Overview of Booking an Activity
When you perform an activity at the customer's premises, the customer may enquire about the possibility to perform another job for them on a different day. You must be able to collect the information about the new job, create an activity, and schedule it right away. To book an activity, you must also have the ability to check the available capacity for that specific date and time. This situation is handled by the Book new activity option. The Book new activity option is configured in the Application screens section of the Screen Configuration page.
- Direct assignment booking
- Quota-based booking:
- Time slot based
- Booking interval based (or availability based)
Direct Assignment Booking
Activity booking uses the activity information and finds all the Capacity Areas that match the activity requirements. If a Capacity Area is configured for booking using direct assignment, the activity is created (or reassigned) in your route, provided you meet the activity requirements and has enough time to complete it. When there are many available resources that can work on the activity for a particular date and time slot, Oracle Field Service assigns the activity to one of them. The application typically finds a mobile worker that has a smaller set of working skills than a mobile worker with a wider skillset. This way, resource selection is optimized, so that the following activities that require booking have more available options. With this feature, you can control the booking strategy that is used on a Capacity Area level. You can also configure different capacity areas to use different booking strategies.
Availability-Based Booking
You can book activities for Capacity Areas with booking interval based quota configuration. You can use the booking interval based quota when the time slots overlap or, have a significant variation in the activity duration. When you choose the booking interval based quota, you must select the booking intervals on the Quota Configuration page. If you do not select the booking intervals, the application uses the default Capacity intervals that are configured on the Business Rules page.
When you configure a Capacity Area for booking using Quota (time slot based or availability based), then the activity is created (or reassigned) on the bucket that is associated with the Capacity Area. If there are multiple Capacity Areas, you must select a Capacity Area, select the day and time slot on which they want to perform the activity, and book it.
When you try to book an activity, the application uses the activity information you have entered and provides you the list of options where it may be booked.
As soon as you book an activity, Oracle Field Service subtracts the capacity required for its performance from the available capacity and adds it to the used capacity. It compares the used capacity to the quota values to make sure that orders for new activities are accepted only when the capacity is still available. Аs having capacity information up-to-date is crucial for the functionality, Activity Booking is available only in the online mode.