Travel Keys

A travel key consists of one or more activity properties used to delineate a specific, reasonably small geographical area. This key helps the estimation of travel times by leveraging statistical data on travel durations, which can be sourced from mobile worker reports or third-party data for locations sharing the same travel key attributes. The application can identify the travel key automatically, or you can define manually too, using a postal code or its subdivision. For companies operating across multiple countries, incorporating the country code into the travel key is helpful.

The travel time estimation algorithm uses a Machine Learning-based approach that uses airline distance-based estimations, travel key-based statistics, or a combination of both to predict travel times to or from a location.

If you've configured and applied a travel key for an organization, Oracle Fusion Field Service uses the learned travel statistics based on the travel key specific to the organization. If you haven’t, Oracle Fusion Field Service uses the learned travel statistics based on the default travel key. You can create a maximum of five travel keys across all the organizations that you have. This is helpful to create the travel key based on the postal code of the country you're operating in.

Default Travel Key

These points apply to the default travel key:

• If you haven’t configured a travel key, the travel key field is empty with the message "No items selected". The first key you add is considered as the default key and is linked to all the organizations you’ve created. Administrators can add more keys and change the linked organizations as needed.
• If you don’t link an organization to a travel key, it's automatically linked to the default travel key.
• Any new organization that you create is linked to the default travel key.
• You can set only one travel key as the default.
• If you set another key as the default travel key when a default key exists, the default key that was set earlier becomes non-default.
• You can’t delete the default travel key.
• Organizations linked to the default travel key are read-only and can’t be directly modified.
• To remove organizations linked to the default travel key, you should assign the organization to a non-default travel key. By doing so, the selected organization is automatically removed from the default travel key.
• To add organizations to the default travel key, you should unlink the organization from the currently associated non-default travel key. By doing so, the selected organization is automatically linked to the default travel key.
• If you delete a non-default travel key, all organizations that were linked to the deleted travel key are linked to the default travel key.
• You must define at least one valid property for every travel key.
• You must link every non-default travel key to at least one organization.

Travel Key Considerations

Consider these points before you create a travel key:

• The maximum number of travel keys that you can configure is five (5).
• The size of the travel key is truncated to 50 characters if the value is longer.
• For the most accurate estimation of travel times, the best practice is to have all buckets and resources under the bucket where the activities are typically assigned use the same travel key.
• If resources under the bucket (where the activity is assigned) use different travel keys, Oracle Fusion Field Service uses a weighted average of estimations based on all such travel keys. This value might be less accurate than the case where all the resources within the bucket use the same travel key.
• Adding too many different travel keys based on organizations operating within the same geographical region might reduce the rate of learning travel estimations. This would result in less accurate travel estimations, or many travels using the default travel for lack of learned travel estimations.