Group planning data set-up

The purpose of Group Planning functionality is to assign a service engineer to a service order or a service department to a work order/planned activity. Group planning prepares groups that are containers of work, that can be assigned to a resource. Within a group, service activities and activity sets are available. For example:

• If group is the tray containing sheets of paper,
• the activity set is the paper clip grouping multiple sheets of paper and
• the activity is the sheet of paper

Group Planning can be time based and route based. Route calculation requires extended calculations since every 'to be planned 'activity must be fitted into the correct node of the existing route. The prerequisite being, GPS coordinates are known for the installation address. Time based calculations are much faster, but the time based calculations do not result in travel times and therefore give a more optimistic view.

Overview

When activities are grouped into activity sets and groups, a service engineer or a service department can be assigned to a group.

LN plans sets of activities where grouping is based on service characteristics. Grouping characteristics can be, for Example, service areas, skill, service type, project, item, contract, installation number, and so on.

LN always plans the set of activities in a sequence. The sequence determines which activity is planned first and influences the fact whether time windows (time constraints) are exceeded. Therefore, the sorting configuration is important. Steps to generate plan:

• Group activities in Groups and Activity Set (depending on configuration)
• Sort the activities
• Plan forward

The groups, group sets, and activity lines for group planning are created when a group planning is generated using the Generate Plan (tsspc3200m000) session. Activities can be added to existing groups or new groups. New orders can be added to the group plan using the service order and work order session. For a group, the activities can have the following Group Planning Activity Status.

Group Planning can broadly be classified into these steps:

1. Generate group planning : You can generate group planning using the Generate Plan (tsspc3200m000) session. You can create groups, group sets, and activity lines for the activities such as service order activities, work order activities, or planned activities. The generated entities are stored in the database. During the generation of the group planning, the start and end dates of the order activities are updated. For service orders, the travel start and end dates of the order activities are also updated.
2. View and update group planning : After you generate the group planning you can view it for each activity using the respective sessions. For example, for service order activities, you can view the group planning using Groups for Service Orders (tsspc3100m000) session or Groups for Service Orders - Dashboard (tsspc3600m300) session; for project activities, you can use the Groups for Projects - Dashboard (tsspc3600m600) session. You can also view the groups and activities based on the characteristics and assigned resources using the Group Planning Planboard (tsspc3260m000) (Gantt chart) session.
3. Plan groups and activity sets: Using the Plan Groups and Activity Sets (tsspc3220m000) session you can plan activities in group planning and you can also set the Level for group planning.
4. Release group planning: You can release group planning using the Release Plan (tsspc3240m000) session. When the group planning process is complete, the original service order activities, work order activities, and planned activities can be modified. The updated date/time fields of the group planning activities are copied to the original service order activities, work order activities, and planned activities. For service orders the updated travel date/time fields are also copied to the original service order activities.

Group planning concepts

The entities defined for the group planning functionality:

Service planning parameters

For the group planning functionality, the parameters are defined in the General Service Parameters (tsmdm0100m000) session and in the Service Planning Parameters (tsspc0100m000) session. The parameters can be classified into three groups: parameters for the planning of service order activities, parameters for the planning of work order activities, and parameters for the planning of planned activities.

Group sequence

Group sequence defines the sequence of a group attribute. The groups must be sequenced, because a number of group attributes can be used to group activities into groups and activity sets.

Group attribute

Group attribute defines the attribute of an activity or related order header or related master data (for example, item group). All activities with the same value for a given group attribute are grouped into the same group or activity set. For Example when the service area is used as group attribute, all activities with the same service area are grouped into a group or activity set. Group attributes are defined in the Planning Attributes (tsspc0110m000) session. For each attribute, you can define the planning sequences.

Group method

Group method is used to indicate if the group attribute is used to group the service order activities into groups or activity sets. Group Method Parallel indicates that the service order activities are grouped into separate groups. Groups are created parallel in time and independent of other groups. Planning is for a group. Example the planning of the activities in group GRP000111 is independent from the planning of the activities in group GRP000112. Group Method Sequential indicates that the service order activities are grouped into separate activity sets within the same group (sequentially in time). Activity sets are created sequentially in the same group.

Activity set sequence

The sequence of the activity sets with the specified attribute values within a group.

Planning attribute values

Specific attribute values are defined for each planning attribute to be used to group the related service order activities, work order activities, or planned activities.

Reference point configuration

A reference point configuration determines which reference point(s) apply to which group of attributes / value pairs. LN determines dynamically the reference point that is closest to the activity location address.

Activity - preferred resource

A preferred resource can be the preferred engineer for service orders or the preferred department for work orders or planned activities. LN assigns these preferred resources to groups.

Group Planning Group

When a group planning is generated, group planning activities are created from service order activities, work order activities or planned activities. The group planning activities are grouped into group planning activity sets.

Attribute values for a group

The attribute values that are used when a Group Planning Group was created. Two or more attribute values can be linked to one group.

Resources for a group planning group

The resources are assigned to a group planning group. Resources cannot be assigned to an activity set or separate activities. Two kinds of resources can be used for group planning: engineers and departments. Two or more engineers can be assigned to one group planning group. Only one department can be assigned to one group planning group.

Groups for activity/activity sets

The group planning activities are created from service order activities, work order activities, or planned activities that are grouped into activity sets. The activity sets are grouped into group planning groups.

Attribute value for a group planning activity set

The attribute values that are used when a Group Planning Activity Set is created.

Group planning activities

When a group planning is generated, group planning activities are created from service order activities, work order activities or planned activities that are grouped into group planning activity sets. Two or more attribute values can be linked to one activity set.