Mandatory Work Rules Misconfigured as Extended Match Type

Cause

When the Field Service managed package is installed, it registers the record IDs of the mandatory Due Date and Earliest Start Permitted work rules in a system custom setting. This registration is what marks those records as fixed (system-managed) and protects them from editing or deletion.

If those registered records are replaced by — or point to — work rules with the Extended Match record type (for example, after a sandbox refresh where work rule data was reloaded manually via data import instead of being auto-created by the package), the Extended Match records inherit the fixed-rule protection. The result is a locked state: the record type is wrong, the required Linking Object fields cannot be configured, and the rule cannot be removed or corrected through the UI.

This issue applies to both legacy Field Service Scheduling and Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization (ESO).

Resolution

This configuration cannot be corrected through the standard admin UI. Contact Salesforce Support with the following information:

• The names and IDs of the affected work rules (Due Date and Earliest Start Permitted)
• The name and ID of the Scheduling Policy containing the misconfigured rules
• When the misconfiguration is believed to have occurred (for example, after a sandbox refresh or a manual data load of work rules)

Salesforce Support will recreate the mandatory work rules with the correct Match Time record type and update the internal configuration to register the corrected records. Once resolved, scheduling and optimization resume normally.

Prevention

This misconfiguration most commonly occurs when work rule records are created manually or loaded via data import — typically after a sandbox refresh where the FSL package data was not automatically seeded. To prevent this:

• Do not manually create Due Date or Earliest Start Permitted work rules via data load. These records are seeded automatically when a new Scheduling Policy is created. If they are missing after a sandbox refresh, create a new Scheduling Policy to trigger automatic seeding, then reassign existing policies as needed.
• Do not change the record type of mandatory work rules. Due Date and Earliest Start Permitted must remain as Match Time rule type. Changing them to Extended Match or any other type puts the org into this broken state.

Notes

• The Due Date and Earliest Start Permitted rules are system-managed. They cannot be edited, removed, or have their record type changed through the admin UI — even when misconfigured.
• Extended Match rules require a Linking Object to function. Mandatory time rules are not designed to use Linking Objects; this combination is not supported.
• Scheduling and optimization fail in this state until Salesforce Support corrects the record-type registration.