About Work Task Visits in Scheduling
This description is divided into the following sections:
A Work Task in Scheduling can be split up into multiple visits. This can
for example happen if the Work Task duration is longer than a shift, or if
the work is scheduled to start in the afternoon and the full scope is not
possible to complete in the shift. A resource might start work on a Work
Task
in the afternoon (the first visit) and come back the next day to complete
the work (the second visit). The Work Tasks that are split will have
multiple assignments, each with a Visit Id.
Note: The split of a Work Task is done for
one specific resource i.e. the same resource must be allocated to all the visits
for the same Work Task.
What can split a Work Task into multiple Visits?
- Shifts: If the Activity has a longer duration, which
means it cannot be scheduled within one shift, the work could be scheduled
as one visit in the first shift and another visit for the next day/shift.
As many visits as required would be created based on the duration of the
Activity and the underlying shift pattern.
- Breaks: Another entity that has affect on the splitting
of the activity into visits are 'BREAK' Activities within a resource's shift.
Lunches and other Break-type activities within the shift could split the
Activity into multiple Visits, before and after the breaks.
As a simple example we can consider a Work Task with an expected duration
of 6 hours that is created at 11.00. If the Allow Multiple Visits
is not enabled, scheduling chooses to schedule it on the second day, since
there is not enough time remaining on the current day to complete it.
If the Work Task instead has Allow Multiple Visits enabled, scheduling is
able to schedule it earlier, starting immediately after the break on the
current day. However it is not scheduled to start before the break because
at present the break is not allowed to interrupt the work task.
If the break is also allowed to interrupt the Work Task, it is now
possible to schedule the resource to start travelling to the location
immediately, and the Work Task is split into a total of 3 visits.
There are a set of parameters that control the visit handling in Scheduling. The parameters are:
Allow Multiple Visits, Minimum Visit Duration,
Scheduling Cost of Split, Interrupt, Interrupt Multiplier, Interrupt
Priority and Split Min Priority.
These parameters can be defined on Activity Types in Scheduling/Basic
Data/Scheduling Activity Type and on the Work Tasks themselves. The
Activity Type settings work as a template for all Work Tasks created for the
Activity Type.
- Allow Multiple Visits: Defines whether work task activities
of this type are allowed to be split into additional visits. The value
is automatically inherited to new work tasks created with this Activity
Type.
- Minimum Visit Duration: Defines
the minimum duration that each visit for a Work Task needs to have. When
the Work Task is split into multiple visits, each visit will have at
least this duration. The value can be defined on Activity
Types or directly on a Work Task. The value for Minimum Visit Duration set
on an Activity Type will be inherited to the Work Task, but can be
adjusted. Assuming a resource works from 08:00 to 17;00 with a one hour
lunch break, between 12:00 and 13:00 and a Work Task is raised with a
duration of 8 hours and the Minimum Visit Duration
set to 1 hour. The Work Task is scheduled to start from 13:30. One Visit
is created for 13:30 - 17:00 (3,5 hours), with the next visit
being scheduled for the next day, 08:00 - 12:00 (4hours). The remaining
time after visit 2 is 0,5hours.
As the Minimum Visit Duration is set to 1 hour, the third visit will be scheduled from
13:00-14:00 (after lunch), making
the total scheduled duration 8,5 hours.
- Scheduling Cost of Split: Defines the additional cost of
splitting a work task into multiple visits. The cost is applied for each
split that occurs. By applying the cost of split, the cost to perform
the work task will increase and the total cost will be compared with the
base value of the work. This is used to encourage the scheduling to use
fewer visits where possible. If there is no preference, the cost of
split can be set to zero, so that no penalty is applied.
- Interrupt: Defines whether a Work Task or a break
is allowed to be used to split a Work Task, where Allow Multiple Visits
is set to Yes. When Allow Multiple Visits is set to Yes against a Work
Task, the scheduling is free to split the work task over consecutive
shifts, or around activities marked as interruptible.
- Interrupt Multiplier: It is possible to exercise finer control on
the cost that is applied when an Work Task is interrupted by another
Work Task. This is achieved using a multiplier on the cost of split
which depends on the interrupting Work Task. The value defaults to 1,
but can be set to any value greater than or equal to 0. For example, if
we apply a cost of split of 100, but we do not wish to apply any penalty
if the Work Task is interrupted by a break. We can set the split
multiplier on the break to 0 to achieve this, meaning that the split
cost would be 0.
Suppose we also have an appointment which is
allowed to interrupt the schedule, but we only want to do this if there
is no other alternative. We can therefore set the split multiplier on
the appointment Work Task to perhaps 2.5 and a cost of 250 will be
applied if the appointment Work Task is scheduled to interrupt. This
only applies if Interrupt is set to Yes.
- Interrupt Priority: Work Tasks which are allowed to
interrupt, can be given an interrupt priority, and will only be allowed
to interrupt a split Work Task, if the interrupt priority at least
matches the Split Min Priority. This only applies if Interrupt is set to
Yes.
- Split Min Priority: There may be occasions where finer
control is required over when a Work Task may be split. For example a
schedule may include some Work Tasks which must be scheduled within a
single week, and others that are allowed to span multiple weeks. This is
achieved by using split minimum priority. Any splittable Work Task can be
assigned a minimum split priority. It will then only be split into a
later shift, if the split priority of the shift is at least the minimum
priority. The split priority on the shift is set using a shift attribute
called SPLIT_PRIORITY. This only applies if Interrupt is set to Yes.
Let's assume that Monday shifts can all be
assigned a split priority of 1, while the other weekday shifts have a
split priority of 2. Work Tasks that must be completed within a single
week are then given a minimum split priority of 2, which means that they
cannot be split over the weekend and into the Monday shift. Meanwhile
the other splittable Work Tasks have a split priority of 1, so can be
split over the weekend. Similarly Work Tasks which are allowed to
interrupt can be given an interrupt priority, and will only be allowed
to interrupt a split Work Task, if the interrupt priority at least
matches the minimum required split priority.
A Work Task that has multiple visits is handled differently to a
single-visit Work Task. For a split
work task, the data returned from scheduling will have a row for each visit
in the <Activity_Status> entity. In the Allocations,
each allocation record will hold the
ID of each visit in a field called Visit Id. If the Work Task is not split, the Visit
Id will always be 1.
Visit Statuses
There are two statuses related specifically to split work tasks.
These statuses are: Follow On and Visit Complete.
- Follow On: The status of Follow On is used by scheduling once
at least one visit to a splittable work task has been Assigned
(Committed). Any future visits scheduled for the Work Task, that are not
yet Assigned/Committed (or a higher status e.g. travelling), are
displayed in the Workbench with the status Follow On. The
Follow On Visits will always be scheduled to the same resource. The Work Assignments created
will have a flag indicating if Follow-On
Visits exist.
- Visit Complete: The status of Visit Complete is used to
indicate that a visit to a Work Task has been completed, but that the
Work Task itself is not yet complete. In this case a follow on visit
will always be scheduled with a duration of at least the minimum visit
duration. This applies even if the total time spent on the Work Task
already exceeds the expected duration, as described in the Minimum Visit
Duration section. When the last Work Assignment in a visit chain is Completed (Work
Assignment does not have any Follow-on Visits) the status Complete is sent
to Scheduling.
Time to Completion
For Work Tasks that are scheduled with multiple visits, the tracking of the
estimated remaining time of the work is an important aspect. To track this,
and to update the duration of the full Activity accordingly, the Time To Completion should be
entered when
each visit is completed. Let's assume a Work Task has a duration of 5 hours,
and is split
into 2 visits. Visit 1 is 4 hours and visit 2 is 1 hour. When completing visit 1,
there will be an option
to state the Time to Completion. On the mobile
device, this is entered in the Report In step.
- Entering a value of 0 means that work is fully completed and
no work remains. Any follow-on visits will be removed.
- Entering a value greater that 0 means that work remains and that
follow-on visits should be created.
- Leaving the field empty means that the remaining time will be
automatically calculated based on the time already spent working on the
Work Task, and the planned duration for the task.
In IFS Cloud Web, the value for Time to Completion will default to the
Work Task Duration, reduced by the actual hours spent on the Work Task, up
until that point. The actual hours are calculated
from the previous visit work assignments start, until completion (value
visible in Work Assignment field Actual Worked Hours). The
value in the Time to Completion can be edited. If
we assume that the first visit on the previously mentioned 5 hour job is
completed with a Time to Completion value of 2, the subsequent visit will be extended
e.g. Visit 2 will now be 2 hours. Depending on the shifts and the entered
value, this could also result in additional visits being created. In the same way, the duration
of a follow on visit can be decreased, if the user reduces the Time to Completion.
Incomplete work
When a resource is not able to complete the work for a split work task,
and the same resource will not necessarily return to the work site, it
is recommended to use the status Incomplete. When the assignment is
set to Incomplete, the user is asked to enter a reason and a “Time To
Complete”. All remaining visits are cancelled and manual intervention is
required to plan the task again. This allows for more flexibility in setting the requirements
for the re-visit, rather than using split activities for the re-visit. When
setting a work assignment to Incomplete, a cause must be entered.