Recently I worked on a requirement where the main focus was on bulk scheduling a large number of appointments. I used the FSL Optimization feature to reduce travel time, assign the maximum number of appointments to technicians and provide best possible routing.

In this blog I will explain the FSL Optimization feature, how to enable it, and how it can improve bulk scheduling and routing.

What is FSL Optimization:

The scheduling optimization feature helps your field service team comply with SLAs, minimises travel time, overtime, costs, and no-shows. It also maximises efficiency by assigning resources to as many service appointments per shift as possible.

How to enable Optimization:

Enabling Optimization in a org is a 3-step process.

• Step 1:  Create a Field Service Lightning Optimization Profile: Refer to this link for details.
• Step 2: Create an Optimization User: Refer to this link for details.
• Step 3: Log in as the Optimization User and Activate Optimization: Refer to this link for details.

Once Optimizer is enabled, you can find the Optimizer button on the Dispatch console.

License:

This feature requires a Salesforce License. If you deactivate the Optimization user, scheduling optimization no longer operates.

Building Blocks of Field Service Lightning Optimization:

Work rules, service objectives, scheduling policies, and relevance groups are important to efficient optimizations. You can find out more details here.

Optimization Results:

Once the Optimization is activated in the Org, we can run the Optimization by clicking the Optimization button on the dispatch console to bulk schedule the appointments. Alternatively, we can use the Schedule feature to schedule appointments and then further Optimise to minimise the travel time and to have better routing.

Why not use the Schedule feature instead of Optimization? I had the same question, however the results from optimization over scheduling a large number of appointments via the Schedule feature are much better. It is not best practice to use the Schedule feature if you have a large number of appointments to schedule where the requirement is to minimise travel and provide best routing. That’s why Optimization is great to use. Although, remember it requires separate license to activate the feature.

Weekly schedule before and after running Optimization:

Before:

After:

As shown in the above screenshots, after running Optimization, more appointments are scheduled and travel time is minimised.

Routes

Before:

After:

We can see the routes are better calculated by considering the technicians’ Source Location (Home).

Best Practices:

1. Run Optimization multiple times to clear the cache and have good results with better scheduling and routing.
2. Limitation: Maximum days optimised per request = 21. In case the User needs to Optimise for a longer period in advance then schedule the Optimization frequency to run Optimization frequently.

Let me know if you have any questions!