Siebel Field Service Guide > Scheduling Using Siebel Scheduler >

Factors for Setting Up Schedules

Consider the following factors when setting up schedules:

• Business model. Review your business model to determine the part that scheduling plays in the model. Determine the Siebel CRM modules that you want to use.
• Service regions. Plan service regions so that movement of service personnel between regions is the exception. Geographic areas that define service regions can overlap. In addition, service regions can have parent regions that effectively widen the primary service region when manually assigning activities by using the Dispatch Board. Thus, you can share resources across areas by setting up regional hierarchies. For more information, see Defining Service Regions.
• Server mapping. Set up servers and processors to distribute the scheduling tasks efficiently. For more information, see Setting Up Server Key Mappings and Setting Parameters for Server Component Tasks.
• Employees. Assign employees to service regions.

  NOTE:  You can assign an employee to only 1 service region. For more information, see Loading Employee Data for Service Regions.

• ZIP or postal codes. Load ZIP Code and geocode data. For more information, see Defining Geographic Areas for the Optimizer.
• 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. For more information, see Creating Constraint Sets for Schedules.
• Cost functions. Set up cost functions for the Optimizer. The Optimizer calculates a cost function for each proposed schedule. This function is the sum of variables 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.