Work with fulfillment preferences
When the schedule assistant displays results, they're entirely based on resource schedules and their earliest available time. For example, the schedule assistant might determine that the earliest time a resource would be available is 10:41 AM. Scheduling someone to work for a call at 10:41 might make it difficult to schedule other appointments around it. An organization might prefer that times are suggested in one-hour intervals, so instead of 10:41, that resource would be available starting at 11:00 AM.
Another consideration is when organizations don't schedule technicians during specific times of the day. For example, an organization might choose not to schedule technicians from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM. This not only represents lunch time for resources but could also act as a buffer to allow technicians to make up time if they're running behind. These options make it simpler for the scheduler to view, understand, and communicate to the customer.
To deliver these options, Universal Resource Scheduling provides what are called fulfillment preferences. Fulfillment preferences are customizable entities that let you choose how schedule assistant results are displayed, like with hourly appointments or morning and afternoon time windows.
Fulfillment preferences break down into two features:
- Intervals: Intervals display schedule assistant results in time slots that dictate start time of subsequent bookings.
- Time groups: Enable schedulers to search and view results as blocks of time when using the schedule assistant. Typical examples might include mornings, afternoon, nights, and two-hour windows.
Fulfillment preferences are associated with requirements records. When the schedule assistant is executed against the requirement, it suggests items based on the fulfillment preferences defined. Fulfillment preferences are defined by navigating to Universal Resource Scheduling > Fulfillment Preferences and selecting the new button.
Defining intervals
Intervals for the interval scheduling are defined on the Interval tab of the Fulfillment Preference record. There are three key settings that are defined for an interval record.
- Interval: Defines the duration between available time slots, such as 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 1 hour, and 2 hours.
- Intervals Begin: Defines when to begin counting the interval.
- Results per Interval: Dictates how many options a scheduler receives for each interval. If left blank, the system defaults to 1.
In the preceding image, the interval is 30 minutes with intervals beginning at 12:00 AM. This indicates that the available options to display results are 12:00 AM, 12:30 AM, 1:00 AM, and so on. The results however depend on resource availability and working hours.
- If the intervals begin field is left blank, the interval begins at the time of booking.
- For example, if your interval is 30 minutes and Interval Begins is blank, when you attempt to book at 11:13 AM, your time slot options are 11:13 AM, 11:43 AM, 12:13 PM, and so on.
This will work with the results per interval setting. If an organization has 50 resources who are all available at 9:30 AM, and results per interval are set to 50, then all resources show. If the results per interval field are set to 5, then only the five best results will show.
Defining time groups
Unlike intervals, time groups don't dictate the start time of subsequent bookings. Time groups organize results but leave the start time/arrival time as-is, based on the resource's schedule. Time group details can't be defined until a fulfillment preference record has been saved for the first time. Once saved, times groups are defined from the details tab by clicking the Add Time Group button in the time groups subgrid.
When specifying a time group, you'll need to provide:
- Name: Descriptive name for the group such as Morning, Afternoon, or Evening.
- Start Time: Defines the first time that a booking can be scheduled within the time block.
- End Time: Defines the last time that a booking can be scheduled within the time block.
Important
The end time defines the last time that an appointment can start within the window. For example, if the time window is 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. It is possible that an item that has a duration could be booked at 11:30 AM or 12:00 PM even though in both instances, the end time would be beyond the time window.
The following image shows a typical example where time windows are defined as morning and afternoon. An hour gap is being left between 12:00 and 1:00 PM.
Associating with requirements
For fulfillment preferences to be taken into consideration for a requirement, you need to ensure that they're attached to the requirement record. This can be done in multiple ways depending on what you are scheduling.
For example, if you're scheduling a work order, fulfillment preferences can be defined in the preferences section on the settings tab. When the work order is saved, the preferences will automatically be added to the requirement record associated with the work order.
Fulfillment preferences could also be added to a requirement or requirement group record manually or they can be populated by using a Power Automate flow or other automation scenario.
Booking the requirement with the schedule assistant
When you're working with a requirement record that has time intervals defined, the intervals/time groups defined in the fulfillment preference will be loaded when the book button is selected. This launches the schedule assistant.
Intervals: Presents options available based on the interval screen selected. For example, the following image is using the 30-minute interval schedule that we defined.
Time Groups: Results displayed will be based on the time group setting defined in the calendar. The image below shows how resources are noted based on the time group and displayed.
Using Intervals and Time Groups together
At times, you might want to use a combination of intervals and time groups together. It's possible to define a fulfillment preference that uses both intervals and time groups, however, there are some key differences to consider when using both.
- You can't add a value for interval begins. The interval begins at the time of the earliest time group.
- If the Reset Interval per Time Group Detail option is set to Yes, the intervals reset once a new time group detail overlaps with an interval.
Consider the following scenario
A traditional brick-and-mortar business offers appointments every 90 minutes, so intervals are set to 90 minutes. Additionally, they separate into morning and afternoon time groups of 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM and 1:00PM to 5:00 PM, with a one-hour lunch in between. Therefore, both intervals and time groups are useful for this business.
- Reset Interval per Time Group Detail = No, the appointments would be: 8:00 AM, 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM (not 12:30 PM because this is blocked for lunch), 2:00 PM, and 3:30 PM.
- Reset Interval per Time Group Detail = Yes, the appointments would be: 8:00 AM, 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM (not 12:30 PM because this is blocked for lunch), 1:00 PM (resetting for the next time group detail), 2:30 PM, and 4:00 PM.
For more information on fulfillment preferences, see Fulfillment preferences.