Assignment of Urgent Activities

When the routing plan is set to Urgent activities, Routing refers to the Business Rules settings defining the urgent activity properties.

If an activity created in or moved to the bucket matches the urgent activity parameters Routing will assign it immediately to the most appropriate resource, even if such assignment violates SLA's of other activities in the resource's route. Urgent activity assignment observes the following constraints:

• Work zone—the resource's work zone must match that of the activity.

• Work skills—the resource's work skills must match the work skills required by the activity.

• Resource preference—the activity may be assigned only to those resources that meet the required or preferred resource preferences, if specified.

• Service window—the activity service window must be observed.

• SLA end—the SLA end of the activity must be observed. Activities with expired SLA will not be routed using Immediate Routing.

• Working Calendar: the resource must have a working calendar to be considered for assignment.

Selection of Resource for Urgent Activity Assignment

Since the principal objective of urgent activity assignment is to reduce its ETA to the minimum, it is important to assign it to the resource, which is the closest to the activity site, so that the travel time is the shortest. Depending on their priority (the priority property value) urgent activities can be placed at different points in the route:

• At the beginning of the route

• After a started or completed activity

• After a pending activity

The position in route which the urgent activity is to take defines the method of determining the resource location. The following cases are possible:

• The urgent activity is to be placed at the beginning of the route:

  • If the resource has GPS coordinates newer than 20 minutes ago, the GPS coordinates are used.

  • If no GPS coordinates are available or if GPS coordinates are older than 20 minutes, the resource's Start Location is used.

  • If no GPS coordinates are available or if GPS coordinates are older than 20 minutes and no Start Location is assigned to the resource able to ensure the minimum ETA from among those matching the activity requirements, the resource's location is undefined, thus such a position is not suitable for urgent activity assignment.

• The urgent activity is to be placed after a started or completed activity:

  • If the resource's GPS coordinates are newer than the address of the started or completed activity, the GPS coordinates are used.

  • If no GPS coordinates are available or if GPS coordinates are older than the address of the started or completed activity, the address of the started or completed activity is used.

• The urgent activity is to be placed after a pending activity:

  • The address of the pending activity is used.

Urgent activities may be assigned to a resource that is already traveling to a different activity or is even in the process of performing a different activity. In this case the urgent activity still has priority, and the resource either has to change direction or interrupt another activity. Any activities for which a different property value is set are not considered urgent and will be assigned in the usual manner.

If an urgent activity is to be assigned at a specific slot and the resource has an existing activity at the same slot, then the existing activity is assigned back to the bucket. If the existing activity also has the Urgent priority, it may be re-assigned to another resource by the same routing run instead.