Setting Up Inspection Scheduling

When agency users and registered public users schedule an inspection, the system is actually determining which inspectors are available and qualified to perform the inspection. Therefore, to schedule inspections, it is necessary to define all of the appropriate employee data for inspectors.

Inspectors are considered qualified if they have been assigned the inspection type and district associated with the inspection. The availability of inspectors is based on their work schedules and whether they have been assigned to other inspections previously.

In addition, the time slots that are available for scheduling are impacted by inspection calendars and holiday calendars, which define when inspections can and can’t be performed, respectively.

The system determines which inspectors can be scheduled to perform an inspection based on two sets of criteria.

Qualifications: To be qualified to perform an inspection, agency staff must be defined as inspectors, and assigned to inspection types, districts and work schedules.
Availability: Agency holidays and inspection calendars, inspector work schedules, and existing inspector assignments determine the availability of inspectors.

The following table lists the different types of data that need to be defined so that the system can determine inspector qualifications and availability. The Frequency column lists how many instances of the data type can be defined. The Required column lists whether a data type is required for time slots to appear on the Scheduling modal page during inspection scheduling.

For more information on inspection requests see Requesting Inspections.

Criteria Type	Data Type	Frequency	Required	Impact of Missing Data
Qualification	Inspection Type	One per inspection	Yes	Only defined inspection types are available to select when requesting inspections. The Select a Time button is not available if the inspection type’s scheduling method is not Schedule.
Qualification	District	One per inspection Note that the address selected for the inspection needs to be associated to a property for which there is an assigned inspection district.	Yes	No scheduling times are available on the Scheduling modal page. Note that the inspection type and a property associated with the permit must have the same district type. If they don’t, the Select a Time button is unavailable for the inspection request.
Qualification	Inspectors	One per employee who performs inspections	Yes	No scheduling times are available on the Scheduling modal page.
Qualification	Assigned Inspection Type	One or more per inspector	Yes	No scheduling times are available on the Scheduling modal page.
Qualification	Assigned Inspection District	One or more per inspector	Yes	No scheduling times are available on the Scheduling modal page. Note that the assigned inspection district and the property associated with the permit must have the same district type. If they don’t, the Select a Time button is unavailable for the inspection request.
Availability	Work Schedule	One or more for each period of the day inspectors work; may include one break	Yes	No scheduling times are available on the Scheduling modal page.
Availability	Assigned Work Schedule	One or more per inspector	Yes	No scheduling times are available on the Scheduling modal page.
Availability	Inspection Calendar	One or more for each combination of inspection type and district	No	The inspection can be scheduled at any time of day (or whenever inspectors are available).
Availability	Assigned Inspection	Automatically created when an inspection is assigned	No	No time slots are unavailable for scheduling due to previously assigned inspections.
Availability	Holiday Calendar	One per agency	No	No days are unavailable for scheduling due to holidays or other agency non-working days.

Inspection Types

You define inspection types using the Inspection Type page. The system uses the estimated duration to determine whether an inspector is available for the entire time required to complete an inspection. The inspection district type is a pre-defined district type with the category of Inspection.

For more information on inspection types, see Setting Up Inspection Types.

Inspection Districts

You must create an inspection district and assign it to inspectors to enable qualified inspectors and make time slots available when scheduling inspections. The district for the inspection is based on the district type assigned to the inspection type. The system uses this district type to determine the district ID associated with the property for which an inspection is being scheduled. A property may have more than one district type associated with it, but only one of them has a district type category of Inspection.

The system determines the property for the inspection based on the inspection address. The address for a new inspection defaults to the primary address associated with the permit for which you are scheduling an inspection. You may select other addresses that are associated with the permit. If no address is associated with an inspection, the system can’t determine the district for the inspection so the Select a Time and Select a Different Time buttons are disabled.

For more information on district types, districts, parcels, and addresses see:

Work Schedules

You must create work schedules and assign them to inspectors to make the inspectors available for inspection scheduling.

Note: If the recurrence for a work schedule is Weekly, and the weeks between occurrences is greater than 1, the system uses the week of the valid from date as the starting point for scheduling.

For more information on work schedules, see Setting Up Work Schedules.

Inspectors

To make inspectors available for inspection scheduling, you must perform the following steps on the Agency Staff page:

Assign the ORA_BUILDING_INSPECTOR job function to the inspector.
Assign inspection types to the inspector by adding job attributes to the ORA_BUILDING_INSPECTOR job function.
Assign inspection districts to the inspector by adding job attributes to the ORA_BUILDING_INSPECTOR job function.
Assign work schedules to the inspector by adding job attributes to the ORA_BUILDING_INSPECTOR job function.

For more information on assigning job functions and job attributes to agency staff, see Setting Up Agency Staff.

Inspection Calendars

Setting up inspection calendars is optional for scheduling inspections. Without inspection calendars, however, the system can potentially allow inspections to be scheduled for any time during a 24 hour period, if there are work schedules that comprise all 24 hours.

You define inspection calendars for a specific combination of inspection type and district. You can define more than one calendar for the same inspection type and district.

For more information on inspection calendars, see Setting Up Inspection Calendars.

Holiday Calendar

Setting up holiday calendars is optional for scheduling inspections. Holiday calendars establish the days that agency offices are closed and no field service operations are offered. The dates established as events on the holiday calendar are not available for inspection scheduling regardless of how the inspection calendars or work schedules are defined.

For more information on holiday calendars, see Setting Up Holiday Calendars.