Using Mobile Field Service Notifications

This chapter shows how you can use Oracle Workflow to send task-related notifications to technicians.

This chapter covers the following topics:

Using Notifications

Using Notifications

All of the Oracle Mobile Field Service applications (Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Pocket PC and Laptop, and Oracle Mobile Field Service Wireless and Voice) leverage Oracle Workflow to send task related notifications to technicians. Using Workflow you have the ability to send notifications to technicians when activity has occurred against high priority tasks that are associated to those technicians. Oracle provides three seeded task notifications but you can define additional notifications to meet your business requirements. The notifications that are provided are:

New task assignment
Task assignment deletion or cancellation
Task rescheduling

The notifications that are sent to the technicians can be in several different formats. Formats include email, fax, or SMS (short messaging). These notifications provide the technician with all the details associated with the task that they are being notified about.

Note: The process that converts a message to SMS is handled by third party software. Workflow does not provide this functionality.

To use the notifications functionality, you must perform some setup. After you set up notifications, the system will immediately begin to send notifications of new task assignment, task assignment deletion or cancellation, and task rescheduling to the technicians depending on how you set up the notifications.

Follow this procedure to set up the notifications process:

Prerequisites

Oracle Workflow has been implemented and setup.
Field Service Alerts and Notifications is setup and complete.

For more information on Oracle Workflow, see the Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide and the Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

To Set Up Notifications

If using email, define the proper email address for the technicians:
- Enter the email address for the technicians using the HRMS Employee windows.
- If a Supplier Contract resource, enter the email address in the Supplier Contract details windows.
Run the Synchronize Workflow Roles concurrent program on a periodic basis.

When a resource is created or updated, the resource information including the email address, is stored in both Resource Manager and the corresponding Workflow role tables. Notifications can only be sent to all resources stored in Resource Manager that are in sync with the data stored in the Workflow roles tables. Resource Manager administrators must run this program on a periodic basis.
If using email, define the email style (HTML or text) for each technician using the Preferences window.

Navigation: Preferences SSWA > Preferences > Notification (Email Style)
Define the Profile Options associated with this functionality:
- CSF: Default Accepted Task Status: The system will change the task assignment status to this status when selecting the Accept option from the notification.
- CSF: Default Rejected Task Status: The system will change the task assignment status to this status when selecting the Reject option from the notification.
- CSF: Alert Send Preference: The system uses this profile to calculate the send date for the notification. Values are:
  - During Shift: A notification will be sent immediately if the current time is within the shift duration. Otherwise, it will be sent at the beginning of the next day's shift start time.
    
    The profile CSF: Alert before shift begins in minutes will determine the number of minutes before the next day's shift that the notification will be sent.
  - Immediate: A notification will be sent immediately. The system will ignore the profile option CSF: Alert before shift begins in minutes.
  - Scheduled Day: A notification will be sent immediately if the task is scheduled for today. Otherwise, will the notification will be sent at the beginning of the task's scheduled day's shift start time minus the value for the profile CSF: Alert before shift begins in minutes.
- CSF: Alert before shift begins in minutes: The system uses this profile to determine the number of minutes before a shift start that a assignment notification should be sent to the technician.
- CSF: Alert Task Priority Level: Notifications will be sent only to tasks specified at this priority or above.
- CSF: Alert Response Due Time In Minutes: The timeout in minutes for the first create assignment notification.
- CSF: Alert Reminder Response Due Time in minutes: The timeout in minutes for the reminder create assignment notification.
- CSF: Enable Alerts: This value determines whether a technician receives Field Service alerts and notifications.
- CSF: Alert Auto Reject: The assignment should be rejected if the technician does not take any action on the notification before the due date.
Create a Background Engine request for an Item Type Field Service Task Assignment Alerts from the Oracle Application Manager Workflow Manager. Set the concurrent program to run on a periodic basis.

Navigation: Login as a system administrator. System Administrator > Workflow: Oracle Applications Manager > Submit Request for Background Engines