Scheduling considerations
Schedule preferences on a work order provide scheduling guidance to assist when items are scheduled manually, using the schedule assistant, or through resource scheduling optimization. Some preferences can be stored directly on account records and then automatically populated when a work order for that account is created. Others can be defined on the work order itself. Any defined preferences are added to the resource requirement that is created for the work order. Preferences that can be defined include:
Time from Promised/Time to Promised: Defines a date and the time window that a customer was promised a technician would arrive to resolve an incident. Time promised windows take higher priority over all other date-and-time preferences.
Time Window Start/Time Window End: Provides a time range that the customer would like someone to work on an incident
Fulfillment Preference: Provides other scheduling options.
As work orders are created, another record called a resource requirement record is created. The resource requirement record is used to help the scheduling process.
There are three record types that are used to schedule a work order:
Work Order: The job or task that defines what the technician is doing.
Resource Requirement: A scheduling record that includes specific details related to skills, availability, and other items required by any resource that might be scheduled for the item.
Bookable Resource Booking: The actual scheduled item that defines specifics about the item that was scheduled.
The image below provides a high-level overview of how scheduling works.
When a work order is created, it will typically include:
The work order type, priority, and location.
Tasks, products, services, and resource skills required.
Preferences for service delivery like time windows, preferred technician, etc.
After you create a work order, a resource requirement record is automatically generated. This record is used to schedule the work order in the system. It specifies everything required to schedule a resource for the work order.
A resource requirement for a work order includes:
The customer and duration pulled from the work order.
Any date and time windows, or resource preferences.
Other relevant scheduling information like skills, and territories.
After a resource requirement is scheduled, a bookable resource booking record is created that provides the details about the resource responsible for completing the item. It also contains other details like estimated and actual arrival times, and the status of the booking.
A bookable resource booking record for a resource requirement includes:
The name of the resource responsible for completing the work order.
The time and status information for both estimated and actual values.
Travel information like miles and duration.
The bookable resource booking record uses booking statuses to communicate the current state of the booking. For example, it might communicate that the field agent is traveling to the work order location, has arrived, and is now working on the order. As the booking statuses are updated by field agents, those statuses are reflected on the work order in the Work Order Status field.
Work order status
As we touched on briefly earlier, each work order has a status that defines the current state of the work order. The status lets individuals know where the work order is at in its life cycle.
The available work order statuses are:
Open-Unscheduled: The work order has been created but hasn't yet been scheduled in the system.
Open-Scheduled: The work order has been scheduled, and a resource has been assigned responsibility for completing the work.
Open-In Progress: A field agent is actively working on the item.
Open-Completed: The work has been completed, and the work order might be waiting for final sign-off to ensure that everything was done correctly.
Closed-Posted: The work order is closed, and billing can take place.
Closed-Canceled: The work on the item wasn't completed, and it was canceled.
As the work order is scheduled and a bookable resource booking created change to the booking's status will be reflected in the work order.
The image below illustrates this process:
