| 主权项 |
1. In a computer-implemented appointment scheduling system, a method of managing appointment solutions for multiple resources comprising:
computing a solution space comprising for a given set of constraints all possible appointment solutions for a particular type of appointment using all resources available to that type of appointment over available times, storing said solution space in a memory, displaying said possible appointment solutions on a user interface that includes user selectable elements, which correspond to said resources, upon selection of said user selectable elements, filtering said solution space to include possible appointment solutions for said resources that correspond to said selected user selectable elements, upon deselection of said user selectable elements, filtering said solution space to remove possible appointment solutions for said resources that correspond to said deselected user selectable elements, displaying a result of said filtering in said user interface that is displayed on a display device, wherein said solution space is computed by:
defining relationships between actions of available resources having associated action constraints, said actions being described by means of time windows comprising linked lists of time segments describing ranges of start times or end times or duration times, said relationships belonging to the set comprising relational or sequential relationships;identifying a set of resources of a certain kind, andprocessing said time windows to determine possible solutions for the actions of the identified resources; wherein said processing comprises an inductive logic step, the inductive logic step comprises obtaining a time window of end times of an action by processing a time window of said action, a time window of a following action and a slack time, and the inductive logic step of obtaining a time window of end times of an action by processing a time window of said action, a time window of a following action and a slack time further comprises:
subtracting the duration from the end times of the time segments of the time window of said following action to obtain a time window of start times of said following action;adding the slack time to the end times of the time segments of the time window of said action to obtain a time window of said action plus slack;adding the duration to the start times of the time segments of the time window of said action plus slack to obtain a time window of end times of said action; andobtaining a time window of end times of said action of which the time segments are the cross section of the time segments of a time window of start times of said following action and the time segments of a time window of end times of said action. |
