Book the ideal number of jobs with Open Capacity PlanningLast updated on 01/31/2023
Open Capacity Planning helps you reduce technician idle time and maximize schedule efficiency. Set projected demand, and reserve capacity using Forecast Demand. Refer to the Open Capacity table to see how many jobs you can book for each Business Unit.
Things to know
Before you get started, an administrator on your team needs to set up open capacity planning first.
If a job is put on hold, it continues to count against Open Capacity Planning for the date is was previously scheduled for.
The Open Capacity table refreshes automatically as jobs are scheduled, regardless of whether or not a specific technician is assigned to the job(s).
If you use Open Capacity Planning and are adding a non-job event, be sure to select Remove technician from open capacity board. This ensures that the technician is not included in open capacity for the time slots covered by the non-job event. To learn more about non-job events, see Schedule and manage non-job events.
View the Open Capacity table
To get to the Open Capacity table, go to the navigation bar and click Schedule, then click Open Capacity.
The table displays technician availability by Business Unit. Click the Business Unit dropdown to filter your view of the table by Business Unit.
Set up Forecast Demand
You can keep a specified number of technicians in reserve when you project high demand. Set this up with the weather in mind using Forecast Demand. The Forecast Demand table shows the weather forecast so you can take that factor into consideration when predicting customer demand and scheduling jobs.
Go to the navigation bar and click Settings
.In the side panel, click Operations > Forecast Demand.
From the dropdown, choose the Business Unit for which your setting projected demand.
Enter a zip code or service address to see weather data.
Click the time slot for which you’re setting projected demand. A pop-up appears.
For Capacity to reserve, enter the number of technicians you are reserving for the time slot.
When you're finished, click Save.
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Understand how Technician Shifts affect capacity calculation
If you use Technician Shifts along with Open Capacity Planning, a technician must have available shifts added in both Capacity Planning and Technician Shifts. If a technician has a shift only in Capacity Planning or only in Technician Shifts, they won’t be counted for the capacity for a given timeslot.
This ensures that you have full control over capacity. For example, you may want to hold your best technician in reserve by marking them as unavailable in Capacity Planning. Dispatchers can still rely on Technician Shifts to determine whether or not that technician is working. At the same time, capacity still matches your dispatching strategy.
Important note: Some features may not be currently included in your account and additional configuration may be required. Please contact technical support for details.