Make sure mobile workers maximize their presence in high-volume areas by completing all appointments within a specific area before moving to the next. The Group Nearby Appointments service objective is designed specifically for organizations with a large number of appointments per resource, where multiple workers typically start their day from the same home base location and cover the same geographical area. By prioritizing this objective, you eliminate redundant path overlap so that one mobile worker "owns" the area for the day, maximizing productivity. Previously, the scheduling engine prioritized the shortest overall travel time for individual appointments. This logic often resulted in mobile workers "picking up" appointments on the way to a cluster, which inadvertently caused the remaining appointments in that area to be split among multiple workers.
Where: This feature is available in Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions with the Field Service managed package installed.
How: In Setup, go to Field Service Settings and verify that Field Service Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization is enabled. Add the Group Nearby Appointments service objective to your scheduling policy from the Customize Scheduling Policies page in Guided Setup or the Scheduling Policy Objectives related list on a policy.