Why are work orders unresourced with the Total Working Hours of the Technician Exceeded violation?

Perform the following checks if you encounter the issue:

Why are work orders in OPT_TENTATIVE status?

Validate that the ServiceMax Job is running if you encounter the issue.

Why is the Ranked Appointment Booking page not launching in the customer portal?

Perform the following checks if you encounter the issue:

Why are work orders scheduled only for a few technicians in Batch Optimization?

Perform the following checks if you encounter the issue:

Why does the appointment booking page display a message?

The following message is displayed on the Ranked Appointment Booking page when the RTO dispatch process is in the Suspended or the Idle state:

Please wait while the job starts for territory <territory name>.

It means that the job resumption or initiation is triggered depending on the current state. The job starts running in two or three minutes.

When does a job go to Idle state?

RTO job goes into Idle state when all the work orders for the corresponding dispatch process are dispatched, and there are no work orders with Scheduling Status as Tentative to optimize for an hour. This time duration is defined internally and is not configurable.

What is the reason for getting the following error on launching Ranked Appointment Booking?

This message is displayed when you launch the Ranked Appointment Booking page for a work order that cannot be fulfilled for various reasons. For example, the work order might specify a Required skill, and no technicians in the territory possess the specified skill.

Is it possible that a work order has a dispatch process but is not scheduled by Schedule Optimization?

Yes. There can be work orders with a dispatch process linked but not scheduled. Work orders with the following statuses are examples of such scenarios:

A technician cannot do a specific type of work for medical reasons. It does not mean they lost the skill. Is there any way to configure Schedule Optimization to exclude a specific technician based on specific criteria?

Yes. You can use any of the following approaches:

Does Schedule Optimization give priority to work orders that are already late?

If there is a late violation on a work order, Schedule Optimization tries to assign the work order as soon as possible to reduce the late violation cost. If a work order that is already late is still not assigned, there can be multiple reasons for scheduling depending on various factors.

What happens when PST is within the scheduling horizon window, but the work order cannot be scheduled because of a lack of capacity? It is understood that Schedule Optimization flags it as a late work order and treats it with higher priority. But, is there a time when it is too late to schedule the work order?

Yes, a scenario wherein the work order cannot be scheduled even after the SLA is passed because of a lack of capacity or skill requirement. The following is an example:

For information about SLA fields and their impact on scheduling, see SLA Fields.

What happens when some work orders can be performed at any point in time during the year? Is it possible to specify PST and PET to depict a long period, for example, PST=2020/09/01 and PET=2021/08/31? What happens in such a scenario? Is this work order constantly optimized until the scheduled date is reached? Or is it ignored until PET is in the Dispatch Horizon?

When you create such a work order, Schedule Optimization sends all the business days through PST=2020/09/01 and PET=2021/08/31 for the work order, but it is scheduled only for days within the horizon. If the dispatch horizon is 15 days and today is 2020/08/31, the work order is scheduled on any day between 2020/08/31 and 2020/09/14. As the horizon is a moving window, the work order might be scheduled on any day between 2020/09/15 to 2021/08/31 when these days are part of the horizon. Scheduling is attempted within the dispatch horizon window as long as the Scheduling Status of the work order is not Dispatched.

For information about SLA fields and their impact on scheduling, see SLA Fields.

Skill Set field value is not populated for work orders having the Locked By DC flag checked. Is this an expected behavior?

Yes. When the Locked by DC flag is checked, none of the rules are computed. Therefore, the skill set is not populated when the Locked By DC flag is checked on work order creation.

Is it possible to cancel and force-fix Dispatched work orders?

The following scenarios are possible:

Why is the event start time in the past? For example, the event was created at 9:43 AM, but the start time is 8:00 AM.

To keep the data in sync, Schedule Optimization recreates the event for the work order when the event for the dispatched work order is deleted manually.

How to identify non-optimizable events?

The event status is updated as Non-optimizable. In Dispatch Console, you can use the Event.Status field to set up an event rule to identify such events with a different color.

Is there a way to identify the element that caused the route to be inactive, as all the fixed elements (manually assigned work orders, non-work order events) on that route are updated as non-optimizable?

There is no specific flag to indicate which element caused the route to turn inactive. However, you can see the status of the element that caused the route to turn inactive updated as non-optimizable first. All the other fixed elements in that route are updated in the next push message.

To provide the possibility to correct a work order assignment that caused a route to become inactive, is there any work order field with a description of the cause of the issue? Does the OptiMax Error Text field provide any useful information regarding this?

No. The status of the corresponding work order event is updated as Non-optimizable. The cause is not populated on the work order or the event.

Why is the Promised Arrival Window field updated with the message Assigned By DC (now renamed to Tech Assigned by DC/Manually Entered)?

Assigned by DC message is updated in the work order in the following scenarios:

Why are updated technician working hours not considered?

The reason is either of the following:

For the updated working hours to be considered, perform either of the tasks.

Push messages are not updated in the work orders, causing overlap.

Push messages are not updated in the work order if the OptiMax Status AND Scheduling Change Token fields are blank. In such cases, the work order is considered canceled.

Is coordinates computation for work orders done?

Schedule Optimization computes coordinates for the work orders that do not have them.

While scheduling work orders manually, the dispatcher might know the drive time needed for the work order. In such a scenario, can the dispatcher specify the drive time manually in the Dispatch Console? Does Schedule Optimization recalculate and override the drive time that was specified manually?

Drive time is calculated for manually assigned work orders because it is required to determine the travel time from the previous element to the manually assigned work order. Schedule Optimization recalculates and overrides the drive time specified by the dispatcher for manually assigned work orders.

Updates to which technician fields make a callout to the server?

Updates to the following technician fields make a call to the server:

Can work order schedules be changed by Schedule Optimization after a manual dispatch?

Yes. Consider the following scenarios:

Does the Schedule Optimization job go into the Idle state if there are no new elements in the territory for a period of time? The territory might still have work orders that are optimized for the near future.

The job continues to run if Schedule Optimization schedules work orders in the Tentative status for the near future, even if no new work orders are created or updated.

What are the Expertise fields that trigger a call to the server when updated?

When you update the following Expertise fields in the Technician/Resource record, a call to the server is triggered:

Why is return drive time calculated for non-work order events without location?

The location of the previous element is considered as the non-work order event's location if the event does not have the location. Hence, if the element before the non-work order event has a location different from the technician's home location, return drive time is calculated if it is the last element in the route.

Why is the Scheduling Status of the RTO work order updated to Cancelled when I clear the scheduling-related fields of the work order?

Whenever you clear the scheduling-related fields of an RTO scheduled work order, the scheduling status is updated to Cancelled and the Scheduling Change Token is updated to CHANGE_CANCEL_WO. These fields are cleared after a call is made to the Schedule Optimization server.

What are the possible reasons for a work order to be not considered for scheduling?

The work order is not considered for scheduling when one of the following might be true:

Why is Schedule Optimization not scheduling work orders to technicians with right skills for the job?

This issue might occur if the work order does not specify any mandatory skill. To drive Schedule Optimization to assign work orders to technicians with right skills for the job, update the work order with Mandatory Skill and Skill Level fields. If these values are specified in the work order, Schedule Optimization takes these into consideration and assigns work orders accordingly.