The AI Scheduler takes a plain-language description of what you need and returns a full week of shifts that respects your roster, time off, and rules. Useful when you're starting from a blank week or want a coverage proposal to edit down from.
Available on all plans during the trial. After the trial: 4 runs/month on Pro, unlimited on Business+.
Where to find it
Two surfaces:
- Schedule grid (
/dashboard/schedule) → click AI Scheduler in the top-right toolbar. - Onboarding wizard — step 4 of the first-time setup flow has an AI scheduler step that lets new users see a draft of their first week without manually placing shifts.
- Mobile — same icon as a floating action button on the bottom-right.
What you tell it
A free-form text box. The simpler your prompt, the better the output. Examples that work:
- "I need 3 closers Friday and Saturday evening. Maya should not work over 30 hours."
- "Mike is the only one trained for opening. Schedule him every weekday morning. Rotate weekend openings between Sarah, Ravi, and Tara."
- "Standard week: 4 people on lunch shift, 5 on dinner shift, 2 closers. No one over 35 hours."
Things that don't help:
- Ultra-specific times like "9:00 AM exactly" — let the model pick reasonable defaults; you can edit afterward.
- Asking for things outside the AI's scope ("set Sarah's wage to $20") — the AI only generates schedules, not employee data.
What it has access to
When you click Generate, the AI sees:
- Your roster — names, employment types, tags, hours-per-week limits
- Approved time off for the week — these days are excluded automatically
- Your schedule rules — generated shifts respect both WARN and BLOCK rules
- Your tags — used for coverage hints ("3 closers" maps to employees with the Closer tag)
- Hours of operation at the location — shifts won't be generated outside business hours
- The current week's existing shifts — by default the AI starts from a blank week, but you can ask it to "extend the current schedule" to fill gaps
It does not see:
- Pay rates (so prompts about cost optimization won't work today)
- Past weeks beyond a 1-week lookback (no historical pattern recognition)
- Conversations from prior runs
What it gives back
A draft schedule populated in the grid. The AI returns its reasoning in a panel below the grid — which employees got which shifts and why. You can:
- Accept — saves the draft as-is. Triggers a normal save (rules evaluate).
- Tweak — click any generated shift to edit it directly. Edits don't lose the AI reasoning.
- Regenerate — go back to the prompt, refine it, run again. Counts as a separate run against your monthly cap.
If a generated shift would BLOCK on your rules, the AI catches it and either rearranges or surfaces "I couldn't satisfy this constraint, here's the closest valid schedule."
When it works well
- Stable rosters with clear roles — the more your tags (Closer, Opener, Lead) match your operational vocabulary, the better the output.
- Clear constraints — "no one over 35 hours" + "Mike opens weekdays" gives the model concrete walls to plan around.
- Starting from blank — generating a week from scratch is what it's tuned for.
When it works less well
- Highly idiosyncratic preferences — "Tara prefers afternoons unless Mike's also working, then morning" — multi-conditional preferences are hard to express precisely.
- Custom domain logic that isn't in tags — e.g., "only certified bartenders can pour after 9pm" — encode the certification as a tag and a rule first.
Cost
There's no per-run charge to your Timely subscription. AI Scheduler usage is tracked under your plan's monthly allowance — Business and Enterprise are unlimited; Pro is capped at 4 runs/month.
Privacy
Your prompt, roster, tags, and rules are sent to Timely's AI processor only for the duration of the run. Sensitive row-level data — pay rates, contact info, internal notes — is never included in the prompt.
Roadmap
- Pattern recognition from past weeks — propose a schedule based on what actually worked last quarter
- Conversation mode — refine a generated schedule with follow-up prompts ("move Sarah to closing instead")
- Cost-aware scheduling — minimize labor cost given coverage constraints
These aren't shipped yet but are on the near-term backlog.