Administrator allocation requirements must be met and take top priority. This means bid preferences can be denied to meet these requirements, however, senior bid preferences are not denied to meet bid preferences of junior crewmembers.
The N-PBS Scheduler considers all administrator requirements and bid preferences in seniority order as follows:
Satisfy all Must Go requirements
Satisfy at least the minimum May Go requirements or, failing that, satisfy as many May Go requirements as possible
Allocate all seats on all training patterns with the Junior Assign flag or, failing that, allocate as many Junior Assign seats as possible in total
Honor Bid Preferences of the number 1 seniority person as well as possible
Honor Bid Preferences of the number 2 seniority person as well as possible
Honor Bid Preferences of the number 3 seniority person as well as possible and so on through the training seniority list
When awarding training patterns the N-PBS Scheduler has several run levels. In each level the N-PBS Scheduler attempts to satisfy the priorities in the order given above. When the N-PBS Scheduler reaches the bid honoring steps it attempts to rearrange awarded training patterns match bid preferences of each bidder in seniority order. As the run levels progress the N-PBS Scheduler uses a wider set of rearrangement techniques.
Run Level Processing Steps:
The N-PBS Scheduler makes awards, or rearranges awards to satisfy all Must Go requirements
The N-PBS Scheduler makes awards, or rearranges awards to satisfy at least the minimum May Go requirements
The N-PBS Scheduler makes awards, or rearranges awards to satisfy-as well as possible-the training patterns flagged as Junior Assign
The N-PBS Scheduler, in order of seniority, reads crewmember's bids and attempts to make awards or rearrange awards to honor as many bid preferences as possible - these rearrangement techniques become more complex as the run progresses
While the N-PBS Scheduler is using rearrangement techniques to honor bid preferences it must maintain the objectives satisfied in Steps 1 to 3.