People on TAP

Knowledge Touch is now offering customers a quick, convenient and affordable way to access its premium Workforce Optimisation Solution The People Suite Scheduler for the QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) industry. You can now submit your staff scheduling problem to our scheduling engine via the web, and get back your results within minutes!

- It is simple to use, making use of Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheets for capturing and presenting data.
- It is fast to setup, just subscribe online and start using within a few minutes.
- It is an optimised schedule, improving service quality by making sure there are sufficient staffs to meet the demand, and at the same time minimizing your labour cost.
- It is cost-effective, with a low subscription fee for potentially huge cost savings.

How does it all work?

1. First, you will have to establish an account with Knowledge Touch and credit it with a certain number of points. This can be done easily via an on-line registration process and credit points can be purchased through PayPal, an online payment service provider. For other modes of payment, please contact us. As you use our service, the credit points will be deducted according to the size of the scheduling problem that you have submitted. Please top up your credit points when the balance runs low as the engine will not proceed if there are insufficient credit points. You can refer to our charging model for pricing information.

2. There will be more detailed guides available when you login to our site as a registered user. Basically, you will download the Microsoft Excel™ data template and use it to key in your data. The service works with Microsoft Excel™ 97 and above. The data entry can be done offline, without being connected to the Web. The next section describes what kind of data is to be entered. After you have completed entering the data, you can then login as a registered user and submit the spreadsheet to our scheduling engine over the web. There are no programs to be installed or run on your PC.

3. The scheduling will typically complete in a few minutes. However, you could also log off as your most recent results will automatically be saved for you and can be retrieved the next time you login. The detailed results are returned as a Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheet and there will also be a PDF Gantt chart to provide a graphical view of your schedule. You could also download the reporting spreadsheet template provided by Knowledge Touch to derive additional report views based on the basic results returned.

How much will it cost?

Our charging model is a pay-as-you-use model. After you have registered an account with us, you will need to purchase the first block of credit points. Credit points are purchased in blocks of 1000. For a limited promotional period, it currently costs US$20 per block of 1000 points. To pay for your points, you may use PayPal, a widely accepted online payment service provider, which our service is integrated to. Directions are provided when you register on how to make such payments. Or you may also contact us if you require other modes of payment.

Credit points will be deducted as you use our service. The number of points deducted for each transaction will be equal to the number of staffs multiply by the number of days to be scheduled, as submitted in your Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheet. However, if for any reason, there is an error during the transaction, no points will be deducted.

Please monitor your account balance regularly to ensure there are sufficient points for the next scheduling transaction, and top-up your credit points if the balance runs low.

What kind of data to submit?

A typical staff scheduling problem will normally consist of staff data such as their skills and availability, restaurant data such as operating hours and staff demand, and certain considerations used when scheduling, which we term ‘Policies’.

The scheduling engine will assign available staff with the right skills according to the demand of staff needed at the various stations within the restaurant. At the same time, it will also take into account considerations such as minimizing labour cost, or satisfying staff’s minimum or maximum work time constraints, etc. The following describes briefly what are the types of data the scheduling engine will require.

1. Skills. This defines the type of skills that each staff could have, e.g. Cashier, Grill, Filtering, Lobby, Manager, etc. Currently, the service can accept up to 32 skills.

2. Operating Hours. This defines the operating hours of your restaurant, which can be different for each day. The engine can schedule for a period of 1 week down to 15 min accuracy. You can also define here whether staffs will be able to take breaks during specific hours.

3. Demand. This defines the number of staffs and their skill needed for the different periods of time when the restaurant is open.

4. Staffs. This defines the complete list of staff that can potentially be scheduled. The maximum number of staff that can be defined is currently 100. The next version that can take up to 200 staffs will be available soon.

5. Staff’s Skills. This defines what kind of skills each staff has.

6. Staff Availability. This defines when each staff will be available for scheduling.

7. Staff Schedule. This defines the already fixed schedules for the staff, e.g. in cases where a particular staff is already assigned to work on a particular day.

8. Policies. This defines the types of policies or considerations to use when scheduling. The current supported ones are:

- Matching of staff’s skill rating to demand,
- Maximum skills per shift,
- Minimizing pay,
- Minimum period between shifts,
- Minimum skill duration,
- Maximizing coverage,
- Rotate staff skills,
- Constraints on staff breaks.

After the engine completes scheduling, it will return:

1. Result. This is a spreadsheet that lists for each staff, which skill he/she is assigned to, and for which period of time.

2. Gantt Chart. This is a PDF document showing a graphical view of the schedules of the various staff.

3. Error. This is a spreadsheet that will be generated only if there were any errors in the data submitted, e.g. missing fields, wrong formats, etc. It will give a list of error descriptions on what was wrong with the data submitted.

The engine will not proceed to do the scheduling if there are any errors, and the customers will not be charged. Only if the scheduling was successfully completed, the necessary points will be deducted from the your account.