Reload of Service Region to the Appointment Booking System

When a service region is reloaded, the ABS performs the following steps:

1. Queries for employees currently in the service region.

2. Gets the schedule for both the service region and each employee.

3. Queries for any exceptions for employees.

4. Constructs a master schedule.

   First, the ABS applies the service region schedule for all employees. It then applies a schedule for each employee.

   Note: The service region schedule overrules both employee schedules and employee exceptions. For example, if the service region schedule indicates the company does not operate on Sundays, then activities are not scheduled for that day. The advantage of setting a liberal service region (24 hours) is that you can set exceptions, such as employees working on Sundays.

5. Reads in any constraints.

6. Queries for any activities in the next 15 days. The horizon is usually set from the start time of the day (00:00:00 A.M.).

   The ABS does not load historical activities unless you define a weekly or monthly constraint for the service region. If you define only weekly constraints, then the ABS loads another week of data. If you define monthly constraints, then the ABS loads another month of data. However, when you define no weekly or monthly constraints, the ABS loads only activities in the ABS horizon.

   The query appears as follows:

   Planned Start > ABS Load Range End and Planned End < ABS Load Rang Start

   The ABS attempts to insert the activities in the schedule in the following order:

   • Activities with the Locked Schedule and Lock Assignment check boxes selected

   • Activities with the Locked Schedule check box selected

   • Activities with the Locked Assignment check box selected

   • Activities with the Locked Schedule and Lock Assignment check boxes not selected

     If 2 activities that are both locked for schedule and assignment overlap, then only the first attempted activity is scheduled. The second is set as unscheduled.

     When loading, the ABS generally attempts to insert the activities exactly as they are stored in the Siebel database. If nothing changes (same employees, same schedules, no manual changes), then the activities in the cache are exactly the same. However, if changes occur, then the ABS attempts to reschedule activities. After the initial load completes, the ABS uses the following rules to reschedule any remaining appointments:

   • The Earliest Start and Latest Start fields are considered.

   • The Locked Schedule and Locked Assignment check boxes are considered.

     If the ABS can find an open spot for an activity, then the Owner field, Planned Start field, and Planned End field are updated in the cache and written to the Siebel database. If the ABS cannot insert an activity, then the status of the activity is set to Unscheduled but the Owner field, Planned Start field, and Planned End field remain unchanged so that a service manager can see the original committed time for the customer. The new status is written to the Siebel database and recorded in the log if the logging level is set to level 3 or higher. The activity is not kept in the ABS cache.

     Unless an activity changes during the load, the ABS does not modify the activity in the Siebel database. If the ABS fails, then the version in the Siebel database is consistent with the version in the cache. Any manual changes you make in the Siebel database are exceptions to this rule.