Create Relevance Groups

Guidelines for Applying Work Rules

Before you create and use relevance groups to apply work rules to certain groups of appointments or territory members, review some guidelines.

• You can have multiple variations of work rule records of the same work rule record type (except for the Designated Work and Service Appointment Visiting Hours record types) included in your scheduling policy.
• Work rule records, except for the Designated Work and Service Appointment Visiting Hours record types, can point to a set of resources or appointments that they must apply to, via the Relevance Groups feature.

  Designated Work and Service Appointment Visiting Hours work rule record types are all-or-nothing rules. These rules are either included or not included, and the scheduling engine interprets Designated Shifts, Designated Time Slots, and Appointment Visiting Hours accordingly.

• Work rules for certain record types can be in a policy multiple times and, if needed, can apply to the same resources or appointments at least once (additive). These record types include:
  • Count Rule (for example, one rule to limit hours, and one rule to limit work items)
  • Extended Match (for example, one rule to limit by postal code, and one rule to limit by product line)
  • Match Boolean
  • Match Fields
  • Match Time
• Resources or appointments mustn’t be covered (relevance group criteria met) by multiple variations of these record types at the same time.
  • Match Skills
  • Match Territory
  • Maximum Travel From Home
  • Required Resources
  • Service Crew Resource Availability
  • Service Resource Availability
  • Working Territories
• Each resource must be covered (relevance group criteria met) by only one Service Resource Availability work rule at the same time.
• Resources mustn’t be covered (relevance group criteria met) by the Match Territory work rule and the Working Territories work rule record type at the same time.

For some work rule types, such as the Service Resource Availability work rule, Match Territory work rule, and Working Territories work rule, service territory members must only meet the relevance group criteria for a single instance of these rules. If a service territory member meets the relevance group criteria for more than one rule of these types, issues can occur. A service resource must belong to a Service Resource Availability work rule if such is defined.

For all other types of work rules, such as the Match Time work rule, Count work rule, and Extended Match work rule, you can have several variations of these rules that apply to the same resources via relevance group criteria. For example, you can create a Count work rule that applies to a set of resources and limits the hours of work they are assigned in a day, and another Count work rule that applies to the same set of resources and limits the number of appointments they are assigned in a day.

These work rules are supported for service appointments or service territory members.

Guidelines for Applying Service Objectives

Before you create and use relevance groups to apply service objectives to certain groups of appointments or territory members, review some guidelines.

• You can have multiple service objectives of the same objective record type included in your policy and use Relevance Groups to apply these objectives to different sets of service territory members or service appointments.
• If you have multiple service objectives of these objective types in your policy, make sure service territory members and service appointments don't meet the Relevance Group criteria for multiple objectives of the same type twice.
  • ASAP
  • Minimize Gaps
  • Minimize Overtime
  • Minimize Travel
  • Preferred Resource
  • Same Site
• You can create and apply, via Relevance Groups, multiple objectives of the Resource Priority type to the same service appointments twice, assuming the Resource Priority Field input is configured to point to different fields on the service resource. For example, you can have two objectives of this objective type in your policy, both applying to the same service appointments via Relevance Groups criteria. One objective named Primary Priority can point to a Priority numerical field on the Service Resource record, and another objective Secondary Priority can point to a numerical Tenure field on the Service Resource record.

These service objectives are supported for appointments or service territory members.