Time Slot Capacity Management

Time Slot Capacity Management is a tool to help you better manage the scheduling of appointments. From both Call Taking and Dispatch, you can easily see how many appointments are booked versus your capacity. This allows call takers and dispatchers to find open slots quickly. This also helps fill open slots created when calls are canceled or rescheduled and helps you stay scheduled to capacity. Some benefits of using this tool include:

1. Help maximize daily appointments

2. Reduce overbooking

3. Use the “Next Available Slot” feature to quickly book an appointment

4. Real time display of slots showing which are open for new appointments

Setup Wizard

Time Slot Capacity Management must be configured and enabled in the application before it can be used. Prior to configuring, visualize your organization’s typical workday and how it might best be broken down into time periods (i.e. do install jobs normally start at 8:00 am and 2:00 pm). For example, install jobs could be broken down into 2 six-hour windows (8 am to 2 pm and 2 pm to 8 pm), whereas service jobs could be broken down into 6 two-hour windows. You can then assign different capacities to each slot depending upon the number of technicians working.

Configuring Time Slot Capacity Management is available from the Management section of the Main Menu. Note, only a single user can access the wizard at a given time.

Overview

This page contains general information about Time Slot Capacity Management

Configuration

There are many different configuration options available for Time Slot Capacity Management as detailed below:

Our Time Slot Hours and Capacities will:

1. Be the same for each day of the week – choose this method if you are normally open the same hours every day, and have the same number of technicians available every day

2. Be the same for weekdays but differ on weekends - choose this method if you are normally open the same hours each weekday, but your times and/or number of technicians vary on weekends

3. Differ depending upon the day of the week – choose this method if the time you are open and/or the number of available technicians varies by the day of the week

Counting Appointments:

When it comes to how appointments are counted within a particular time slot, you can choose from one of two methods:

1. Only once, for the time slot they start in – with this method an appointment is only included in the time slot in which it starts in. If it overlaps into other time slots it will not be counted in those.

2. Once for each time slot that they span – with this method an appointment is included in every time slot that it spans, regardless of whether it covers the whole slot of just a few minutes of it.

Manage Time Slots on Saturdays:

Check this box if you are open on Saturdays and want to manage time slots on this day

Manage Time Slots on Sundays:

Check this box if you are open on Sundays and want to manage time slots on this day

Display Daily Totals

Check this box if you want to see daily totals when viewing time slot data from Call Taking or the Dispatch Board

Allow Overbooking by Default

Check this box if you want to allow time slots to be overbooked by default. Overbooking can be configured for each individual time slot, this is just a means of capturing the default value. If overbooking is allowed, then when an appointment is being scheduled into a time slot that is already filled, the user will be asked to confirm that they want to book into this time slot. If overbooking is not allowed then no additional appointments can be booked into that time slot.

IMPORTANT: Overbooking only applies when scheduling an appointment by double-clicking a time slot or dragging and dropping onto a time slot. Scheduling appointments by any other method will completely ignore overbooking

Auto Refresh Time Slot Availability

Check this box if you want time slot capacities to automatically refresh either in Call Taking or on the Dispatch Board. When checked, the number of seconds between refreshing can also be configured. Minimum of 20, maximum of 600 (10 minutes).

NOTE: if auto refresh is off, a manual refresh indicator will be available.

Safe Capacity

Safe Capacity is used to visually indicate to the user that there is plenty of available capacity for a particular time slot, it’s based on the percent of capacity booked. For example, if max capacity is 10 and 6 appointments have been booked then you are at 60% capacity. Here you can define the percentage in which you feel you are no longer at safe capacity. In addition, you can also choose the gauge color representing safe capacity (default is green).

Near Capacity

A time slot is at Near Capacity when it is above the safe percentage but not yet fully booked. You can choose the gauge color representing near capacity (default is yellow).

At/Over Capacity

Once a time slot is fully booked or overbooked it is At/Over Capacity. You can choose the gauge color representing at/over capacity (default is red).

Time Slot Groups

On this page you will combine your active job classes into Time Slot Groups. A few things to keep in mind when grouping:

· Group names must be unique

· A group can consist of any number of job classes.

· A job class can only belong to one group

· It is not necessary to assign each job class to a group

Default Slots

Default time slots are at the core of Time Slot Capacity Management, they indicate to the system the default maximum capacity for this day of the week for this time period. You will create default time slots for each group you previously defined, and for all appropriate days of the week based on how you configured Time Slot Capacity Management.

To simplify the creation of time slots you can simply enter your daily start and end time, and how long you would like each time slot to encompass (i.e. 2 hours), the application will then plot out the slots for you.

For each time slot, indicate the maximum number of appointments and whether or not overbooking is allowed. Overbooking is defined as scheduling more appointments in a slot than its capacity. If allowed, the user will be asked to confirm that they want to schedule an appointment in an overbooked slot.

Default Time Slot Display

Your default time slots are displayed sequentially in a horizontal row across the screen, like this:

Tips when Editing Time Slots

1. Use the 2 arrows to the left to change the start time of a time slot

2. Use the 2 arrows to the right to change the end time of a time slot

3. The Time Increment value dictates how many minutes are added/subtracted each time you click one of the arrows

4. If a time slot begins at the same time that the previous slot ends, changing the start time will also update the end time of the previous slot

5. If a time slot ends at the same time that the next slot begins, changing the end time will also update the start time of the next slot

6. Slots can only be added to the beginning or the end, you’ll then have to adjust the start and end times as needed

Create Daily Slots

Once you have your default slots set up, the final step is to copy those defaults for each of the next several days. On this page you choose a date in the near future and the system will create the daily slots for every day up to that date. These daily slots are what is used to compare the number of booked appointments to capacity. You can modify the maximum capacity for individual daily slots to accommodate holidays, employee vacation, etc.

Each Time Slot Group is listed in the grid, along with each day of the selected week (calendar). If a group/day has a checkmark that indicates that daily time slots have been created for that group/day. Double-click on a day/group to edit the daily slots. Editing daily slots is done in the same manner as editing default slots.

NOTE: It is not a requirement that you create daily time slots. The entire system, including reporting, can function based on default time slots only. Daily slots give you the ability to tweak the maximum capacity based on employee availability.

Time Slot Capacity Form

This form is used to view time slot capacity in real-time for one or more days.

· Choose a date from the calendar in the upper right-hand corner, and time slots will be displayed for that date.

· Each date is color coded to give you an idea of how booked this group is for this date. This color-coding is for daily totals and not individual time slots, so even though the day may have plenty of openings some time slots could be full.

· Change the Days to Display from 1 to 5 to indicate how many days you want to see time slots for

· By default, all time slots for the group are displayed, in the upper left-hand corner you can uncheck those you do not want to see. This is useful in a scenario where the caller is looking to book an appointment in a specific time window only.

· Clicking the Find Next Available Day action link will take you the next day with an available time slot (one that is not overbooked). It searches checked time slots only to make finding specific time window slots easy.

· The time slot that the appointment is currently scheduled for will be highlighted in blue for quick reference

· If configured for auto-refresh, the refresh countdown indicates how long until a refresh, click on it to trigger an immediate refresh

· Clicking the Switch to Single Day Mode action link will place this form above the call taking form and limit it to viewing a single day only. In this mode you choose a date by dropping down the calendar, or by using the left or right arrows to move to the previous or next day. The Find Next Available Day and refresh features continue to work in this mode. Click the Switch to Multi Day Mode action link to return to the previous mode.

· If you configured the system to display totals, then daily totals will appear on the right. They will be the gauge within a square box.

· Your current display options are automatically saved to the registry upon closing the form, each time the form will open with those settings preselected

Call Taking - Schedule a Call into a Time Slot

Once Time Slot Capacity Management is configured and enabled, when you open the Call Taking screen the Time Slot Capacity Form will appear next to it. Time slots will not appear until the Call Taking form knows the Job Class. At that point simply double-click on the time slot you want to schedule the appointment in.

Call Taking – Find Next Available Time Slot

By default, from Call Taking the Time Slot Capacity Form will open to today. Click the Find Next Available Day action link and the system will search for an open time slot for this group and take you to the first day with an opening.

NOTE: the search begins from today or the day after the selected date in the calendar, whichever is later, so that you can use this feature consecutively. The search only searches for time slots currently checked.

Dispatch - Schedule a Call into a Time Slot

Once Time Slot Capacity Management is configured and enabled, when you open the Dispatch Board, Time Slots will appear vertically on the right. Time slots will not appear until you select a time slot group in the drop down. To schedule a call simply drag-n-drop the call onto the time slot you want.

Related Permissions

Create Daily Time Slots

With this permission, a SuccessWare21 user can:

· Create, update or delete daily time slots

Manage Time Slots

With this permission, a SuccessWare21 user can:

· Configure Time Slot Capacity Management

· Create, update or delete default time slots

Related Events

The following events will be logged:

· Some configuration changes

· When daily time slots are created

· When daily time slots are deleted