Key Concepts

Scheduling Methods

The scheduling method sets where an appointment takes place.

• On-site: at one of your branches.
• Field: at the customer's location.

Both methods share one scheduling flow but differ in how you schedule resources and their time slots. An on-site appointment is tied to a branch that you find by address. Then, you select a resource and their time slot from a calendar. A field appointment is tied to a service territory and the customer's address. You select from slots that a scheduling policy scores and ranks. For field appointments, you can also schedule automatically, find candidates, and optimize appointments and resources.

Classification by Scheduling Method

Most records you set up carry a scheduling method, so one org can run both types of scheduling.

• Every appointment is either field or on-site, so it's scheduled with the relevant logic.
• Visits create field service appointments automatically. Interactions create on-site service appointments automatically.
• A work type's scheduling method is on-site, field, or both, and it decides what appointments you can schedule for that work. The work type also names the object to schedule against for each method in the on-site schedulable object and field schedulable object fields. The default schedulable object is a service appointment or visit for field, and a service appointment or interaction for on-site.
• A scheduling policy can support both field and on-site scheduling.
  • Some work rules apply to one method, some to both. For a rule that supports both, select whether it applies to field scheduling, on-site scheduling, or both. To apply different settings per method, add the same rule to the policy twice - one for field scheduling and one for onsite scheduling.
  • Each service objective applies to either field or on-site scheduling, not both.
• Operating hours are scoped to field work or on-site work. Create separate operating hours for each, and categorize every time slot as field or on-site. Field and on-site availability can't overlap.

Appointment Scheduling

Schedule appointments across multiple channels and appointment types. With inbound scheduling, customers create appointments through a site such as an Experience Cloud site. With outbound scheduling, your team creates appointments for customers.

• Service appointments: create, reschedule, modify, cancel, and delete service appointments tied to work types and service territories.
• Interaction scheduling: for public sector use cases, schedule, reschedule, and cancel on-site interactions such as consultations, orientation sessions, and case reviews.
• Visit scheduling: for public sector use cases, schedule, reschedule, and cancel field work such as inspections, investigations, case history visits, and home health appointments.
• Multi-resource appointments: assign several service resources to one appointment, such as a consultation or audit with multiple officers.

Resource Management

Configure service resources, territories, and work types to match how your workforce is organized.

• Service territories: the geographic or logical areas where service resources operate. For on-site appointments, a service territory represents a branch.
• Service resources: the people and assets that perform work, along with their skills, skill levels, and availability.
• Work types: the kinds of work your team performs, including estimated duration and required skills.
• Availability management: the operating hours that set when appointments can be scheduled, for on-site and field work.
• Work rules and service objectives: work rules narrow which resources and times qualify for an appointment, and service objectives score the times that qualify. A scheduling policy combines both.

Operations Console

The Operations Console gives supervisors and managers one view of scheduling activity. From the console, you can:

• View appointment schedules and resource availability.
• Reassign appointments individually.
• Reschedule, unschedule, or cancel appointments.
• Manage service resource assignments.
• Monitor workloads and timelines.