Siebel Field Service Guide > Assets > Setting Up Assets >

Defining Field Engineer Assignments

Teams of employees can be assigned to particular assets and accounts. An asset service team can be set up for field service environments where there are large pieces of equipment and where it may be a requirement that the same individuals work on a given set of equipment. When you have assigned the appropriate field engineers to an asset, you can then define primary, secondary, or tertiary role priorities for each engineer.

An account service team is a team of service personnel associated with a particular account or a particular account site. This team either works at the account site or is called in for breaks, fixes, preventive maintenance, or related tasks at the site. The service personnel are then ranked as primary, secondary, or tertiary to make sure that sufficient coverage is available. These defined role priorities are used to assign activities to appropriate candidates.

When you assign teams of employees to a particular asset or account, service to customers can be expedited because:

• Customers know the background of the installation and how the activities are typically divided up between the team.
• Customers know their service team and whom to contact if a service requirement arises.
• Special clearances and other entry requirements for secured locations can be taken care of once for the assigned team, rather than several times for different individuals.

This topic includes the following related subtopics:

• Creating Asset Service Teams
• Adding Role Priorities to Asset Service Team Employees
• Account Service Team Configuration
• Creating Account Service Teams
• Adding Role Priorities to Account Service Team Employees
• Using Role Priorities When Defining Assignment Rules

Creating Asset Service Teams

Perform the steps in the following procedures to associate employees with an asset, creating an asset service team.

To associate employees with an asset

1. Navigate to the Assets screen > List view.
2. Select an asset record.
3. Scroll down to the Asset form.
4. In the Employees field, click the select button and select the appropriate field service engineers.

   To view a list of the selected employees, navigate to the Assets screen > List > Employees view. The Employees list shows the list of selected engineers.

   NOTE:  To associate skills with employees, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide for more information.

Adding Role Priorities to Asset Service Team Employees

Different levels of role priority can be assigned to employees associated with an asset. When dispatchers assign an activity relating to the particular asset, the primary, secondary, and tertiary candidates appear in ascending order of assignment scores received. See Role Priorities for more information on using roles priorities to assign activities.

Role priorities can also be used by assignment rules to support prioritized assignment of primary, secondary and tertiary field engineers, where primary engineers achieve the highest score, then the secondary, and finally, the tertiary engineer. For more information on how candidates are defined for assignment rules, see Using Role Priorities When Defining Assignment Rules and Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

Perform the steps in the following procedure to assign roles to asset service team employees.

NOTE:  This procedure assumes that employees have already been associated with the asset. If you have not yet associated employees with the asset, see To associate employees with an asset for more information.

To assign role priorities to asset service team employees

1. Navigate to the Assets screen > Employees view.
2. In the Asset form, query for the appropriate asset record.

   The Employees list updates to display the employees associated with this asset.

3. In the Role field, select a primary, secondary, or tertiary role from the drop-down list for each employee.

Account Service Team Configuration

If account service teams are required for your company's service delivery model, then the Employee Account business component must be configured. There are no applets defined for this business component, which means that the appropriate applets and views must be configured using Siebel Tools. For an example of how this view could appear, navigate to the Asset screen > Employees view. See Configuring Siebel Business Applications for more information about adding views to an application.

NOTE:  Membership of an account service team does not have any impact on account visibility. This means that even if an employee is part of an account's service team, the particular account may not be displayed to this employee using the My Accounts visibility filter. To make the account visible to the employee, the appropriate position must be added using the Account Team Members dialog box. This dialog box is displayed when you navigate to the Accounts screen > Accounts List view and click the select button.

Creating Account Service Teams

When you have configured the applets and views so that Field Service now includes an Accounts screen > Employees view (similar to the Asset screen > Employees view), the account service team can be created. The procedure for this should be similar to that described in To associate employees with an asset.

Adding Role Priorities to Account Service Team Employees

Role priorities for an account service team identify the primary, secondary or tertiary engineer who would assist the account for the requested service activity.

When you have created an account service team, you can then add role priorities for each employee. The procedure for this should be similar to that described in To assign role priorities to asset service team employees.

Role priorities can be used when defining assignment rules in Assignment Manager. For more information, see Using Role Priorities When Defining Assignment Rules. See also Role Priorities for more information on using roles priorities to assign activities.

Using Role Priorities When Defining Assignment Rules

Role priorities can also be used in assignment rules to support prioritized assignment of primary, secondary and tertiary field engineers, where primary engineers achieve the highest score, then the secondary, and finally, the tertiary engineer.

Once role priorities have been assigned to asset or account service team employees, assignment rules that are based on these priorities can be defined within Assignment Manager. Assignment Manager uses these assignment rules to determine dynamic candidates. Dynamic candidates are potential assignees for activities. See How Are Dynamic Candidates Used by an End User? for more information.

For example, if you associate an activity with an asset, and that asset has a team of employees, you can configure Assignment Manager to automatically consider these employees (team) for an activity and have the same employees available as potential candidates for other activities. These employees are known as the dynamic candidates.

For more information on how dynamic candidates are determined for activities see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

To define an asset service team assignment rule

1. Navigate to the Administration - Assignment screen > Assignment Rules List view.
2. Create a new assignment rule record and complete the fields as appropriate, making sure that you select Activity from the Objects to be Assigned drop-down list.
3. Drill down on the Name field.
4. In the Assignment Rule form, select Activity Asset Team from the Person Candidates Source drop-down list.
5. Scroll down to the Criteria list and create a new record.
6. In the Rule Criterion field, select Asset Team Relationship Type from the drop-down list.
7. In the Comparison Method, select Compare to Person from the drop-down list.
8. Scroll down to the Asset Team Relationship Type list.
9. Create three new records, one each for Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary and allot scores for each. For example, 100, 50, and 25 respectively.

To define an account service team assignment rule

1. Follow Step 1 to Step 5 in To define an asset service team assignment rule.
2. In the Rule Criterion field, select Account Team Relationship Type from the drop-down list.
3. In the Comparison Method, select Compare to Person from the drop-down list.
4. Scroll down to the Account Team Relationship Type list.
5. Create three new records, one each for Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary and allot scores for each. For example, 100, 50, and 25 respectively.

How Are Dynamic Candidates Used by an End User?

When the asset or account service team assignment have been created, Assignment Manager controls the candidates that are presented for selection to, for example, the dispatcher.

When the dispatcher creates a new activity on the Activities screen, an asset can be specified for the activity. When the dispatcher selects Assign from the menu button's drop-down list, the assignment rules determine that only certain employees are shown for selection. The employees that are displayed are displayed in accordance with their roles, the primary candidates receiving higher scores than secondary and tertiary. Using this information, the dispatcher can select the most appropriate candidate for the activity.