Advanced Scheduling Utility

The Advanced Scheduling Utility is designed with ground transportation in mind. It is designed to suggest your scheduled transports based on what is currently going on. We use Google to find current traffic conditions as well to make sure that your transports are fully optimized. Below are instructions that will guide you through using this new feature.

Note: This feature is license based and a paid for module, due to the several calls made through Google. Please reach out to us for questions on pricing.

Note: New user group permissions have been added for Advanced Scheduling Utility(Settings > User Groups > Set Up Advanced Scheduling Utility and Run Advanced Scheduling Utility), if set to Hidden, the user will not be able to access the set up below or request the system run the Advanced Scheduling Utility.  

Instructions

1. Go to Settings > Advanced Scheduling Utility
2. Enable Advanced Scheduling Utility. Turn this setting to ON.
3. Should Request be Considered? This expression should return a 1 (true) for requests that should be considered during scheduling and 0 (false) for requests that should not.
   1. In the example below, any request that has a ‘Call Sub Type’ of Ground, will be considered. **This is only an example, your organization may choose a different way to define how you will use this feature
4. Should Patient be Considered? This expression should return a 1(true) for patients that should be considered during scheduling and a 0(false) for patients that should not.
   1. In the example below, any patient that has a ‘Level of Care’ of Ground, will be considered. **This is only an example, your organization may choose a different way to define how you will use this feature
5. Request Capabilities have been added to help determine which assets and/or call signs are capable of performing which requests.
   1. You will see below that our example mirrors the settings put in place above. **This is only an example, your organization may choose a different way to define how you will use this feature
   2. Request capabilities for Short term planning: The ‘This capability is provided by the asset if…' section within ‘Request Capabilities’ should be used for short-term planning (in less than 12 hours unless otherwise defined in the scheduling set up setting, 'Schedule X hours into the future’). If the patient and/or request requirements are met, the asset capabilities are considered when scheduling/assigning the asset to the request.
   3. Request capabilities for Long term planning: Call sign capabilities will be used for long term planning (more than 12 hours unless otherwise defined in advanced scheduling set up setting, ‘Schedule X hours into the future’). Call sign capabilities can be set up within the 'Call Signs/Pager Assignments' setting edit screen. If a request is considered long term planning, and either the patient and/or request requirements are met, the call sign capabilities are considered when scheduling a call sign.
      1. Request capabilities also apply to search closest so the overall ‘Request Capability’ setting will be available for advanced scheduling utility users (within ‘Advance Scheduling Utility’ set up) and in normal settings as well.
         1. Search closest will use asset capabilities (from the ‘Request Capability’ setting) since it is for short-term planning (users don't use ‘search  closest' for requests scheduled in the future, beyond the value set in Setting #7 of the 'Advanced Scheduling Utility’).

         2. NOTE: If the patient and/or request capabilities are met THEN the asset (short term) or call sign (long term) requirements are considered to find which asset can fulfill the capability requirement.

            NOTE: Unassigned Patient requirements are for patients that are manually assigned to call signs in the time view(drag and drop) OR patients that are converted to request via advanced scheduling utility.

   4. The View Capability Grid button within the request capabilities setting will allow user to preview which assets are compatible(green) and which assets are missing capabilities(black) for requests and patients. Hovering over the grid will display information about missing capabilities when applicable. NOTE: This grid is for short term planning.
6. Request Response Priority is an expression that assigns a numeric priority to a request. During advanced scheduling, requests with a higher value will be prioritized over requests with a lower value. NOTE: The system will look at the Request Response Priority when the user starts with a request ticket.
   1. The default setting, as seen below, prioritizes Emergent Accepted requests first, then Emergent requests, then Scheduled Accepted requests, then Scheduled requests.
7. Patient Response Priority is an expression that assigns a numeric priority to a patient that is not yet assigned to a request. During advanced scheduling, patients and requests with a higher value will be prioritized over patients and requests with a lower value. NOTE: The system will look at the Patient Response Priority when the user starts with a patient ticket.
   1. The default setting, as seen below, prioritizes patients that have a timestamp with a system name of ‘Requestor Accepted' or 'Accepted’ set, indicating they and/or the requestor has accepted the scheduled or proposed time.
8. Schedule X hours into the future is used to determine how long before a request’s start time the advanced scheduler should be run in order to schedule an asset. This will default to 12 hours. The max value for this setting is 24 hours.
   1. If a request falls within the time range set (short term planning), scheduling will use asset capabilities set up within the request capabilities setting, to determine which assets are capable of completing the request. And scheduling will happen automatically. If the scheduled time falls outside the range, then call sign capabilities will be used to determine which call sign is callable of completing the request(long term planning).
   2. NOTE: If users want to change the value they will need a key, that can be requested from Flight Vector.
9. Use Response Zones. Response zones are geographical areas that are set up. You can use a KML file as well to display on the map, and assign to call signs. This setting determines whether, during scheduling, the list of assets considered for a request is filtered by which response zone(s) a request’s pickup location is in. The response zone selected for a call sign must match the response zone in which the request starts. Go to Settings>Response zones to set up response zones and go to Settings>Call Signs/Pager Assignments to set up response zones for a call sign.
10. Automatically Assign Assets. If turned on, assets will be assigned to requests based on the request’s scheduled time without user intervention.
    1. If the asset is assigned to a request, we will allow for the asset to be reassigned to the next request without prompting user of reassignment.
    2. Will not prompt the user with the assignment dialog.
    3. This is ONLY for assets that are included in the advanced scheduling utility.
11. Auto-assign asset margin. This setting tells FV how long before a scheduled request to automatically assign and launch the asset. This is only enabled if auto-assigning assets is enabled.

    Other Important information about the Advanced Scheduling Utility:

1. The following are when scheduling happen:
   1. setting an asset in/out of service
   2. assigning an asset to a request
   3. changing the scheduled asset or time for a request
   4. changing the transport plan
   5. request close
   6. periodically every minute
   7. Utilities > Run Advanced Scheduling Utility
2. The projected time will be displayed as a red box and arrow to display where it thinks that request/call sign combination could work based on the time it calculates for the current request. If you had two requests scheduled that overlap, it will choose the highest priority request and project the other one out to whatever time it thinks it will take that call sign to become available and start the next request, taking into account if it is initially departing time, arrive at drop off time, or arriving at scene time.
3. If an asset is at risk of being overbooked, a projected time will be presented in the time view, giving users a visual indication (red arrows) the scheduled time needs to be adjusted and/or monitored because the asset is overbooked.
4. Projected time (seen above) can be added to any request condition builder and will display the projected time for the request. (The Local option will display the time is the local time zone)
5. When the following setting is un-checked (Off), advanced scheduling will not suggest assets that are not available yet.
   1. 'Asset Available During', Settings → Call Type (for Non-patient call types).
   2. If a asset is selected that is not the recommended asset from the ‘Advanced Scheduling Utility’, the user will be presented with an override checkbox on the asset assignment dialog: