Use the Workforce Scheduling Group Nearby Appointments service objective to reduce the
number of resources assigned to the same area on a given day. This objective ensures resources
maximize their presence in high-volume areas by completing all appointments within a specific area
before moving to the next. It’s ideal for organizations with a large number of appointments per
resource, where multiple resources typically start from the same home base and cover the same
geographical areas. This objective is relevant for field scheduling only.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise and Unlimited Editions |
By prioritizing this objective, the scheduling engine identifies geographical clusters so that
a single worker manages the entire workload for a cluster, reducing inefficient “ad-hoc” stops
in favor of dedicated area coverage. This clustering eliminates path overlap and maximizes
productivity by ensuring one mobile worker “owns” the area for the day.
The engine dynamically groups nearby appointments into geographic clusters based on location
and proximity. The Group Nearby Appointments service objective applies a penalty equivalent to
120 minutes of travel for every service appointment (or resource absence) that falls outside a
cluster. To use the Group Nearby Appointments objective effectively, you need to balance it with
Minimize Travel, because these two goals can compete with each other.
The Minimize Travel objective operates on a standard scale of 120 minutes where every minute of
travel is assigned a penalty based on the weight you provide. For example, if you assign
Minimize Travel an objective weight of 1,000, the engine divides that weight by the 120-minute
scale, resulting in a penalty of 8.33 points for every minute of driving.
To control how much extra driving you’re willing to tolerate before the engine schedules an
appointment outside a cluster, you must adjust the weight of the Group Nearby Appointments
objective relative to the per-minute travel penalty. For example, if you’re willing to accept up
to 10 extra minutes of driving to keep a worker in the same area, you calculate the weight by
multiplying the per-minute travel penalty by your desired time threshold. Using the previous
example, where the per-minute penalty is 8.33, set the Group Nearby Appointments weight to 83.3
(8.33 points × 10 minutes). By setting the weight to 83.3, or rounding up to 85 to create a
slightly stronger preference, the engine prioritizes keeping a worker in the same area unless the
travel savings from breaking the cluster exceeds 10 minutes.
At this setting, the engine keeps the worker in the same geographic area unless assigning the
appointment outside the cluster reduces travel time by more than about 10 minutes.
