Dispatch feedback notifications are not sent to users based on an established database triggering event or status change. They are sent at a configured amount of time prior to the estimated completion time for dispatched WO activities. For example, the system can be configured to send dispatch feedback notifications 30 minutes prior to the estimated completion time of each WO activity.
The purpose of these notifications is to collect feedback from the crew or employee dispatched to the WO activity. This feedback is used for the following:
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Let their supervisor know if they expect to complete the work on-time, early, or late. In addition, they may enter notes/comments to provide additional context about the completion status. Feedback can be viewed on the Supervisor Dispatch Overview screen in base EAM (see the Supervisor Dispatch Overview brief for more information).
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Adjust the activity Hours Remaining based on the feedback provided. In other words, if the employee indicates they will complete a 1-hour activity 15 minutes late, then the system will add 15 minutes to Hours Remaining. If they will finish 15 early, then 15 minutes will be subtracted from Hours Remaining. The update to Hours Remaining described here can be enabled/disabled by configuration, although it is recommended to be enabled because Hours Remaining will more accurately reflect the most current expected completion time. Also, additional feedback notifications sent for the same WO activity will be based on the updated Hours Remaining.
A new driver called Digital Work Dispatch Feedback Notification (DWDISPFBN) has been created to monitor dispatched WO activities and their estimated completion time. This driver can be activated on the Job Setup screen. This driver runs every 5 minutes and monitors the time remaining for dispatched work order activities in the Digital Work app. When a WO activity’s time remaining reaches a configured threshold, this new driver will create a record in R5MAILEVENTS. The existing mail driver "Extended Mail Driver" (MAIL) will then send a ‘push notification’ to the dispatched user’s mobile device for the WO activity.
Work order activities meeting ALL the following conditions will be considered for dispatch feedback notifications:
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WO system status = Released.
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WO activity is NOT completed.
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WO activity Assignment Status is NOT a value defined in organization option ACTDISCP (i.e., indicates the dispatched work is complete).
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WO activity must have a dispatch record that is NOT completed.
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WO activity must be ‘started’ (i.e., the Start button has been clicked). This is indicated with a record in the R5FLEETBOOKLABOR table. If the WO activity is NOT currently being worked on, then the system will NOT attempt to collect dispatch feedback for it.
In addition, an ‘active’ dispatch setup record must exist, and dispatch feedback notifications must be enabled for the dispatched crew/employee organization. This indicates that the dispatch feedback notification job will evaluate all WO activities dispatched to these crews/employees to determine when to send the notification.
Next, the system must determine how many feedback notifications sent, by the driver, have previously been responded to for the WO, activity, crew/employee combination:
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If no feedback records exist for this combination, then the system will send Notification 1 and use the related minutes settings to determine when to send it.
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If exactly 1 feedback record exists for this combination and it indicates they expected to finish Early or Late, then the system will send Notification 2 (if enabled) and use the related minutes settings to determine when to send it.
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If 2 or more feedback records exist for this combination and the most recent record indicates they expected to finish Early or Late, then the system will send a Subsequent Notification and use the related minutes settings to determine when to send it.
It will be possible for users to manually create dispatch feedback records for the
dispatched WO activity. These records are designated differently than feedback records
that were created based on a notification that was sent by the system. Only notifications
sent by the system will be considered when determining which notification should be
sent next by the system.
Once the system has determined which notification should be sent to the WO, activity, crew/employee, it determines how much time prior to the estimated completion date/time to send the notification. See Configuration details in this document, specifically the dispatch feedback options selected on the Dispatch Setup, Crew, and Employee screens.
WO activity estimated completion date/time = [date/time activity started + (Hours Remaining from activity / People Required from the activity)].
Each time the driver runs, it will evaluate the WO activity to determine if it is time to send a dispatch feedback notification. If so, the job will create a record in R5MAILEVENTS for a WO activity for which the crew/employee has been dispatched. The R5MAILEVENTS record will be created when the following condition is met:
[(Hours Remaining from activity, in minutes / People Required from activity) – # of minutes the activity timer has been running] = < minimum calculated value from all 3 mobile dispatch feedback notification minutes fields on the Dispatch Setup screen for the notification being sent (i.e., Notification 1, Notification 2, or Subsequent Notifications).
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If multiple activity timers have been started for the same activity, the system will use the total running time for all of them in the calculation above.
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If more than 1 of these 3 minutes fields is populated, the system will use the minimum value in the calculation above. If the percentage field is populated, the system will determine the # of minutes the percentage represents for the WO activity, prior to comparison. See the Configuration section for the recommended approach to using these fields.
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The minute field values will come from the dispatched crew or employee record if the organization level options (i.e., Dispatch Setup) have been overridden for the crew or employee.
If the job determines it is time to send a dispatch feedback notification, it will create a record in the existing R5MAILEVENTS table. This is the same table from which the MAIL driver processes email and normal push notifications. Dispatch feedback notifications are always sent to the user associated to the dispatched employee or crew, and as such, are sent to the device registered to that user.
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2 new fields have been added to R5MAILEVENTS to store the WO and activity for which the notification was sent. The mail event record, along with data in the new linking table R5DISPATCHNOTIFICATIONS, provides enough information for the dispatch feedback notification to display correctly and subsequently open the Dispatch Feedback screen to display the correct data.
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If an activity is dispatched to a crew, the notification will be sent to the device of the user associated to the crew employee whose "Determines Crew Location for Dispatching" check box is selected. This is the crew employee that is the crew leader and will most likely have the Digital Work mobile device in their possession.
The MAIL driver has been updated to process mail event records and send dispatch feedback notifications as necessary. The handling of these types of mail events records are very similar to how normal push notifications are handled.
The dispatch feedback push notification displayed on the user’s mobile device will contain the following information:
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Line 1 --- "EAM Digital Work: Feedback"
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Line 2 --- "WO" <WO# for which dispatch feedback is to be collected> "-" <Activity# for which dispatch feedback is to be collected >, Sequence <dispatch sequence for WO activity>
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Line 3 --- <Email Template Subject>
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Line 4 --- <Email Template Body>
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Sequence, Subject, and Body may be empty.
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Subject and Body can only contain the text associated to the email template i.e., it cannot contain parameters as these email templates cannot be associated to email notification setup records.
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The text in these notifications is hardcoded (i.e., it is not translated). The correct WO, activity, and sequence are automatically populated by the job.
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When the notification is clicked, Digital Work will display a new, Digital Work-only screen called Dispatch Feedback. This screen will query relevant WO activity details and calculate the estimated completion date/time as described above, for display to the user. The user will enter their feedback and click Save. See Dispatch Feedback screen details below.