Improved solver result visualization, and support for employee cost optimization, complex skill definition, a.o.

Today, we’re announcing version v0.61 of the Timefold Platform and updates to the Timefold models.

This new version of the Timefold Platform comes with these platform improvements:

Improved solver result visualization with configurable, persistent graphs
: You can now choose which score and metric graphs to display and combine multiple graphs to better understand solver tradeoffs and correlations. See Interpreting dataset results for more details.

Solve graphs showing evoulution of multiple metrics

Automatic map selection
: You can now configure “auto-select” for vehicle maps, reducing configuration overhead and improving performance. See automatic map selection for details.
This release includes several smaller
improvements
(such as copy-to-clipboard buttons for input and output) and
bug fixes
, including scores being shown for datasets in all statuses, score analysis appearing for datasets that are not yet solved, and the revision dropdown being available on all dataset detail pages.
Kubernetes Gateway API support (self-hosted only)
: The Timefold Platform now supports the Kubernetes Gateway API as an alternative to Ingress. For self-hosted deployments, Gateway API support is currently optional, but we recommend planning a migration. The existing NGINX Ingress approach is approaching end-of-life, and the Gateway API is the long-term replacement in Kubernetes. If you self-host Timefold, see the v0.61.0 upgrade section in the installation documentation for optional migration instructions, including Gateway API setup, cert-manager configuration, and required Helm changes.
Filtered OpenAPI specification for platform (self-hosted only)
: Certain Platform APIs are not available when you’re self hosting the platform (e.g. APIs to retrieve webhook logs). The OpenAPI spec will now reflect this.

Next to that, this new version of the Timefold Platform comes with updates to these Timefold Models:

Field Service Routing (v1 | Stable)

Fixed a bug with overtime
where it was not included in the output metrics: See Changelog for details.
Made the output clearer for unreachable locations
: See Changelog for details.

Employee Shift Scheduling (v1 | Stable)

Limit working time within specific hours of the day
: You can now count only the portion of a shift that overlaps with a specific daily time window toward minutes worked limits. This allows you to express rules such as "maximum 38 hours between 00:00 and 06:00 in every 14 days". This feature is useful for limiting hours worked during specific times of day, such as night shifts or other sensitive time ranges, without affecting the overall minutes worked calculation for other periods. The new countOnlyBetween field can be used in: “Minutes worked per period” and “Minutes worked in a rolling window”.
Optimize schedules based on employee cost
: We have added cost definitions to period rules. These cost definitions can be used to calculate the cost of employees, based on their time worked. These cost definitions determine how many minutes a person can work at a base rate, and how much time work costs after this base limit is exceeded. More information can be found in the cost management feature guide. This new feature makes it easy to define the cost of employees, automatically minimizes the cost and provides useful insights such as the
costDefinitionTotalCost
and
costDefinitionTotalOvertime
output metrics for every employee.
Express complex skill requirements using nested AND / OR logic
: We now allow a more granular definition for required or preferred skills, such as "Nurse" AND ("ICU" OR "Anesthesia"). See the skill expression docs for more in depth information. These fields make it easy to define complex skill requirements for shifts.
Deprecation of minutesWorkedMin and minutesWorkedMax in period rules
: The minutesWorkedMin and minutesWorkedMax attributes have been deprecated in favor of minutesWorkedLimit in Minutes worked per period rules. See migrating from 1.18.0 to 1.19.0 for more details on required configuration changes.

Pick-up & Delivery Routing (v1 | Preview)

Made the output clearer for unreachable locations
: See Changelog for details.

Please let us know if you have feedback.