What is Activity Booking?
When a mobile worker performs an activity at the customer's premises, the customer may enquire about the possibility to perform another job for them on a different day. The mobile worker must be able to collect the information about the new job, create an activity, and schedule it right away. To book an activity, the mobile worker must also have the ability to check the available capacity for that specific date and time. This situation is handled by the Activity Booking option. You must configure the activity booking context properly to get the most accurate and precise capacity calculation. The Book new activity option is configured in the Activity section of the Screens 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 a mobile worker’s route, provided the mobile worker meets 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 Fusion 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, mobile workers can control the booking strategy that is used on a Capacity Area level. Mobile Workers can also configure different capacity areas to use different booking strategies.
Availability-Based Booking
Mobile Worker can book activities for Capacity Areas with booking interval based quota configuration. They can use the booking interval based quota when the time slots overlap or, have a significant variation in the activity duration. When mobile workers choose the booking interval based quota, they must select the booking intervals on the Quota Configuration page. If they 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, the mobile worker must select a Capacity Area, select the day and time slot on which they want to perform the activity, and book it.
- Through the Activity Booking page.
- Through the new API function showBookingGrid. This API simplifies the process of integrating the Booking functionality with external applications.
Regardless of the method, 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 Fusion 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.
If you book an activity close to the end of a time-slot, it has a higher probability of late start. To eliminate risky activity bookings, the application does not provide a booking option for an activity for which the estimated start time appears in the last 20% of the time slot.