Set up service scheduling
Before you can begin scheduling service-related items by using Customer Service scheduling, you need to set up several components first to ensure that items can be effectively scheduled based on your needs.
Consider asking the following questions:
What type of service is being scheduled?
Does it require multiple resources?
Does it require different types of resources?
What does an unscheduled item look like?
Does a service activity go through different statuses or stages before it is scheduled?
What does a scheduled item look like?
Does a significant difference occur between the item being scheduled versus when someone is working on it?
How do items, such as breaks, impact booking statuses?
What factors can impact scheduling of a resource?
Where will the service be implemented?
Is a specific type of resource required?
While the list isn't comprehensive, it should help you identify the types of items to consider before you schedule service-related items. This approach will help ensure that you consider every factor that could impact how items are scheduled.
Organizational units
You can use organizational units to group resources in containers for scheduling purposes. For Customer Service scheduling, an organizational unit would typically represent a location where services are provided to customers. For example, a large automotive service provider might have multiple locations throughout a city.
The system creates an organizational unit for each physical service center location. Then, the system would associate resources, such as people, facilities, and equipment, with the organizational unit for their service center. This approach helps ensure that, when a service activity is scheduled for that location, only resources for that organizational unit are suggested.
Important
Every organizational unit must have a defined, valid latitude and longitude address. Scheduling won't function correctly without it. The organizational unit table is not geo-coded like other tables. You will need to use a mapping provider (such as Bing) to find the physical location address and then copy the latitude and longitude information to the organizational unit.
Business closures
Occasionally, a service center will be closed, such as for holidays. When scheduling items, you should know what those dates are to ensure that you don't assign resources to service activities on those days.
Those days are defined as business closures in Customer Service scheduling. When you create a business closure, define the following components:
Name - A descriptive name, such as the holiday name.
All Day Event - Defines whether it is an all-day event or only a specific length of time.
Start Time - Start time of the closure.
End Time - End time of the closure.
When setting up business closures, you don't have the ability to set up recurring closures. You'll need to define each business closure separately. For example, if your organization is always closed on January 1, you need to set up a business closure record for January 1, 2021, 2022, and so on.
During a defined business closure, you will not be able to schedule resources. However, you will be able to schedule resources that have the Do not observe option selected for business closures. This topic will be discussed in more detail later.
Resource categories
When scheduling a type of service, you might be required to assign a specific type of resource to complete the service. For example, to replace the break assembly on an automobile, the scheduled resource must be a certified technician.
To help these scenarios, service scheduling includes the ability for you to define resource categories. After creating the categories, you can add them to specific resources and schedulable items, like a service. This approach helps ensure that only resources with that role are suggested as people who can work on an item. Examples of resource roles might include technician, service bay, consultant, exam room, or stylist. You can assign multiple roles to a single resource. For example, you can assign the developer role and technician role to one resource.
Facilities and equipment
In addition to people, facilities and equipment are important components during customer service. For example, an automotive repair company might have seven service bays that are available at a specific location. The same is true for specific pieces of equipment. Some services might require a diagnostic machine, but the organization might only own a few of them. When the scheduler is scheduling a service, they need to make sure that a service bay and diagnostic machine are available, which will ensure that a qualified technician is available.
To help with this scenario, you can define facility and equipment records in the application. You can associate facilities and equipment with facility or equipment resource records, and you can schedule them as part of services in the application.
When you create a facility/equipment record, make sure that you define the following elements:
Name - The name that will be used to reference the piece of equipment.
Organizational Unit - Specifies the organizational unit that the facility or equipment is associated with.
Business Unit - Specifies the business unit that the resource belongs to.
Time Zone - Indicates the time zone that the item is located in.
Description - General description of the item.
After you have defined the initial details about the facility/equipment record, you can define the specific work hours that the item is available for scheduling. Work hours will be explained in more detail later. Settings that are defined will carry over automatically to resource records that are associated with the item.