Hello,
I am new to Excel's solver tool and have a function I would like to minimize. I am struggling with how to set it up.
The problem is: I am hosting several events (5) that need social distancing so I am spreading out the people that will come to them. I have employees that will come to 1, 2, 3, 4, or all 5 events. It doesn't matter which ones they come to, but I would like to minimize the number that come across all events. So to make it simple say I have events scheduled Monday to Friday, I would like to make sure that the staff coming to only one event and attend on Monday, don't overlap with the people attending only 2 events - so I can minimize the number each day.
I started off with a total number of staff - say 100 for ease.
Then I have variables as the number of people in each of the "events buckets" I mentioned above (1 through 5). I want to minimize the function of 1*(# of staff for 1 event) + 2*(# of staff for 2 events) + ... + 5*(# staff for 5 events).
I am getting stuck with how to put this into the solver. I also wrote out the events as well (Event 1, Event 2, etc.) and am still stuck. Does anyone have a good idea on how to approach this please? to help me set it up.
TIA!
