--- schema_version: "1" id: 854ca35ec508721afd6e3a0fde6557909299cdc65375c5e8b97b13a9ad99b84d title: Prioritizing Service Appointments for Optimization collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/service/264-0-0/wfs_optimize_priority.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.wfs_optimize_priority.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: 29fec63ae351281c321b00aa51c681eeb1182b7b6e24850a683bc1942e00c991 description: Priority values on Workforce Scheduling service appointments tell the optimization engine which appointments to schedule first when your team’s availability is limited. Priority reflects business factors like due dates and service level agreements — not just urgency. Optimization is relevant to field work only. products: - Public Sector - Service Cloud release: "264" --- # Prioritizing Service Appointments for Optimization Priority values on Workforce Scheduling service appointments tell the optimization engine which appointments to schedule first when your team’s availability is limited. Priority reflects business factors like due dates and service level agreements — not just urgency. Optimization is relevant to field work only. ### Required Editions
Available in: Lightning Experience
Available in: Enterprise and Unlimited Editions
The Workforce Scheduling optimization engine reads the Scheduling Priority field on each service appointment and weighs it against configured service objectives when running optimization. On-site appointments aren’t optimized, so priority doesn’t affect them. Priority values are how you tell the optimization engine which trade-offs matter when demand exceeds capacity. To maximize the strategic value of scheduling, define priority values that reflect your unique business goals. Focus on the highest-value work by considering factors like customer lifetime value, and potential revenue, in addition to the type of work and due dates. Priority influences which appointments get scheduled — it doesn’t affect the chronological order in which appointments are scheduled. The Scheduling Priority field on a service appointment holds a fixed value from 1 to 100, where 1 is the highest priority. When the field is null or zero, the engine treats the appointment as the lowest possible priority. If no explicit priority is set at appointment creation, the system derives one from the parent Work Order or Work Order Line Item using a fixed mapping. | Priority Level | Numeric Value | | --- | --- | | Critical | 1 | | High | 75 | | Medium | 90 | | Low | 100 | The Visit Priority field, which you set when you create a new appointment through the scheduling flow, uses the same mapping. ## How Priority Affects Scoring When the optimization engine calculates the score for a schedule, it considers the penalty applied to each appointment that can’t be scheduled. The engine compares two schedules by their total penalty and prefers the one with the lower total. The total penalty for not scheduling an appointment has two parts: Base penalty Assigned when an appointment isn’t scheduled. It’s the sum of all service objective weights configured in the scheduling policy, plus 100. For a policy with Minimize Travel: 100, Schedule ASAP: 20, and Preferred Resource: 50, the base penalty is (100 + 20 + 50) + 100 = 270. This formula makes sure that the penalty for not scheduling an appointment always exceeds the penalty for scheduling. Priority penalty Based on the priority value. It’s the sum of all service objective weights configured in the scheduling policy × 50 × the priority percentage. The penalty percentages assigned to priority values are linear. Any priority value outside the scale is given a penalty percentage value of 0%. | Priority Value | Penalty | | --- | --- | | 1 | 100% | | 25 | 76% | | 50 | 51% | | 75 | 26% | | 100 | 1% | For example, if an appointment has a priority of 3 and the scheduling policy is configured with these objective weights. - Minimize Travel: 100 - Schedule ASAP: 20 - Preferred Resource: 50 The total penalty for not scheduling the appointment is base penalty + priority penalty. Using the 1–100 scale: - Base penalty = (100+20+50) + 100 = 270 - Priority penalty = (100+20+50) × 50 × 0.98 = 8,330 The total penalty for not scheduling the appointment = 270 + 8,330 = 8,600. The total penalty calculation provides the optimizer guidance on which appointments are more important to schedule and which appointments can be left off the schedule when there’s no availability to schedule all appointments. Consider a lower priority appointment with priority 53. The total penalty for not scheduling that appointment is ((100+20+50) + 100) + ((100+20+50) × 50 × 0.48) = 4,350. Because the penalty for not scheduling a priority 3 appointment is higher than the penalty for not scheduling a priority 60 appointment, the engine prefers a schedule where the priority 3 appointment is scheduled. Using the full scale of priority values, you can choose values for service appointments so that a higher-priority appointment outweighs multiple lower-priority appointments. For example, assuming scheduling an emergency appointment is more important than scheduling two installation appointments, you can set the emergency priority to 1 and the installation priority to 53. The emergency’s total penalty is 8,770, and the two installations combined total penalty is 8,700. Because the emergency’s total is higher, the engine prefers a schedule that includes it. #### See Also - [How Does Workforce Scheduling Optimization Work?](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.wfs_optimize_how_it_works.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Workforce Scheduling optimization scores candidate schedules against your scheduling policy and appointment priorities, then applies the highest-scoring result. Optimization is relevant to field work only.") - [What’s Workforce Scheduling Optimization?](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.wfs_optimize_what_is_opt.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Workforce Scheduling optimization automatically generates the ideal schedule by applying your scheduling policy and appointment priorities. Optimization is relevant to field work only.") - [Create and Manage Scheduling Policies in Workforce Scheduling](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.wfs_policies_manage.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Scheduling policies combine work rules and service objectives to control which resources and time slots Workforce Scheduling assigns to each appointment. Work rules decide who’s eligible, and service objectives decide who’s the best fit. During scheduling and optimization, the engine applies these criteria against factors like resource skills, travel time, and urgency to make sure the right person is assigned to the right job efficiently.") - [Create and Manage Service Objectives in Workforce Scheduling](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.wfs_service_objectives_manage.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Add service objectives to a scheduling policy to represent your business priorities. The scheduling engine grades candidate schedules against the objectives you assign and their relative weights.")