To enable the use of AI SmartScheduler, you need to grant permissions as well as make sure your data meets certain criteria.
Enable AI SmartScheduler
Path: Admin > User Management > Records / Window Access Tab
To see AI SmartScheduler on the Transactions > Time Manager menu, be sure to grant your user record appropriate permission to use the module. This can be done at both the User level and the Group level. The access choices are Add, Add/Edit, Full, None, Not Determined.
Task Records Preparation
The AI SmartScheduler requires an estimate of Task duration to generate and manipulate a work schedule. This ensures that your Tasks are ready for scheduling by providing either Labor Standard duration (in hours) or an initial Average Time.
Those times (Labor Standard is favored) are used to determine the initial duration of Tasks when they are first scheduled by the AI SmartScheduler.
Also, be sure the Work Order Tasks have the correct Trade associated with them, because that determines which Tasks can be assigned to the appropriate Technician.
Technician Records Preparation
Any Technician being assigned to Tasks by the AI SmartScheduler must be assigned the correct Trade or Trades and must also be assigned a Shift.
The Shift information (managed under Organization / Lookups / Shifts) establishes the working hours for the Technician. All Tasks that are assigned to the Technician fall within those working hours.
If you run AI SmartScheduler and a “swim lane” is blank, check the Shift time. Update the Shifts if they do not reflect the Technician’s normal working hours.
Technicians are scheduled to Tasks that are assigned to their Trade(s). Be certain Technicians are assigned to any Trade that they are capable of working.
When using AI SmartScheduler, the Trade selected on the Work Order Task is conditional on the default Trade on the Task record.
AI SmartScheduler considers the assigned Shift as the Technician’s available time to be scheduled.
The duration of unscheduled Tasks is as follows:
- Standard Hours on the Task record
- Avg Hours on the Task record (if Standard hours are not available)
- No Hours Tasks (i.e., neither Standard nor Avg. Hours are on the Task record) are not shown unless you mark the Add all "No Hours" tasks check box on the AI Scheduling popup window.
- No Hours Tasks cannot be assigned until a time is manually assigned to it. If you have specified Add all "No Hours" tasks, you can see a clock face on the AI Scheduling popup window at the right of the line. Click the clock icon, and you can assign hours to the Task record. This populates the Avg Hours field on the Task record for future use.
NOTE: Technicians are never scheduled to a Work Order Task unless the Work Order is for a Repair Center that is assigned to the Technician.