Designing Who Does Your Field Activities

At this point, you have designed the following:

• Field activity types. These define what you do to your service points.

• SP types. These define the various services that exist at your premises.

• Operations areas. These define the locations from which you dispatch field activities.

• Dispatch groups. These define crews who do your field activities.

Now you have to pull it all together and define which dispatch group performs each field activity at every SP type in every area office. This is a four dimensional matrix that is easier to represent in two dimensions. We'll fill in this matrix for one of our many activity types. You'll need to do this for EVERY activity type:

Activity Type	SP Type	Operations Area	Dispatch Group
Connect SP and install meter	GAS - RESIDENTIAL	North Area	North - Gas&Water Crew
		South Area	South - Gas&Water Crew
	GAS - COMMERCIAL	North Area	North - Gas&Water Crew
		South Area	South - Gas&Water Crew
	WATER - RESIDENTIAL	North Area	North - Gas&Water Crew
		South Area	South - Gas&Water Crew
	WATER - COMMERCIAL	North Area	North - Gas&Water Crew
		South Area	South - Gas&Water Crew
	ELECTRIC - RESIDENTIAL	North Area	North - Electric Res Crew
		South Area	South - Electric Res Crew
	ELECTRIC - COMMERCIAL	North Area	North - Electric HV Crew
		South Area	South - Electric HV Crew

We made the following assumptions when filling in the above table:

• You have two operations areas: North Area and South Area.

◦ The North Area handles all service requests in the northern part of your service territory.

◦ The South Area handles all service requests in the southern part of your service territory.

• You have the following dispatch groups in the South Area.

◦ North - Gas&Water Crew. This crew performs all field activities associated with ALL gas and water service points in the northern area regardless of SP type (i.e., residential and commercial installs are handled by the same group).

◦ South - Gas&Water Crew. This crew performs all field activities associated with ALL gas and water service points in the southern area regardless of SP type (i.e., residential and commercial installs are handled by the same group).

◦ North - Electric Res Crew. This crew performs all field activities associated with electric residential service points in the northern area.

◦ South - Electric Res Crew. This crew performs all field activities associated with electric residential service points in the southern area.

◦ North - Electric HV Crew. This crew performs all field activities associated with electric commercial service points in the northern area (the HV stands for high voltage).

◦ South - Electric HV Crew. This crew performs all field activities associated with electric commercial service points in the southern area (the HV stands for high voltage).

You must fill in the above matrix for EVERY activity type. We'll give you one more example to show how to set up this information if you have centralized dispatching of some types of field activities. Our example assumes that all cuts for non-payment are handled by a single crew located at the North office.

Activity Type	SP Type	Operations Area	Dispatch Group
Cut metered service due to nonpayment	GAS - RESIDENTIAL	North Area	All - C&C crew
		South Area	All - C&C crew
	GAS - COMMERCIAL	North Area	All - C&C crew
		South Area	All - C&C crew
	WATER - RESIDENTIAL	North Area	All - C&C crew
		South Area	All - C&C crew
	WATER - COMMERCIAL	North Area	All - C&C crew
		South Area	All - C&C crew
	ELECTRIC - RESIDENTIAL	North Area	All - C&C crew
		South Area	All - C&C crew
	ELECTRIC - COMMERCIAL	North Area	All - C&C crew
		South Area	All - C&C crew

We understand if you have the above situation, there is some redundancy. But this is the price of the flexible design.

At this point, you're ready to set up your field activity types and field activity type profiles. We recommend first setting up your field activity types. Then set up your field activity type profiles designed earlier.

Note:

Don't forget. A field activity type profile contains a list of ALL field activity types that can be performed at service points that use the profile. This list must include all of the field activity types needed to: start and stop service, cut and reconnect service, investigate service, and record trouble orders for the service. Refer to Designing Your Field Activity Profiles & Types for more information.

Parent topic

Designing Your Field Activity Profiles and Types