Siebel Field Service Guide > Setting Up and Using Scheduling > Defining Employee Availability and Schedules >

Adding Employee Schedule Information

The following must be taken into account when defining employee schedules:

• Shifts. See Shifts for more information.
• Skills. See Skills for more information.
• Role priorities. See Role Priorities for more information.
• Breaks. See Breaks for more information.
• Travel. See Travel for more information.

See Creating Constraint Sets for Scheduling for more information about constraints that can be set up to limit employee working hours, types of activities that can be performed, and so on.

Shifts

One employee can have only one shift per day, which can include rate types of normal time (RT), overtime (OT), and extended overtime (EOT), as defined for each employee. A shift must use rate types in the following order:

1. EOT
2. OT
3. RT
4. OT
5. EOT

Any of these rate types can be missing from the definition of a shift, but the remaining types must be in this order. For example:

6. OT
7. RT
8. OT

The rates for overtime and extended overtime are configured in the Administration - Pricing screen > Cost List > Cost List Line Items view as a percentage increase over regular time (Standard Cost). Standard Cost is set in the Administration - User screen > Employees > Service Details view.

Skills

Siebel Scheduler is capable of performing skill-based routing (that is, assigning only people with a particular skill set to a job). The engines use Assignment Manager to evaluate skills and return a list of appropriate employees, as follows:

1. Each activity is submitted to Assignment Manager.
2. Assignment Manager returns the appropriate people based on assignment rules.
3. The Optimizer uses only these people when it tries to schedule that job.

For more information about how to set up skills and evaluation rules, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

Role Priorities

For the purpose of assigning field service engineers to activities, administrators can add a role priority to each field service engineer who is a member of the asset service team. When Assignment Manager schedules field service engineers, it considers the role priority of the associated engineers. For example, Assignment Manager first tries to assign the primary engineer. If the primary engineer is not available, it tries to assign the secondary engineer and so on. The role priority for a field service engineer can be either primary, secondary, or tertiary.

NOTE:  Employees can also be associated with an account to form an account service team. These team members can then have role priorities assigned to them. See Account Service Team Configuration for more information.

Breaks

Schedules can include any number of breaks. Breaks are defined as employee breaks or activity breaks:

• Employee breaks are defined in the employee's schedule or as exceptions to this schedule.
• Activity breaks are defined in Activities > Time Tracker as time periods with the Type field set to Break.

The following rules apply to the way the Optimizer uses breaks:

• Breaks can have their start time = Start Time +1 second. This means that a break from 12 to 1 P.M. is the same as a break from 12:00:01 to 1:00:01.
• Break times during OT or EOT are paid.

  NOTE:  Because breaks during overtime are considered paid time, it is recommended that you do not define breaks during overtime. Calculating these breaks may slow the Optimizer's calculations.

• Breaks can be allowed during activities or excluded from specific activities.

  See About the Breakable Flag for more information.

To define different break types

1. Navigate to the Administration - Data screen > Work Types view.
2. Create a new record and complete the fields as appropriate.

To set the name of the break type

1. Navigate to the Administration - Application screen > System Preferences view.
2. Query for the system preference Sch:Break Time Id.
3. In the System Preference Value field, enter the row ID for the break.

To record break time

1. Navigate to the Activities screen > Activity List view.
2. Drill down on the Type field for a selected activity and click the Time Tracker view tab.
3. Create a new record and complete the fields as appropriate.

   See Time Tracker View for more information.

About the Breakable Flag

The Breakable flag indicates that it is acceptable for an activity to stop and resume. For example, if a schedule is 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. and 2 P.M. to 6 P.M., the appointments need to be six hours long to accommodate the length of the activities. In this case, appointments could never be scheduled without the Breakable flag as there are no contiguous six-hour time slots available.

This flag is optional because there are some circumstances where the activity should be allowed to break—for example, turning the water or the power off during a weekend. The ability for activities to be breakable is why the activity duration is separate from the activity work time.

NOTE:  The ABS is not designed to handle activities longer than a day. However, it does support breakable activities.

To allow breaks for activities

1. Navigate to the Administration - Data screen > Activity Templates > Service Details view.
2. Select the Breakable check box.

   If this flag is not set, a break is not allowed during an activity.

   NOTE:  Users can set breaks for a selected activity by selecting the Allow Breaks check box in the Activities screen > Schedule view. See Schedule View for more information.

Travel

The Optimizer uses employee travel conditions and travel time when obtaining the lowest-cost solution for a schedule. These values are set in the Administration - User screen > Employees > Service Details view. The fields Start Shift From and End Shift At define the starting and ending conditions for travel to and from service calls. These are the possible values of these fields:

• Home (Travel incl.).The employee travels from home directly to the first job. The Optimizer includes the cost of this travel when calculating schedules.
• Home (Travel Not incl.). The employee travels from home directly to the first job. The cost of travel is not included.
• Depot. The employee starts each day by going to a service depot or office. Travel costs are tracked starting from the depot.