Every Interaction in Workforce Scheduling has an underlying Service Appointment that the
scheduling engine reads and writes. When you create an Interaction, Workforce Scheduling creates
the underlying record automatically. Users see and act on the Interaction; the scheduling engine
acts on the Service Appointment. Interaction fields are mapped to Service Appointment fields so
that these records stay in sync.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise and Unlimited Editions |
When a user schedules a new Interaction (creates an Interaction), Workforce Scheduling creates
the underlying Service Appointment automatically. A Service Appointment carries the fields the
scheduling engine reads and writes: Assigned Resource, Status, Priority, and Work Type.
The Interaction references (links to) the underlying record through a lookup field. The Service
Appointment behind an Interaction doesn’t appear in the Operations Console, only the Interaction
does. When a Service Appointment is associated with an Interaction, Workforce Scheduling hides
it from the Service Appointment list on the Operations Console, the Operations Console Gantt,
and the map view. The underlying Service Appointment record is still queryable through the API, and exportable through reports. This gives the
scheduling engine a record to act on while keeping the Interaction as the record users see.
Updates flow through the Service Appointment:
- A user creates or edits an Interaction.
- The scheduling engine reads fields from the Interaction and writes the change to the
underlying Service Appointment.
- The scheduling engine runs the requested action against the Service Appointment.
- The Service Appointment’s assigned resource, scheduled time, and status flow back to the
Interaction.
On the Interaction record page, the interaction type, assigned resource, and scheduled time are
read-only — users see the current state without opening the Service Appointment. Reports and API
queries against the Service Appointment object return the underlying records alongside any other
Service Appointments.
The data model (field) mapping between Interactions and Service Appointments is defined by the
standard Context Service
definition that ships with Workforce Scheduling.
