Conditions and Bid Preferences

Conditions and Bid Preferences 

In this topic, you will learn about the major bid preferences available in the Preferential Bidding System (PBS). 

We estimate that this will take 5 minutes to complete.

Bid preferences are contained in Bid Groups. 

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Please note that the availability of bid preferences can vary by system configuration. If a bid preference mentioned in this topic is not visible when you log in, it means your system is not configured to offer it. 

Every Pairing Bid Group starts with a Pairing Bid Group line item and ends with an Award Pairings line.

 You cannot move or delete these system-generated bid preferences. 

Other system-generated bid groups like this one vary depending upon what reserve module you have. 

The Award Pairings line instructs the system to assign any remaining pairings from the available pool if your specified bid preferences do not result in a complete schedule. 

Each bid preference that you enter has its own associated color to help you identify bid types at a glance.

Now, let's look at some of the different bid preferences. 

ATTENTION 

The system processes bid preferences in the order they appear within a bid group; therefore, their positioning is crucial. 

For example, if a preference to avoid all 8 AM departures precedes a preference to award pairings only for Fridays at 8 AM, the Friday pairing will never be awarded. Reversing their order, however, would allow Friday 8 AM pairings to be considered while still avoiding 8 AM departures on other days. 

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'Negative' and 'positive' bid preferences are an important concept: Negative bids remove pairings from the available pool, while positive bids add pairings to your preferred pairing pool.

 Prefer Off and Avoid pairings are examples of negative bid preferences. Award pairings are positive bid preferences.

"Prefer Off" preferences are indicated by yellow coloring. These are negative bids, designed to exclude specific pairings from consideration during the award process. They allow you to request dates or days off within the bid period, including selections for specific days of the week, particular dates or date ranges, and desired times of day to be free of duty. 

"Avoid Pairings" preferences, marked with an orange indicator, are also negative preferences. They let you specify unwanted pairings or pairing criteria for the current bid period. These preferences offer most of the same criteria as "Award Pairings" preferences. Remember, the order of your bid preferences is crucial; "Avoid Pairings" preferences can impact any subsequent "Award Pairings" preferences within your bid. 

"Award Pairings" bid preferences show in green identify the things that you want to do. They are positive preferences that add pairings to your block for the current bid period. These bid preferences include options that identify particular characteristics of pairings that you like, such as types of layovers, duty duration, pairing credit, and so forth.

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Note that line item 5 contains a comma-separated preference (Monday, Tuesday). Items and preferences with a comma-separated list such as dates, pairings, etc., are considered to have equal preference. If you have a specific preference, it must be in its own bid line, included in the list in priority order.

The final bid in blue is an "instruction bid" preference. These bid preferences provide special instructions that tell the scheduler how to manage specific bid preferences, or what to do if it can't construct a legal block using your initial bid. Instruction bid preferences tell the scheduler what restrictions to remove when processing your bid to complete your block. In this example, this bid tells the scheduler to move to the next bid group if a complete block cannot be built using the preceding bid preferences. If you use this bid preference, you should have another bid group below it.

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"Waive" bid preferences are colored sky (light) blue as in line 9. These tell the scheduler that you want certain rules adjusted or disregarded while your block is built. Some rules can be completely disregarded, while others can only be adjusted. The rules that you can waive are all available within the interface. If a rule is not visible, you cannot waive it. 

Let's take a look at how to set a condition on your bid preferences.  

Click the Add Bid Group button.

Click the Apply button.

You'll find a list of all available conditions within the Set Condition preference option. 

Click Set Condition.

Conditions are global in the sense that they apply to the entire bid group and normally are placed as the top line item of the bid group. 

For the purposes of this demonstration, let's select the Minimum Credit Window condition.  

Click Minimum Credit Window.

Click the Apply button.

SUCCESS 

Congratulations! You have successfully set a condition, and learned about how conditions and bid preferences work.