Overview
The Workforce module allows organizations to schedule technicians easily, assign them Work orders, and monitor who is currently active, at a job, or in transit.
In this article, we'll be reviewing the Schedules section within the module.
Schedule View Legend
Within the Schedules tab, you'll be able to view all the currently active technicians, their upcoming and completed Work orders, and the travel time associated with them at a quick glance.
These different types are denoted in different colours, highlighted in the image below:
- Grey: Completed Work orders
- Blue: Expected Travel Time
- White: Upcoming or Present Work Order
Technician Status
The Technician Statuses are indicated on the left-hand side of the Schedule. You'll be able to see all of the technicians' names and a small, coloured icon beside it. Included below is an example photo of the technicians and their statuses, as well as a legend denoting what they mean.
Please note that the legend on the right is not found within the module and is only for user reference.
Order Queue and Sorting
On the right of the Scheduling view, you'll find a clipboard button next to the Day/Week view buttons. When on the Day view, clicking that will open a menu on the right called Order Queue. Within this menu, you'll find all of the pending Work orders that need to be done and assigned to a technician. As some Work orders are more time-sensitive than others, gaiia also provides a "Sort by" function. We've included the options below:
- Ability to sort by age (Newest to Oldest) or (Oldest to Newest)
- Ability to sort by priority (High to Low) or (Low to High)
Work Order Priority is set when the work order is created and is defaulted to ‘Medium’.
Date Selector
This function allows you to review historical schedules, Work orders, and travel times and complete advance scheduling! You can schedule technicians up to a specific number of days, configured within the Checkout portion of the Admin Settings.
You also have the option to view the schedule in a Day view or a Week view. The Day view will have an orange line that appears to show the current time, but when viewing days in advance, your calendar will default to noon centred on the screen.
The Week view gives you a calendar-like view of your technicians, their scheduled Work orders, and travel times. This might help when trying to view the overall picture for the week.
While in this view, you will not be able to click the clipboard button to view the Order Queue.
How to schedule a Work Order
Now that we've taken a look at all other aspects of the Scheduling module, we can now assign a Work Order. We've included the steps below on how to complete that:
- Drag from the Work Order Queue to a White Space on the schedule, which indicates that a technician is scheduled and available.
- If the technician is unqualified for the work order, denoted by diagonal grey lines, you will not be able to assign it to them.
- Once the work order has been assigned to a technician, it will also include travel times, determined by the technician's base location if they're starting their shift or their current location if they have just completed a prior work order.
Tip: Hold the Work Order over the slot for 1-2 seconds to see the expected travel time before scheduling.
Filters
Filters can help you schedule technicians and assign Work orders based on coverage area and work types. We've included some descriptions of how they work and an image of how the filters will display.
If you'd like to remove a filter, you can press the "X" to the right of the active filters.
- Coverage Area: Schedule by Coverage area to group all Work orders together and only show technicians in the area.
- Work Type: If you are trying to schedule for a unique skill set, use the ‘Work Type’ filter to find the qualified technicians and relevant Work orders.