About Work Task Visits in Scheduling
This description is divided into the following sections:
What is a Visit in Scheduling?
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.
A simple example
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.
Visit Parameters
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 multiple visits. The value is automatically inherited to new work tasks created with the selected Activity Type. If no Activity Type is selected for a work task, then the value will be inherited from the Site/Service Organization. Additionally, the value can be manually adjusted on the work task if required.
- 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.
Scheduling with Visits
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.