This chapter explains an optional feature on how to render and invoke Maps from the Field Service Dispatch Center. If you have registered with Google Maps, you can invoke and use Google Maps from the Dispatch Center. Alternatively, you can use eLocation Maps provided by Oracle Field Service to perform the same tasks that you can with Google Maps.
This chapter covers the following topics:
The Oracle Field Service application provides customers with an option to view and track information about technicians, task status, and task incident address locations in a more interactive way through Google or eLocation Maps. These maps make it easy for the dispatchers to visualize key business information. With this new functionality, the Field Service application enables customers with or without spatial data information, to have a pictorial view of the tasks, task status, and technicians location details. These maps provides a high performance, visually appealing, and interactive map viewing experience, with all the capabilities built-in such as, zooming in and out, panning or scrolling, and printing.
In addition, if you set up Global Positioning System (GPS) and assigned GPS devices to technicians, you can plot GPS locations of technicians and tasks on Google or eLocation Maps. This enables dispatchers adjust and fine tune schedules on an ongoing basis to manage tasks and technicians. For example, if an emergency job comes up and a technician has to show up at that customer location immediately or if a technician at a customer location has an urgent requirement for spare parts or for help, having real time GPS information on the location of eligible technicians closest to the task location enables dispatchers handle the emergency more efficiently in terms of time, cost, and customer satisfaction.
For more information on implementing and setting up Google or eLocation Maps, see Setting Up Maps in the Oracle Field Service Implementation Guide.
For more information on implementing GPS, see Setting up GPS in the Oracle Field Service Implementation Guide.
For more information on the Map integration with the Field Service Technician Portal, see Viewing Tasks on Maps.
Rendering technician trips, task location, tasks within resources of the selected territories, and tasks fetched by executing the task query onto Google or eLocation maps requires that the addresses and locations be geo-coded. Oracle Advanced Scheduler geo-codes tasks whose locations have not been previously geo-coded, by leveraging the geo-spatial dataset loaded within Oracle Field Service schema. Google Map tries to resolve and display tasks, which are not geo-coded, either in case the geo-spatial data is not loaded or for tasks not resolved earlier by Oracle Geo-coder. If neither spatial data nor Google Maps is available, then Field Service uses eLocation Maps to resolve task addresses for display.
The geo-coder, which is part of the Oracle Advanced Scheduler, has been extended to support country specific address formats and currently provides support for more than 70 countries which includes, North America (Canada, United States, and Mexico), and European & World Markets datasets.
For more information, please see the Oracle Advanced Scheduler User Guide.
Use this procedure to view the current location of the resource and all the tasks in the resource trip along with Shift tasks. The map displays all the tasks in the trip connected by a line that represents the best route for the resource to perform the assigned tasks.
Prerequisites
Oracle Advanced Scheduler geo-codes tasks whose locations have not been previously geo-coded, by leveraging the geo-spatial dataset loaded within the Oracle Field Service schema.
Steps
Navigate to the Field Service Dispatch Center.
Perform one of these options:
Right click on a Resource Name in the Plan Board.
Right click on a Resource Name in the Gantt chart.
Select View Technician Location on Map
If you set up GPS and the resource was assigned a registered device, the current location of the resource is displayed on the map with the tool tip displaying the exact address of this location and the resource's GPS status if at home, stopped, traveling, off the road, or unknown.
On the map, the plotted resource trip is always for the date viewed in the Plan Board or the Gantt chart. The start and end addresses can be departure and arrival task addresses or as specified by the resource. Markers are plotted at the customer incident addresses, with sequence numbers depicting the order of the task in the trip. This is also the order in which the technician is supposed to visit the customer, based on the scheduled start times of the tasks.
Use this procedure to view one or more selected tasks on Google or eLocation Maps and all the resources that belong to the territories managed by the dispatcher.
Prerequisites
Oracle Advanced Scheduler geo-codes tasks whose locations have not been previously geo-coded, by leveraging the geo-spatial dataset loaded within the Oracle Field Service schema.
Viewing Selected Task or Tasks and Technicians location on Map
Navigate to the Field Service Dispatch Center.
Perform one of these options:
Select one task from the task list table of the Dispatch Center.
Select multiple tasks from the task list table of the Dispatch Center.
Then, from the Map Options menu, select View Selected Tasks(s) on Map.
This invokes the Map and plots the incident addresses of the tasks. The tool tip for the task marker displays additional information about the task such as customer, assigned resource, task number, assignment status, planned effort, and scheduled and planned dates.
Use this procedure to view on the map all the tasks assigned to the resources in the territories for which the logged in dispatcher is responsible. These are the tasks scheduled to technicians that are displayed in the Plan Board or Gantt chart for the date entered therein.
Prerequisites
Oracle Advanced Scheduler geo-codes tasks whose locations have not been previously geo-coded, by leveraging the geo-spatial dataset loaded within the Oracle Field Service schema.
Steps
Navigate to the Field Service Dispatch Center.
From the Map Options menu, select View all Territory Task(s) on Map
This invokes the map for the selected territory resources in the Plan Board or Gantt chart as of the selected active date. This option does not plot the departure and arrival tasks of the technicians.
If the information regarding tasks, incidents, and technicians location has valid addresses then the tasks and locations are rendered on the map. Oracle transfers unresolved task addresses to Google or eLocation for resolution. If the address of the task to be marked on the map, is not resolved either by Oracle Geo-coder or by Google, then the task is listed in the Unresolved section of the map.
The Task Marker Icon reflects the color of the corresponding task status, as per the color scheme set up. A tool tip is enabled for the task (marker/icon displayed on the map) with two tabs ‘Task Info’ and ‘Address’ when you click on the marker of the task plotted.
Use this procedure to view a selected task on the map and plot eligible technicians for this task. Oracle Advanced Scheduler only consider qualified resources for the task as determined by scheduler parameters for resource consideration.
Prerequisites
Oracle Advanced Scheduler geo-codes tasks whose locations have not been previously geo-coded, by leveraging the geo-spatial dataset loaded within the Oracle Field Service schema.
Steps
Navigate to the Field Service Dispatch Center.
Right click on a task in the task lists table in the Dispatch Center and select View Task on the Map.
This invokes the Google or eLocation Map with the selected task plotted and the Plot Eligible Technicians button available. If you click this button, resources qualified to handle this tasks and closest to the location of the task are displayed.
The system considers resources using the appropriate scheduler parameters..
You can invoke Google or eLocation Map in a standalone mode either from the Dispatch Center or directly from the navigator under Field Service Setup. The Map window is capable of displaying task related information based on the guided search options and filters provided on the window.
Navigation: Field Service Dispatcher > Dispatch Center > Map Options > Launch Map
Navigation: Field Service Manager > Field Service Setup > Launch Map
You can choose to plot tasks by criteria rendered for tasks, resources or resource trips. This window enables you to plot tasks on the map based on your selections.
If you select the Tasks mode, you can further choose to plot by selected territories or by a selected task list query. In addition, you can plot the nearest, eligible technicians.
If you select the Resources mode, you can further choose to plot by selected resources available under the dispatcher's territories.
If you select the Resource Trips mode, you can further choose to plot by trip date and selected resources in the dispatcher's territories, or by trip date and selected territories.
Tasks are plotted on the map for the resources and territories criteria considering the date selected. For task list query, date has no effect.
The resources are populated in the Available Resources section, based on the territories that have been selected in the Dispatch Center or the territories that have been assigned to the dispatcher. To plot the tasks for those technicians and for a specific date (selected on the Map) that you are interested in, you can move the desired technicians to the ‘Selected’ section. Once the selection is complete, clicking the Refresh button will plot the resolved tasks scheduled to the selected resources on the map. The departure and arrival task information for the selected resources also displays on the map.
When there are multiple resources plotted on the map, upon selecting a resource name in the drop-down list box field, all the tasks scheduled to that resource alone are plotted on the map.
All task list queries available in the Field Service Dispatch Center are listed here. Upon selecting a task list query, the tasks retrieved by executing the query are rendered on the map.
The territories are populated in the Available Territories section, based on the territories that have been selected in the Dispatch Center or the territories that have been assigned to the logged in dispatcher. You can move the desired territories to the ‘Selected’ section to plot the tasks for those territory resources alone for the date selected on the map. After the selection is done, clicking Refresh will plot all the resolved tasks scheduled to the selected territory resources on the map.
When multiple tasks are plotted on the Google map, there is an option to zoom into the tasks plotted on the map by selecting the task in the drop-down list box field. To view the location of the task with tool tip information you can search for the task number in the Find task text field displayed in the map area.
When multiple Tasks of same location are plotted on the eLocation Map, an unique identifing icon * is plotted on that location. Clicking on the * icon invokes a popup window listing all the task numbers plotted on that location.
This table describes the details of the tool tip for the Task Marker/Icon that appears on Maps.
| Task Info Label |
Task Info Description |
Address Label |
Address Description |
Resolved Address Label |
Resolved Address Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Task | Task Number | Road | Road Name | Road | Road Name |
| Customer | Customer Name | City | City Name | City | City Name |
| Assignment Status | Task Assignment Status | State | State | State | State |
| Task Status
Note: This label would only display if the task has multiple assignees. |
Task Status | Postal Code | Postal Code | Postal Code | Postal Code |
| Resource | Resource Address | Country | Country | Country | Country |
| Planned Effort | Planned effort of task | Person | Primary Contact Person | N/A | N/A |
| Planned Start | Planned start date and time of task | Phone | Phone number of the contact person | N/A | N/A |
| End | Planned end date and time of task | Travel Duration | Time required to travel to this task from the previous task (in minutes) | N/A | N/A |
| Scheduled Start | Scheduled start date and time of task | Distance | Distance to travel to this task from the previous task (in Kilometers) | N/A | N/A |
| End | Scheduled end date and time of task | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |