Siebel Field Service Guide > Scheduling and Dispatch > Scheduling Administration >

Making Changes to a Schedule

Dispatchers and field service engineers may change these specifications for service activities: Planned Start date, Planned End date for an activity, and the engineer assigned to an activity (in the Employees field).

NOTE:  Planned End, Planned Completion and End are all the same. All these terms appear in the user interface.

All changes require updating an in-memory cache of the activities. If a user changes an activity in the database, it becomes out of synch with the cache in memory. Activity data can be reloaded manually into memory by clicking the Load button in Scheduling Administration > Service Regions > Activities. It can also be done automatically using the Workflow Manager.

CAUTION:  Manual changes to a schedule should be kept to a minimum. This is because the Optimization Engine works on the principles of constraint propagation and domain reduction, which are critical to solving complex schedules quickly. This means that no activity that violates a hard constraint can be loaded into the memory cache. (This includes implicit constraints; for example, using the employees' work schedules or excluding double-booking.)

Therefore, the Optimizer might reject a manual change when it loads the activity. Even if the activity is loaded successfully, the Optimizer may later change the schedule for this activity.

When changing a schedule, a user can set two flags for an activity that freeze its scheduled time or assignment:

Even if these flags are set, an activity can be rejected from the schedule if it violates a hard constraint. However, the Optimizer does not attempt to change the activity's Planned Start, Planned End, or Employees fields, so that it remains on the user's calendar. Reducing the number of hard constraints used in the schedule can minimize the possibility of rejecting an activity.

NOTE:  It is recommended that activities with a Status of Done should have the Lock Assignment and Lock Schedule flags set.

Where an activity violates a constraint, the Lock Assignment flag is set to TRUE, and the Lock Schedule flag is also set to TRUE, then the activity is not loaded into memory or updated.

Moving Activities Between Service Regions

An employee can only belong to one service region. However, this does not prevent an employee from performing activities in other service regions. For example, Sue Nelson is an engineer based in the San Francisco service region. Today is a light day for her, but the San Jose service region is completely booked. In most cases, this case would be handled by manually scheduling activities for Nelson using the Dispatch Board. However, the Optimizer can schedule Nelson in the San Jose service region. This requires switching the service region for the activity. Create a button or workflow that carries out these steps:

  1. Cancels the activity from Service Region 1 (San Francisco).
  2. Sets the activity to Service Region 2 (San Jose).
  3. Loads the activity in to Service Region 2 (San Jose).

The Workflow Manager can trigger this process upon rejection of an activity from Service Region 1. Or, the user can initiate this process interactively.


 Siebel Field Service Guide 
 Published: 21 April 2003