Timetable schedule help

[Jacob1]

Hi i need some guidelines with a weekly timetable script that should work like this:

• There are 4 shift a day, 7 days a week, two people each shift (volunteers)
• The volunteers use a webform to declare their availability trough the week
• each volunteer should be scheduled for maximum one shift per day, 2 shifts per week

I appreciate any idea, since i am new to php. Tnx

Edited October 4, 2013 by Jacob1

[Barand]

Which bit of your code are you having the problem with?

[Jacob1]

The core part, how to express the conditions. I am thinking of making an array for each workshift with the users from database, but i am stuck here.

[Barand]

You might also want to have a second array, by volunteer, so you can easily check the constraints on their shift allocations

 

eg

$shifts = array (
        0 => array ('vol1', 'vol2'),
        1 => array ('vol3', 'vol4'),
        .
        .
        27 => array ('vol3', 'vol28')
    );
    
$volunteers = array (
        'vol1' => array (0, 18),
        'vol2' => array (0, 22),
        'vol3' => array (1, 27),
        .
        .
        'vol28' => array (20, 27)
    );

[Jacob1]

Well, the script should make the schedule. And i give the availability of each user (volunteer) trough a form. Some of them are available only 1 shift while others even daily. Everyone should have a shift, but no more than 2 per week. So in one shift i may have 3 volunteers, and in other 15. There are 40 volunteers.

Here's how i did:

$shift_2tday_full = array( "Fam vol2", "vol5", "vol23", "vol38", "vol7", "vol10", "vol33", "vol21");

//This is how i make sure no volunteer has more than a shift
//a day or in consecutive days.
	$shift_2tday = array_diff ( $shift_2tday_full, $used_vol_moday_and_today);

			$rand_keys = array_rand($shift_2tday, 2);
			$tuesdaynoon1 = $shift_2tday[$rand_keys[0]];
			$tuesdaynoon2 =$shift_2tday[$rand_keys[1]];

//This is how i filter volunteers if is family to program them together on shift
			if (preg_match("/Fam/i", $tuesdaynoon1)) {
				$martiamiaz2 = NULL;
			}elseif (preg_match("/Fam/i", $tuesdaynoon2)) {
				$tuesdaynoon1 = NULL;	
			}else {
			
				//This is how i make sure no volunteer is alone in the shift
				$tuesdaynoon1 != $tuesdaynoon2;
			}

$tuesdaynoon = ($tuesdaynoon1 . "\n /\n" . $tuesdaynoon2);


//shift protection modules
$tuesdaynoon_module= array ($tuesdaynoon1, $tuesdaynoon2);
$tuesdaynoon_volunteers_merged_with_history= array_merge ($tuesdaynoon_module, $tuesday_monday_history);

echo $tuesdaynoon; 

Everything worked ok until Thu. The script used many volunteers already and by Thursday i get blanks or people that should not be there by the criterias. So how do i make the volunteer selection by the number of shifts available, and how do i make the shift programing by the number of volunteers available? 

 

Maybe i need different approach. I don't have experience with oop, is there a simple solution using oop style?

 

It's like i want to put stones and sand in a can. If i put the sand not all stones will fit. But if i put the stones, the sand will fit also.

Edited November 9, 2013 by Jacob1