Breaks

Schedules can include any number of breaks. Breaks include the following types:

• Employee. You define employee breaks in the employee schedule or as exceptions to this schedule.

• Activity. You define activity breaks in the Time Tracker view of the Activities screen as time periods with a Type field of Break. For more information, see Recording Labor for Activities (End User).

The following rules apply to the way the Optimizer uses breaks:

• Breaks can have a start time equal to the Start Time field plus 1 second. A break from 12:00 noon to 1:00 P.M. is the same as a break from 12:00:01 to 1:00:01.

• Break times during overtime or extended overtime are paid.

  Note: Because breaks during overtime are paid time, it is recommended that you do not define breaks during overtime. Calculating these breaks can slow the Optimizer calculations.

• You can allow breaks during activities or exclude breaks from specific activities.

  You set breaks for a selected activity by selecting the Allow Breaks check box in the Schedule view in the Activity List view of the Activities screen.

Note: The ABS is not designed to handle activities longer than a day. However, it supports activities that contain breaks.

When you select the Breakable check box in the Service Details view in the Activity Templates view of the Administration - Data screen, an activity can stop and resume. For example, a schedule is 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. and 2:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M., and appointments are 6 hours long to accommodate the length of the activities. In this example, appointments are not scheduled if you do not select the Breakable check box because no contiguous 6-hour time slots are available.

Selection of the Breakable check box is optional because there are some circumstances when the activity can break (for example, when you turn the water or the power off during a weekend). Because activities can break, the activity duration is not the same as the activity work time.

Note: When the ABS returns time slots for an activity for which the Breakable check box is selected, the ABS first displays slots without breaks that are between the dates in the Earliest Start field and Latest Start field. If there are enough slots without breaks to equal the value for the ABS – Default Number of Slots parameter, then the ABS displays only those slots. If there are not enough slots without breaks to equal the value for this parameter, then the ABS displays slots with or without breaks. For more information about the ABS – Default Number of Slots parameter, see Parameters for Schedules.