Recurring Services

Recurring Services are used for services that are to be executed at a recurring basis. They can recur either based on a calendar recurrence pattern or a cumulative usage recurrence pattern. The recurrence is defined by the validity period and frequency of execution in a Recurring Service Program. The frequency of execution can be described either by an interval or a cyclic pattern. The Recurring Service Program Schedule defines these occurrences as a basis for when services can be related for execution. The services to be executed are described in the Service Catalog, thus it can not be modified for a single instance of a Recurring Service Program. For each occurrence in the Program Schedule a Request can be generated consisting of the services defined for that occurrence.

Examples of when Recurring Services are successfully used:

• a service schedule for an eqipment object with different actions at different occurrences, e.g. inspections, filter change, oil change
• pest control where traps are monitored and maintained at some period interval e.g. every 3 weeks
• car service every 5,000km, engine tune-up at 40,000km
• service printer every 10,000 black/white copies, every 2500 color copies
• cleaning services at a customer where different sections are cleaned in a routing sequence at each occurrence

Recurring Service Program

A Recurring Service Program can be used for synchronizing services for efficient execution where the services are related by

• the same base schedule, e.g.: daily, weekly with execution on certain weekdays, monthly, yearly or cumulative usage interval, e.g.: every X clicks (km, number of copies etc).
• that the execution is directed at the same customer or equipment object.

In short, the process of defining a Recurring Service Program is done by

• creating the Recurring Service Program
• adding service triggers (calendar-base or usage-base)
• adding Service Scopes (with Cycle Pattern where needed)
• generating a Recurring Service Program Schedule
• setting the Recurring Service Program in Active state
• generating Requests from Recurring Service Program
• modifying the active Recurring Service Program

Define a Recurring Service Program to set up Services in Recurring Scopes to be executed from a schedule of occurrences. When the calendar-based Program Schedule is generated, Program Occurrences will be created with one occurrence for each day inside the program's Valid From and Valid To dates according to the program's Interval Type and Program Interval. For usage-based programs, the program schedule occurrences will be created based on the actual condition of the service object determined by measurements/readings. Once the usage-based trigger is added to the program (i.e.: enter values for Testpoint, Parameter (defined for the Program's Main Object), Start Value and Interval) and there is at least one measurement registered, a program schedule occurrence will be created with a Trigger Value and a Recorded Value. This will be further updated accordingly when the system receives the cumulative readings.

At the schedule generation Recurring Scopes will be related to the Program Occurrences following the recurrence pattern defined for each Recurring Scope. Requests can be generated from the Recurring Service Program when it is set to Active status. The Recurring Service Program and its Recurring Scopes can be modified to a limited extent in active status.