Understanding Resource Schedules

In PeopleSoft Financials, a task is the equivalent of a schedule entry, such as an appointment or assignment. Resource tasks are managed with a set of predefined task categories that are delivered with PeopleSoft Resource Management, and user-definable categories that are available for tasks that are specific to the organization. There are two main types of task categories: assignment task categories, such as billable external and non-billable internal, and appointment task categories, such as meeting and holiday.

Every entry on a resource's schedule must be associated with a task category. Task categories are used to distinguish between different types of tasks on a resource's schedule, for both informational purposes and in the Resource Matching Availability factor fit score calculation. Each task category is assigned a flexibility percentage, which is used in Resource Matching to identify how easily a task in that category can be rescheduled. Tasks that are in a category with a high flexibility percentage are considered more likely to be rescheduled. Resources with high flexibility tasks on their schedules are considered to be more available than resources with low flexibility tasks.

The assignment process adds assignment tasks with a status of reserved, pending approval, and assigned to the schedule. For assignment task categories, the basic flexibility percentage that you assign applies to assignments with a status of pending approval or assigned. You can also indicate a reserved status flexibility for assignment task categories, which assigns a different—usually higher—flexibility for assignment tasks that are in that category with a status of reserved. For example, if the basic flexibility percentage for the task category of billable external is zero percent, the reserved flexibility percentage of the billable external task category can be set to 50 percent.

The following table identifies:

• Each delivered task category and description.

• The basic (default) flexibility percentage.

• The flexibility percentage for the task category with a reserved assignment status.

• Whether the task category is available for an assignment (Y) or an appointment (N).

For each delivered task category, you can modify the default flexibility percentage and change the type value to Y (assignment) or N (appointment), with the exception of the Scheduled Holiday task category. The default flexibility percentage for the Scheduled Holiday task category is editable only when the Do not Schedule Assignments on Holidays option is not selected on the Installation Options - Resource Management page. The Do not Schedule Assignments on Holidays option appears on the Installation Options - Resource Management page only if PeopleSoft Program Management is not installed.

For assignment task categories, you can also modify the reserved status flexibility percentages.

You can create additional task categories for appointment types or assignment types. You can rename any task category that you create; however, you cannot rename the delivered task categories. Two task categories, OTHER and OTHER2, are delivered as examples.

You must map task categories to TRCs for non-assignment time if you use the Services Forecasting feature that is available with PeopleSoft Program Management. A TRC represents an incident of time and defines its type, units, currency, and other attributes. When the forecast collection tool in Services Forecasting extracts data from the PeopleSoft Resource Management resource schedules to load resource forecasts, the tool loads non-assignment hours based upon a task category's mapping to a TRC. The tool does not load non-assignment time into a resource forecast for which no mapping exists.

Holidays that are observed in the workplace impact availability, and holiday schedules can differ from country to country. In PeopleSoft Financials, you can recognize scheduled holidays on resource schedules.

Like other tasks, holiday tasks must be associated with a task category. Using the Scheduled Holiday task category enables you to manage flexibility during the holiday and supports reporting capabilities. For example, you can select a holiday task category to include holidays in utilization ratio calculations on the Scheduled Utilization report.

When you implement PeopleSoft Resource Management, all of the resource schedules are empty. The schedules reside in the Schedule Tasks record (RS_SCHED_TASK), which is delivered without data. When you start using PeopleSoft Resource Management, Resource Matching determines each eligible resource's availability to fulfill each open service order. The system calculates availability by analyzing the flexibility of each task on a resource's schedule and the portion of the resource's available work time that is assigned to tasks.

The holidays that each employee is entitled to observe reside in the Holiday Dates record (HOLIDAY_DATE), which is populated on the Holiday Schedule page during installation. If you integrate with PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (PeopleSoft HCM), holidays may be created in that system based on your setup. During installation you initiate the Holiday Load Application Engine process (RS_HOLIDAY) to insert holidays into each resource's schedule. This process inserts into the resource's schedule all of the holidays that are associated with the holiday schedule that is specified on the resource's current data row on the Job record (JOB) in the employee source database. The process inserts a task with a task category of SCHEDULED_HOLIDAY for every holiday.