algorithm question

Hi all -- I'm a helpdesk manager (student job) and I'm doing a little programming on the side. I have a pretty strange alogirthm I'm trying to come up with a way to code out in VB.NET/ASP .NET....

Here it goes:

I have a list of employees. We have 5 helpdesks. I wnat to assign people to different desks randomly. There are 4 shifts each day, so I want them to stay at the same desk if they're assigned to it. (ie, not have 1 and 1 location, then another shift at location 2...)

I'd like to have the system weighted too. So say desk 1 would need around 40%, desk 2 $20, desk 3 10% etc....

Lastly they must work atleast 2 shifts out of the 4 each day...


Can anyone suggest an easy way to do this? I haven't been programing long enough to tackle it yet. If possible, can you include a code snippet?

Thanks!

Cheers,
hades

The best start to tackle things like this is to figure it out on paper. Make sure that you write every step you take down to reach the solution.

Now, translate those steps to an application.