Fulfillment preferences

• 11/30/2018
• 8 minutes to read
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Fulfillment preferences are customizable entities that let you choose how schedule assistant results are displayed, like with neat hourly appointments or morning and afternoon time windows.

By default, the schedule assistant displays results based entirely on resource schedules and the earliest available time, such as 10:39 AM. With fulfillment preferences set to hourly, the same resource's availability shows as 11:00 AM. This makes it simpler for the scheduler to view and understand availability and communicate it to the customer.

Overview

Fulfillment preferences break down into two features: intervals and time groups. Note that both are designed for work done in a single day, not multiday work.

Intervals

Intervals display schedule assistant results in neat time slots that dictate start time of subsequent bookings. When configured as 30-minute intervals, the schedule assistant will display a resource available at 9:27 AM as available at 9:30 AM and will book the start time (arrival time) for 9:30 AM. This includes travel time for onsite requirements and work orders, meaning travel time will begin before 9:30 AM, and a field resource will arrive and start work at 9:30 AM.

For example, a hair salon may want to offer appointments every hour because 1-hour intervals are a good time estimate for their work, which is mostly consistent and predictable. It's also easier to communicate 1-hour appointments to customers when scheduling.

Time groups

Time groups enable schedulers to search and view results as blocks of time when using the schedule assistant. Typical examples include mornings, afternoon, nights, and 2-hour windows. Unlike intervals, time groups do not dictate the start time of subsequent bookings. Time groups organize results, but leave the start time/arrival time as-is, based on the particular resource's schedule.

When a time group is created for morning (8:00 AM to 12:00 PM) the schedule assistant will display a resource's earliest availability within the defined morning bucket. Results will show a list of possible resources to start at 8:32 AM, 9:07 AM, and 11:23 AM, and all results will appear within the "morning" time group because the start times fall within the 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM time group.

For example, a heating and cooling company wants to group air-conditioning installations into morning (8:00 AM to 12:00 PM) and afternoon (1:00 PM to 5:00 PM) windows, with a 1-hour break for lunch in between. Because installations are dependent on many variables, schedulers aren't comfortable committing to an exact time; they would rather communicate to customers a morning or afternoon time range when installation resources will arrive to begin working.

Intervals and time groups can be combined to offer predefined intervals within a predefined time block, such as grouping 1-hour appointments within morning and afternoon groups. This allows a scheduler to first identify whether morning or afternoon works better for the customer, and then offer an appointment. This further simplifies the scheduler experience and communication to the customer.

The following sections give instructions on setting up intervals and time groups and also how to set them up to work together. Note that Universal Resource Scheduling version 3.1+ is required.

Interval setup

To set up intervals, you need to:

• Create a fulfillment preference.
• Associate the fulfillment preference to a requirement.
• Book the requirement with the schedule assistant.

Create a fulfillment preference

1. Navigate to Universal Resource Scheduling > Fulfillment preferences > +New. Enter a name and save.

2. Navigate to the Interval tab.

3. Enter a duration for Interval. This is the duration between available time slots. Typical examples include 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 1 hour, and 2 hours.

4. Enter a time for Intervals Begin, which defines when to begin counting the interval. So if this is set to 12:00 AM, the available options are 12:00 AM, 12:30 AM, 1:00 AM, and so on; however, results will also depend on resource availability and working hours. If left blank, the interval will begin at the beginning of the search. For example, if your interval is 30 minutes and Interval Begins is blank, when you attempt to book at 11:13 AM, your time slot options are 11:13 AM, 11:43 AM, 12:13 PM, and so on.

5. Enter a number for Results per interval. This dictates how many options a scheduler will receive for each interval. If left blank, the system defaults to 1.

   The results per interval value determines how many options for a given time slot will appear in schedule assistant results. So if you have 85 resources all available at 9:30 AM, and results per interval is set to 85, then all resources will show. If results per interval is set to 5, then only the 5 best will show.

6. Save and close.

Associate fulfillment preference to a requirement

Navigate to the requirement you want to schedule and specify the fulfillment preference.

You can also associate the fulfillment preference from the requirement group entity, as seen in the following screenshot:

Book the requirement with the schedule assistant

Select Book from the requirement ribbon. Note that the start times in the scheduling assistant appear in 30-minute intervals.

For field service examples where resources perform multiple appointments each day, a shorter 15-minute interval is recommended. This makes for the most efficient use of resources with simplified start times.

Time group setup

To set up time groups, you need to:

• Add time group details to a new fulfillment preference.
• Specify fulfillment preference on the resource requirement.
• Book the requirement with the schedule assistant.

Add time group details to a new fulfillment preference

1. Navigate to Universal Resource Scheduling > Fulfillment preferences > +New. Enter a name and save.

2. Navigate to the Details tab on the fulfillment preference record.

3. Select +Add New Time Group.

4. Add the following information to the fields:

   • Name - "Morning," for example
   • Start Time - 8:00 AM
   • End Time - 12:00 PM

Another time group might be "afternoon," between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM (this leaves 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM unavailable, allowing for lunch).

Specify fulfillment preference on the resource requirement

Navigate to the resource requirement you want to schedule, and specify the fulfillment preference.

Book the requirement with the schedule assistant

Navigate to a resource requirement. Select Book from the ribbon menu to initiate the schedule assistant.

The schedule assistant results show a column detailing the start and end times of the associated time group. These results can be sorted.

Right-clicking on the column header allows schedulers to group by time group details (by selecting "Group"). This comes in handy when focusing on a specific time block that a customer prefers.

Using intervals and time groups together

You can add both an interval and a time group to a single fulfillment preference, but this requires a few important considerations.

• Using both an interval and time group means that you cannot add a value for Interval Begins. The interval will begin at the time of the earliest time group.

• If the Reset Interval per Time Group Detail option is set to Yes, the intervals will reset once a new time group detail overlaps with an interval.

  Consider the following scenario:

  A traditional brick-and-mortar business offers appointments every 90 minutes, so intervals are set to 90 minutes. Additionally, they separate into morning and afternoon time groups of 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM and 1:00PM to 5:00 PM, with a 1-hour lunch in between. Therefore, both intervals and time groups are useful for this business.

  • If the Reset Interval per Time Group Detail is set to No, the appointments would be:

    8:00 AM, 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM (not 12:30 PM because this is blocked for lunch), 2:00 PM, and 3:30 PM.

  • If the Reset Interval per Time Group Detail is set to Yes, the appointments would be:

    8:00 AM, 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM, (not 12:30 PM because this is blocked for lunch), 1:00 PM (resetting for the next time group detail), 2:30 PM, and 4:00 PM.

Configuration notes

• Intervals can also be set for requirement groups. All requirements within that requirement group will inherit the same fulfillment preferences. The fulfillment preferences entity was originally named "time groups," and therefore, the actual schema name for this entity is msdyn_timegroup, although the display name is Fulfillment Preferences.

• Time group details are only compatible for individual requirements.

• Fulfillment preferences apply to location-agnostic and onsite requirements.

• There is an attribute on the booking entity called Time Group Detail Selected (msdyn_timegroupdetailselected), which points to the time group detail entity. This value is automatically populated when a booking is created through the schedule assistant. For example, if a requirement is scheduled and the results fall into the time group “9 to 12,” the booking created through the schedule assistant will have the value “9 to 12” in the time group detail selected field.

• The Intervals Begin time is dependent on the time zone of the requirement calendar when triggered from the requirement; however, when triggered from the schedule board, it depends on the user's time zone.

• Quick Scheduling does not support fulfillment preferences with time groups.

Supported vs. not supported functionality

In v3.1 of Universal Resource Scheduling (URS), some features will work when scheduling both individual requirements and groups of requirements, and some features will not work for both. Please use the following table for guidance.