Oracle Field Service sends configured
notifications for each activity separately. If several activities
(appointments) are scheduled on the same day for a customer and you
want to send one notification of each kind (for example, day before,
reminder, or change notifications) to the customer, then select the Enable Visit Functionality check box to activate the
Visit functionality.
Use the Visit Bundling Key field to define the criterion for a
visit. The criterion can include an activity property field, where you can set the length of the
property values and determine whether the property values are case sensitive. The application
compares the values defined in the activity fields against the specified criterion. Activities
are grouped together as a visit, only if the values of all visit bundling keys match the
specified criterion. To ensure that external system messages are sent properly, you must add a
launch condition using visit triggers while configuring message scenarios. Note: A single
activity can appear on the Links tab with a Visit ID if the Visit bundling criteria are
met.
When routing is run using Immediate Assignment and if the Bundling setting is used
(only available in Immediate Assignment routing), then the Immediate Routing plan uses the Visit
Bundling key for route optimization. For example, when you use the activity address as a
bundling key and run routing for urgent activities, then routing finds activities that are on
the same address as the urgent activity to create visits. For more details, refer to the
Immediate Activity Assignment section in the Oracle Field Service Using Routing Cloud Service
Guide. After you define the visit bundling keys, click Save to
recalculate the existing activities according to the new visit settings. To define bundling keys
for a visit:
- Click Configuration.
- Click Business Rules in the General section.
The Business Rules page appears.
- Select the Enable the Visit functionality check box.
- Click the Modify icon.
- Click the Plus icon.
-
Select the required keys, for example, ZIP/Postal Code.
- Click Add.
- Use these filters to specify additional criterion for grouping
activities:
Length: Enter an integer value between 0 and 99. For example, if you have
selected ZIP/Postal Code as the key and enter 5 here, then the first
5 digits of the zip code are considered.
Function parameter: Select a parameter to determine whether the activity
property values are case sensitive, case insensitive, first word case sensitive, or first
word case insensitive.
-
Click Update.
-
Use the slider and set the lower and upper limits of ratio for the duration of bundled
activities.
This is the ratio of the average duration of activities that are part of a bundle (except
for the first one) to the duration that is currently estimated for such activities. This ratio
is applied to the original estimate to get the estimated duration of bundled activities. The
ratio is not applied to the estimated duration of the first activity of the bundle. The first
activity continues to have the same duration as a similar standalone activity. You can also
see the value calculated by the application based on the duration reported by the field
resources. The final ratio that is applied to the estimation durations of the non-first bundled
activities is within the lower and upper limits set here. So, if the calculated ratio lies
within the limits, that value is used. If not, then the limit closet to the calculated value is
used.
You can use the limits to override the ratio to be used for the duration of non-first
bundled activities. To override, set both the lower and upper limits to the value that you want
to use. Since, the application always respects the limits, it uses the value you have set. For
example, if your desired ratio is 80%, then set both the lower and upper limits to 80% to use
this always, regardless of what the calculated value is. Similarly, to disable this feature
and to have the application behave the way it used to, set the lower and upper limits to
100%.
For more information, see the Bundling of Activities section in the Using Routing
guide.
-
Click Save on the Business Rules page.
Note: If there are already visits in the system, and if the visit bundling keys are changed,
then after recalculation, the visits no longer matching the keys are split into individual
activities. ‘Not Done’ status for a visit is defined as follows: