Considerations and Limitations for Complex Work

General Considerations

• If a set of dependent appointments spans multiple service territories, you must select all territories in the optimization request for the appointments to be scheduled.
• To be considered for Same Resource dependencies when you’re not using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, each service resource must have a single service territory membership. A chain of appointments in complex work can’t span different service territory memberships.
• Pinned service appointments aren’t counted in services sent in an optimization request or the number of scheduled services.
• To view a service appointment’s related appointments from the Gantt, right-click the appointment and select Show related.

General Limitations

• Experience Cloud site dispatchers can access this feature only when using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization.
• You can’t assign capacity-based resources to appointments that are part of an appointment dependency group. Dispatchers can manually drag service appointments to capacity-based resources, but scheduling and optimization don’t schedule those appointments. You can manually schedule the appointments.
• The combination of multiday scheduling and complex work isn’t supported. If a multiday service appointment is part of a scheduling dependency, its scheduled end date isn’t calculated when the appointment is scheduled.

Complex Work for Service Territories Using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization

• Scheduling and optimization processes use all-or-none logic to ensure that all appointments in a scheduling dependency are scheduled.
• If one service appointment in a complex work chain is pinned but unscheduled, for example, if it’s canceled or waiting for parts, the entire chain can’t be scheduled. Pinned and scheduled appointments within this chain remain scheduled.
• If a service appointment that’s part of a complex work chain is canceled, the entire chain can’t be scheduled unless you adjust the chain dependencies to exclude the canceled service appointment.
• If you use the Same Resource dependency option, the assigned service resource must have a valid service territory membership in each territory where the work occurs.
• Service appointments can overlap on the Gantt in these cases.
  • If a dependent appointment is pinned, the scheduling logic looks for time on the Gantt to add the dependent appointments. Because the pinned appointment isn’t flexible, it can cause overlaps, for example with travel times.
  • If a dependent appointment is pinned and overlapping with an appointment, break, or travel time, complex work doesn’t try to schedule the other appointments in the dependency group. The overlap remains.
• Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization supports up to five service appointments in a dependency group. You can create a dependency group with more than five service appointments for dispatchers to manually schedule.
• When a service resource has primary and secondary service territory memberships within different time zones, the Same Day dependency is calculated according to the primary service territory’s time zone. Therefore, the engine can schedule service appointments with Same Day dependencies that span over midnight of the secondary service territory’s time zone.
• These fields associated with the Service Appointment object don’t apply to Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization.
  • Time Dependency
  • Same Resource
  • Same Day
  • Related Service
• If both Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization and the Sliding and Reshuffling option are enabled:
  • When you try to schedule a complex work chain, other appointments can only slide to earlier or later in the day. They can't be reshuffled or dropped.
  • When you try to schedule a high-priority service appointment, scheduled complex work chains can’t be reshuffled or dropped, even if they have a lower priority.
• Complex work chains with a Same Day dependency can’t slide to the left or right within shifts that cross midnight for book appointments and schedule operations. If one appointment in a chain is scheduled after midnight and can't move to the left or right because it’s pinned or violates rules, the engine can’t slide other appointments in the chain across midnight to satisfy the Same Day dependency.
• Appointment Insights doesn't support service appointments that are part of a complex work chain.

Complex Work for Service Territories Not Using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization

• Service territories without Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization use all-or-none logic only when you select Use all-or-none scheduling for related appointments.
• To be considered for Same Resource dependencies, each service resource must have a single service territory membership. A set of dependent appointments can’t span different service territory memberships.
• You can create dependencies between more than two appointments, except for consecutive work. However, when you schedule the appointments, dependencies are enforced for only two appointments at a time, even if you select Use all-or-none scheduling for related appointments.
• For dependencies that include more than two service appointments, scheduling and optimization don’t guarantee that all the dependent appointments are scheduled. For example, in a set of four dependent appointments, the first two appointments can be scheduled but not the third or fourth.
• Scheduling operations (such as Get Candidates, Book Appointment, or the Schedule action) don’t necessarily consider all dependencies in a set of appointments. If some appointments aren’t scheduled it can result in rule violations.
• If an appointment in a dependency group with three or more appointments is scheduled, when optimization runs it considers those appointments as pinned. Optimization doesn’t schedule, reschedule, or unschedule those appointments.
• Complex work uses point-to-point predictive routing in optimization and uses the most optimistic street-level routing (SLR) travel time in platform scheduling.
• These fields associated with the Service Appointment object are supported only when the Enable complex work setting is disabled. When you’re using complex work, we recommend that you enable this setting and use the Appointment Dependencies object.
  • Time Dependency
  • Same Resource
  • Same Day
  • Related Service

Consecutive Work Considerations and Limitations

You can create consecutive work with the Immediately Follow dependency type. Keep in mind these considerations and limitations.

• Service territories using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization can use the Immediately Follow dependency type to connect up to five service appointments. In territories that don’t use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, you can create Immediately Follow dependencies for only two service appointments. You receive an error after adding a third appointment with this dependency type.
• For service territories that don’t use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, scheduling and optimization doesn’t support predictive travel, crews, resource efficiencies, reshuffle actions, fixed gaps, or multiday work with consecutive work appointments.
• Breaks aren’t supported, except for service territories that use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization. In that case, scheduling can insert a lunch break between consecutive appointments.
• If you reschedule consecutive appointments for service territories that don’t use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, the scheduling logic doesn’t consider the second appointment’s original slot as an available slot.
• If the first appointment is scheduled successfully but not the second, scheduling and optimization doesn't unschedule the first appointment. This limitation applies in service territories that don’t use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization. In territories that use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, scheduling is all-or-none, so all or none of the consecutive appointments are scheduled.
• When you schedule a service appointment with an Immediately Follow dependency for service territories that don’t use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, the second service appointment’s properties are ignored except for Duration, Location, Scheduled Start, and Scheduled End. Instead, optimization uses the properties of the first service appointment in the complex work chain.
• When you manually schedule (drag) a service appointment with an Immediately Follow dependency for service territories that don’t use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, the second service appointment is automatically scheduled, such that the appointments are back-to-back. When you unschedule a service appointment with an Immediately Follow dependency, the second service appointment is automatically unscheduled. For service territories that use Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization, all complex work is handled the same, regardless of the dependency type. When you manually schedule (drag) or unschedule a service appointment that is part of a complex work chain, it doesn’t affect any of the other service appointments in the chain.
• When you’re using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization and a chain has a consecutive work dependency together with a dependency that requires additional resources, some candidates aren't always identified by the engine when you schedule service appointments through scheduling, get candidates, or appointment booking operations.