are identifiable by a green dotted border in the schedule. In addition, a small purple AI badge (✦) appears on each generated shift.
This badge allows you to quickly distinguish AI-generated shifts from manually created ones.
The badge automatically disappears when you manually edit the shift, indicating that you have taken control of that time slot.
Smart Planner settings
Accessible via Settings > Schedules > Smart Planner, the configuration page is divided into three sections.
General settings
Settings | Description |
|---|---|
Enable Smart Planner | Enables or disables the feature for this department. |
Default prompt | Custom instruction to guide the AI (e.g. “Create the ideal schedule for this week. Base it on my habits.”). |
Generate a suggested prompt | The AI analyzes your history and settings to suggest a tailored prompt. |
Analyzed history (months) | Number of months of history analyzed to detect patterns (1 to 24 months, default: 3). |
Modules & data
These options control which data the AI uses to generate the schedule:
Settings | Description | Prerequisites |
|---|---|---|
Use sections | Take sections into account during generation (assign employees to their usual sections). | Sections enabled in the department. |
Use skills | Take employee skills into account during generation. | Skills enabled in the department. |
Strict skills | Only assign employees who have all the required skills. | Enabled skills. |
Affinity between employees | Take employee affinities into account to encourage better team combinations. |
|
Fair distribution | Distribute shifts evenly among employees. |
|
Optimize costs | Prioritize the least costly options during generation. |
|
Fair rotation (turnover) | Alternate less desirable shifts (evenings, weekends) among employees. |
|
Learn from corrections | Take past manual changes into account to improve future suggestions. |
|
The “Modules & Data” and “Constraints & Rules” sections appear when Smart Planner is enabled.
Constraints & rules
Settings | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
Respect legal constraints | Apply legal rules (minimum 11 hours rest, maximum 6 consecutive days, weekly limit) | Enabled |
Respect the weekly hours defined in the profile | Limit generated hours to each employee’s contractual maximum | Enabled |
Check the availability | Exclude employees on leave, absent, or unavailable | Enabled |
Use contractual hours as a fallback | If data is insufficient, rely on contractual schedule patterns | Disabled |
Only create free shifts | Generate only free (unassigned) shifts. The AI analyzes historical data (schedules, skills, sections) but does not assign them to anyone. | Disabled |
Tips and best practices
Before starting a generation
- Make sure leave and absences are up to date in the system
- Check that your employees’ contracts are correctly configured (hours/week)
- If you use sections, verify that employees are properly assigned to them
After generation
- Review alerts: they highlight situations that require attention
- Adjust manually if needed: the Smart Planner is an assistant, not a replacement
- Manual changes remove the AI badge from the shift concerned
For better results
- Use at least 3 months of history for reliable predictions
- Enable strict skills if certain roles require specific qualifications
- Enable fair distribution to avoid always scheduling the same employees on the same shifts
- Write a custom prompt to refine results (e.g. “Avoid scheduling Marie on Wednesdays”, “Prioritize full-time employees for weekends”)
Frequently asked questions
How long does a generation take?
Between 30 seconds and a few minutes depending on team size and constraint complexity. You can continue using Shyfter while it runs.
Are generated shifts immediate?
Yes, shifts appear directly in your schedule as soon as they are created. However, they are not yet approved: you can modify, delete, or approve them like any other shift.
Can I cancel a generation in progress?
Yes, click “Stop generation” at the bottom of the panel. Shifts already created will remain in the schedule and can be deleted manually.
Does the Smart Planner replace the scheduler?
No, it is a decision-support tool. It generates a proposal based on your data and constraints. You are still responsible for validating, adjusting, and approving the final schedule.
How does AI learn from my corrections?
If “Learn from corrections” is enabled, the AI analyzes changes you make to generated shifts (time changes, reassignments) to improve future suggestions.
Does Smart Planner work for all departments?
Yes, settings are configurable per department. You can have different configurations depending on your needs (e.g. a restaurant may enable weather and revenue data, while an office will not use them).
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, either by email at [support@shyfter.co]() or via our chat. 🙂
Updated on: 22/05/2026
Thank you!