Siebel Field Service Guide > Setting Up and Using Scheduling >

Guidelines for Setting Up Scheduling

Consider the following when setting up scheduling:

• Business model. What is your business model? What part does scheduling play? Which Siebel application modules are you using?
• Service regions. Plan service regions so that movement of service personnel between regions is the exception. Geographic areas that define service regions may overlap. In addition, service regions can have parent regions that effectively widen the primary service region when manually assigning activities using the Dispatch Board. Thus, resources can be shared across areas by setting up regional hierarchies. See Defining Service Regions for more information.
• Server mapping. Set up servers and processors to distribute the scheduling tasks efficiently. See Setting Up Server Key Mappings and Setting Server Component Task Parameters for more information.
• Employees. Assign employees to service regions.

  NOTE:  Employees can be assigned to only one service region. See Loading Employee Data for Service Regions for more information.

• ZIP or Postal Codes. Load ZIP Code and geocode data. See Defining Service Region Geographic Areas for the Optimizer for more information.
• Constraints. Set up hard constraints for the ABS and both hard and soft constraints for the Optimizer. The ABS uses only hard constraints. The Optimizer can use either hard or soft constraints. See Creating Constraint Sets for Scheduling for more information.
• Cost functions. The Optimizer calculates a cost function for each proposed schedule. This function is the sum of factors that drive the optimization of a schedule; for example, the cost of overtime, travel distance, and penalties for violating soft constraints. For more information, see Defining Cost Functions for the Optimizer.