Build Log
Four Strategies, One Engine
“Best leave plan” is not one objective. The calculator needed a stable engine that could rank the same calendar differently without hiding the trade-off.
Generate first, rank second
The optimiser identifies candidate blocks around weekends and public holidays, counts the working days that must be booked, and measures the resulting continuous time off. Strategy logic then changes how those candidates are scored and selected.
Maximum Days Off favours total break length; Longest Break concentrates leave into a major block; Balanced Year spreads value; Long Weekends prefers smaller repeated extensions. Because candidates share a common representation, the outputs can be compared rather than produced by unrelated rules.
The calendar is wider than one year
Planning runs from the current date through the available dataset and can cross a year boundary, including the Christmas-to-New-Year period. An optional school-holiday preference changes ranking without changing the underlying public-holiday facts. An accumulation helper turns a current balance and accrual rate into the budget supplied to the optimiser.
The interface presents strategies as explicit cards rather than a hidden default. Result calendars, printable plans, calendar exports, leave-request text, and share links all derive from the chosen state.
What became standard
Separate verified facts, candidate generation, scoring preference, and presentation. A user should be able to see which objective produced a recommendation, and future validation should be able to rerun the engine without the interface.
Explore the strategies in the calculator, read How We Calculate, or compare the 2027 rankings.