Create optimization recipes

Use recipes to intelligently schedule work and optimize pre-defined business KPIs.

Overview

When schedulers optimize, they consider the unique goals of their organization and the specific scheduling scenario they are trying to optimize. By giving schedulers granular control over optimization settings, they can tailor schedules to their organization’s needs, improving overall efficiency.

Optimization recipes are pre-defined combinations of objectives, constraints, and rules that can be applied to specific scenarios. Recipes let users shape how optimization behaves by configuring the weights of relevant objectives and selecting rules that influence scheduling outcomes.

You can use a recipe each time you run optimization.

For detailed information about available objectives, job removal options, constraints, travel rules, and snap/padding settings, see the Optimization Recipes Intro.

Using Objectives and Weights

Recipes are defined by weights assigned to objectives. The higher the weight, the more important the objective is during optimization. The total weight of all objectives must equal 100%.

See Score Calculation for more details.

Standard Optimization Recipes

Skedulo provides four standard recipes out of the box:

Least Resources

Use this recipe to utilize the fewest resources. Minimize resources has the highest weight.

Balance Work

Distributes work equally between resources. Balance workload has the highest weight.

Least Travel

Minimizes travel time for scheduled resources. Travel time has the highest weight.

Emergency Work

Prioritizes urgent jobs. Work priority has the highest weight.

Customize Optimization Recipes

Schedulers can tweak standard recipes or create entirely custom recipes.

To duplicate and edit a standard recipe:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Optimization recipes.
  2. Choose the recipe you want to adjust.
  3. Click the Actions menu at the end of the recipe table row.
  4. Select Create duplicate.
  5. Provide a name and description, then click Duplicate.
  6. Click the duplicated recipe to open the recipe editor.
  7. Adjust the objective weights (total must equal 100%).
  8. Configure any rules or constraints (job times, travel controls, snap/padding).
  9. Click Save.

To create a custom recipe from scratch:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Optimization recipes.
  2. Click Create optimization recipe.
  3. Enter a name and description.
  4. Select weights for relevant objectives (total = 100%).
  5. Configure rules and constraints as needed.
  6. Click Save.

Tip: Review the Optimization Recipes Intro when setting objectives, job removal behavior, or travel rules to ensure your recipe aligns with organizational goals.

Using Recipes in Optimization Runs

One-off Optimization

  1. Select a job card from the work list.
  2. Click Optimize to display the Optimize modal.
  3. If the optimization settings aren’t visible, deselect Use default scheduling settings.
  4. Select a recipe from the Scheduling recipe dropdown menu.
    The Optimize modal open on the swimlane
  5. Fill the rest of the modal as required.
  6. Click Save.

Scheduled Optimization

  1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Scheduled optimization.
  2. Click Create scheduled optimization or select an existing one to edit.
  3. Complete the required name, region, and run date fields.
  4. To change the recipe, deselect Use the default recipe and select a recipe from the dropdown.
  5. Configure the remaining optimization settings as needed.
  6. Click Save.