Propose Time Feature Behavior
Consider the following points when you book an arrival window for a work order:
• The Recommended slots are displayed at the beginning of the table. However, you can sort the table by date. The Recommended slots mean that those slots are recommended regarding route suitability and cost factor.
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Recommended slots are the most optimal based on the current state of the technician's calendar.
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• One slot is displayed per technician per day, when there is no non WO event or manually scheduled event is present in the route. If a non WO event or manually scheduled event is present in the route, then two slots are displayed for that technician, one slot before the event and another after the event.
• Two slots are displayed if the event is present in the route, and if the service duration and travel time can be accommodated within the available time before and after the event.
• Slots are shown for all technicians in the territory over:
◦ 15 working days, if the scheduling horizon exceeds 15 days
◦ The full horizon period, if it is 15 days or fewer.
• By default, the Start Date and End Date match the dispatch horizon start and end dates. If the horizon extends beyond 15 days, the date pickers show only the first 15 working days, considering holidays and non‑working hours. You can manually update the date range to include other dates within the dispatch horizon and click Run to view available slots.
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Using Propose Time, slots can be retrieved for a maximum of 15 working days. Dates outside the horizon appear unavailable (grayed out) in the date picker.
If the Preferred Start and End Time values are provided in the work order, the slots are displayed based on the PST/PET values by default when the Propose Time SFM is invoked. However, you can change the date range as required.
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Examples:
a. Business hours include holidays and non‑working days
▪ Horizon: 10 days
▪ Non‑working days: Saturday, Sunday
▪ Holiday: 24 March 2026
▪ Horizon start: 19 March 2026
On launching Propose Time page, dates are calculated considering holidays and non‑working days.
Start Date: 19 March 2026, End Date: 2 April 2026
b. Business hours have no holidays or non‑working days
▪ Horizon: 10 days
▪ Horizon start: 19 March 2026
On launching Propose Time page, dates are displayed directly based on the horizon as there are no holidays and non-working hours.
Start Date: 19 March 2026, End Date: 28 March 2026
c. Horizon is greater than 15 days
▪ Horizon: 30 days (19 March 2026 to 29 April 2026, considering non‑working days)
▪ Non‑working days: Saturday, Sunday
▪ Horizon start: 19 March 2026
On launching Propose Time page, only the first 15 working days are shown.
Start Date: 19 March 2026, End Date: 8 April 2026
Slots for the remaining horizon (9 April 2026 to 29 April 2026) can be viewed by manually selecting dates using the date pickers.
• If slots are fetched for more than 15 days, an error message is displayed: “Horizon to generate proposed times is more than 15 days <Horizon Start Date> and <Horizon End Date>.”
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The dates shown in the message reflect the dispatch horizon, not the 15‑day limit. Selected dates must be within the dispatch horizon, and you can select a maximum of 15 working days at a time.
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• Arrival windows can also be booked using Propose Time for work orders without dispatch process, provided the work order territory is associated with Batch DP.
• Poor slots are not displayed by default. Click the Show Poor Slots checkbox to display poor slots. You can only view poor slots and not book one. If you try to book a poor slot, an error message is displayed informing you that you cannot book the slot because it is a poor one. You can only view the poor slots' information as a reference.
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The Show Poor Slots checkbox is enabled only when you have set the SET013 setting to True.
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Propose Time Slots Display Examples
When you fetch a Propose Time for a work order, Schedule Optimization displays the available booking slots between the calendar's start and end dates, including recommended and regular slots. A maximum of 25 slots is displayed per page.
A technician with a Non WO event with both Geo and Non-geo events, force fixes a WO in the calendar. In such cases, two slots are displayed for booking. One slot before the event and another slot after the event, provided drive time and capacity are present. Depending upon the data set provided as input (existing scheduled WO, Events on technician calendar), two slots might not be displayed since the page can display only 25 slots and one of the slot might not fall into the count.
For example: Horizon : 15/10 to 29/10 , Tech Working hours: 9 AM to 5 PM. Non WO event is present in the technician calendar on 16th
To get a precise number of slots for a day where non WO event is present, it is recommended to change the calendar start and end date for a shorter span accordingly so that all the recommended slots can be seen for booking
For example: Start Date :16/10 End date :17/10
Feature Behavior for the Work Orders
Consider the following feature behavior for the work orders booked using the Propose Time during scheduling:
• If the technician for whom you have booked the arrival window becomes unavailable, the work order is rescheduled to another available technician for the same arrival window. The fixed arrival window is honored, even though the assigned technician may change.
• The work orders booked with the Propose Time option honor the time window, but they can start anytime within the window. For example, if the arrival window is 8 AM-9 AM, the work order start time can be 8.15 AM.
• Batch Optimization considers work orders booked via Propose Times irrespective of if they have the dispatch process stamped on it; and can change the scheduled time of the work order to any time within the selected window. In case technicians are unavailable or do not have enough capacity, the Propose Times work orders are unassigned.
• The following are supported for work orders booked using the Propose Time option:
◦ Technician efficiency
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The service duration for the work order is calculated based on the technician efficiency factor defined at technician level.
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◦ Preferred/mandatory/prohibited technician for the work order
• If any scheduling-related fields of a work order booked using the Propose Time option are updated before the Batch Optimization job run, the updated values are considered during optimization.
• The Batch job runs containing only the proposed time-booked work orders fail. This is because the propose time-booked work orders are fixed events, and the optimizer can optimize a set of work orders during a job run only when there is at least one work order that is qualified for the Optimized Batch that is not a fixed work order.
• When no technician in the territory is available in the Propose time Booked slots, the Propose time booked WO is marked as Bad event by the server and it overlaps with another WO by the optimizer.
• The following features are not supported when using the Propose Time option:
◦ Capacity reservation
◦ Overnight stay
Related Topic
For details on a list of error messages displayed in the Propose Time UI, see Propose Time Error Codes and Messages.