Prepare Your Org for Shift Scheduling

Add rules, objectives, and constraints that help shift managers assign the right service resources to shifts. You can account for a service resource’s preferred hours with scheduling preferences. After you define your shift scheduling objectives, you can use the Get Candidates Shift action (not to be confused with the Get Candidates action for assigning service appointments to service resources) and Mass Shift Update actions to assign shifts to service resources.

When you assign shifts to service resources, Field Service includes specific tools and records used exclusively for assigning shifts, distinct from tools used for scheduling service appointments.

• Scheduling Rules (Setup): Determine how shifts are assigned based on predefined criteria.
• Scheduling Objectives (Setup): Help prioritize the assignment of shifts to meet certain goals.
• Job Profiles: Define the roles and responsibilities suitable for certain shifts.
• Skill Requirements (for Job Profiles) - Make sure that service resources have the necessary skills for the shifts that they’re assigned to.
• Shift Scheduling Constraints: Limit when and how service resources can be scheduled for shifts.
• Get Candidates shift assignment action: Helps identify the most suitable service resources for available shifts.

These records and actions share similar naming but serve a different purpose to the work rules, service objectives, and skill requirements associated with work orders and work order line items. The same applies to the Get Candidates action used for scheduling service appointments (work) to service resources. Each set of tools serves a unique purpose within Field Service to streamline the scheduling process.

Note Shifts and shift scheduling (assigning ad hoc availability hours to a service resource) is a different concept from service appointment scheduling (assigning work to a service resource) in Field Service. Many Salesforce Field Service customers use Field Service only to assign service appointments to their workforce and don’t use shifts or shift scheduling. However, some companies use shifts and shift scheduling.

• Create a Scheduling Objective for Shifts
  Planners and administrators can optimize the shift scheduling process by adding Scheduling Objectives, which apply various business goals to the scheduling process.
• Create a Scheduling Rule for Shifts
  Create rules that define which shifts are to be assigned to which service resources. You can use the default rules, or create your own scheduling rules.
• Scheduling Rule Types
  Scheduling rules help match service resources to shifts. When the scheduling logic looks for service resources to assign to shifts, it checks your rules.
• Add Shift Scheduling Constraints
  Scheduling constraints are records that are defined on the service resource or service territory. They set  the limit for how many shifts, in units or hours, can be assigned to a resource over a given time period (for example a day, week, or month). To match service resources to shifts, the work limit-type scheduling rule looks first for a constraint on the service resource. If no constraint is found, the rule looks for a scheduling constraint on the service territory.