Finding an available slot
Sterling™ Order Management System considers all the resource pools that are associated with the possible delivering locations and meet the following additional constraints:
- The delivery region must be serviced by the resource pool in order for it to be considered.
- If there are any skills required for performing the delivery, the resource pool provides all those skills.
Sterling Order Management System suggests available slots based on:
- Resource pool availability
- For checking the resource pool availability, Sterling Order Management System ensure
that:
- The resource pool has sufficient capacity remaining in the slot being considered. This is considered only if the resource pool has capacity information available. If capacity information is not available, Sterling Order Management System consider this as "infinite capacity" and can suggest this slot for recording appointments.
- The resource pool serves the delivery region on that date based on its "day-of-week" setup for the region. This check is done irrespective of capacity availability.
- The date is not marked as a non-working day on the resource pool's calendar. The resource pool's calendar could be overridden for the resource pool or the default calendar of the resource pool's node is used.
- For checking the resource pool availability, Sterling Order Management System ensure
that:
- Product availability
- Product availability of all the products being delivered - Sterling Order Management System ensures that all the items are available on the first suggested slot.
- Sequencing constraints - slots are suggested based on sequencing constraints of the order line.
- Minimum service notification time
A minimum service notification time can be specified at the node level. Any service slots starting within current time and this notification time (in business hours) are considered as unavailable and are not suggested.
- Service search window
This parameter is set up as part of the scheduling rules. This parameter sets the upper boundary on the date until which service availability is looked up to. Typically you should set this up in the range of 30 to 60 days. Sterling Order Management System looks up slot availability within the boundaries defined by this parameter.
When inquiring for slot availability, Sterling Order Management System suggests an array of slots that are available. Since a slot could be served by more than one resource pool, the array represents availability across all resource pools that can serve that region and service item. The actual resource pool to use is not locked in until the order line is scheduled.