ServiceDesk 4.8.176 Update 08/14/20

Okay, back with release of Ver. 4.8.169, we said we'd added the "last major element" in having created a complete Whole-Roster Optimization system (this was the addition of incorporating Special-Skills, see here). If you've been reading here since, you know we've continued in the process of adding detail after detail. Today's we added still two more.

The first arises because a Denver client has several techs first going to a remote parts location each morning. That location needs to reckoned as the begin-route location for such techs. Existing mechanisms within ServiceDesk permit specification of the tech's home or the main office as his/her begin-route location and/or end-route locations, but there is no mechanism within ServiceDesk by which to designate other different locations for this purpose.

We solved the dilemma by allowing for your potential use of two added columns in the TechnicianExtraSpecs file.

Details are here.

If you did not know, a long-standing feature in ServiceDesk is you can have it auto-insert time-frames into a series of appointments that were previously set as "all-day."  This is handy if you've left appointments as "all-day" until the day prior, then you work to optimize which techs are assigned to which appointments, and in what sequence. Just pick the option for auto-insertion of time-frames, then the system queries about a few parameters, deduces probable times for where each job is in the techs route, and inserts time-frames for you accordingly.

A long ago augmentation in this feature is you may choose to permit time-frame designations on the half-hour, as opposed to the default wherein, for both begin and end times in the time-frame, ServiceDesk inserts the nearest-matching whole hour.

When we introduced GraphHopper-based Routing-Sequence Optimization (see here), we made it so that, as that optimization completes (to remind, this is only optimizing the sequence of jobs that you've already decided are going to be done by a particular tech), we made it so, when that optimization completes, there is an offer by ServiceDesk to insert time-frames for you. This is a much more highly-informed insertion than the old standby, because it incorporates in its work GraphHopper's calculation of actual driving times between each job (along will likely time on each job based on JobCount, etc.), and because it doesn't need to query you for parameters that it's already found in your TechnicianExtraSpecs file. However, we'd not immediately added into this a mechanism by which it would honor your selection (if applicable) to potentially use half-hour increments.

Same thing for GraphHopper-based Whole-Roster Optimization. As that process completes, there is likewise an offer to very intelligently insert time-frames (here of course it will be doing so roster-wide). But again, until this release, your selection to enable use of half-hour increments was not being honored.

That changes with this release. GraphHopper based insertions of time-frames will now honor your half-hour selection, if applicable.