Coverage Targets
A coverage target turns the demand forecast into a concrete staffing goal: how many people you should have on the floor in each 30-minute interval of the day. It combines the forecast's demand shape with your staffing rules, so the busy periods get more heads and the quiet ones fewer — without exceeding the limits you set.
Coverage is a read-only planning aid. It suggests a target and shows how your current roster compares; it never changes shifts on its own.
Staffing rules (per location)
Set these in Settings → Staffing for each location:
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Minimum heads | The fewest people that must be scheduled in any open interval — a service-level floor. |
| Maximum heads | The most people to schedule in any interval — a cost ceiling. |
| Maximum daily labour hours (optional) | A cap on total paid hours distributed across the day, regardless of demand. |
The minimum-heads floor always wins over cost limits: service level comes first, and any resulting overrun is shown honestly rather than hidden.
How the target curve is built
- Start from the forecast's demand shape (expected visitors per interval).
- Distribute the day's labour-hour budget across the intervals in proportion to demand — peaks get more, troughs get fewer.
- Apply the min/max heads clamp to every interval.
The result is a per-interval target head count for the open hours of the day.
Reading the coverage overlay
On the roster day view, the coverage overlay shows, per interval:
- the target head count (from the forecast), and
- the scheduled head count (from your current draft/published shifts),
so you can see at a glance where you are under-staffed (a gap to fill) or over-staffed (heads you could move). A daily summary shows the suggested labour hours, the effective hours after any cap, and how the rostered curve compares.
When staffing is not configured
If a location has no min/max staffing set, the overlay still shows the demand-shaped suggestion but marks the location as not yet configured, with a link to the staffing settings. If there is no forecast for the date, the overlay shows an explicit no-forecast state instead of a zero curve.
Access
Coverage targets are visible to Supervisor, Manager, and Company Admin roles. Editing staffing rules requires Manager or Company Admin.
Next steps
- Have the system draft shifts that hit these targets: AI Roster Drafting.
- Keep labour cost within a target share of sales: Labour-Cost Ratio.