Technician Availability Chart

The Technician Availability Chart displays the list of technicians, along with the number of open requests assigned to them and their availability for a given month. The chart is a matrix view, indicating the availability of the technician for a specific day. It allows technicians to apply for leave, edit/cancel leave and even configure backup technicians when a technician is unavailable.

Note:

The Technician Availability Chart is available only for technicians with Admin privileges such as an administrator, Account Admin and Site Admin.
The administrator has the ability to view the availability and the number of open requests assigned to All Technicians in All Site.
The Account Admin has the privilege to view the availability and the number of open requests of technicians of All Sites in his Account.
The Site Admin has the privilege to view the availability and the number of open requests of technicians only in his site.

To view the Technician Availability Chart,

Click Scheduler tab in the Home page. This opens the Schedule Calender displaying the number of open requests, problems, changes, task and reminders assigned to the technician who has logged in.
Click the Tech Availability Chart link on the right hand side of the page.
You can also choose Tech Availability Chart from the Quick Actions link under the header pane. This opens the Technician Availability Chart.

technician-availability-chart

Technician Availability Chart

The Technician Availability Chart shows the current month and year.

The Navigation buttons on thhe lefft top help to navigate to the previous and the forth coming months.

The current date in thhe calendar is marked in blue border.
By deffault, for an administrator, the list of all the technicians gets displayed irrespective of the Site and Group.Using the "Site", "Group" and "Technician" combo boxes, the administrator can view the availability of a particular technician in a particular Site.
For an Account Admin and Site Admin, the technicians available in his site gets listed irrespective of the group.

The number of Open Requests assigned to the technicians for a specific date can be viewed.

The unavailability of the technician is indicated in a different colour.

The company holidays and weekends is marked in a separate colours.

Using the Technician Availability Chart, you can perform actions such as,

Mark Leave

The unavailability of a technician can be marked using the Technician Availability Chart. This is essential so that requests that are assigned to that particular technician on that day can be re-assigned to another technician.

To mark leave,

From the Technician Availability Chart, click on the day corresponding to the technician on leave.
This opens the Mark Unavailability pop-up window as shown below,

mark-unavailable

The name of the Technician is displayed in a non-editable text.
Select the Leave Type (Casual Leave, Sick Leave, and so on) from the combo box.
Select the From and To date of leave by invoking the calender icon.
Specify any relevant Comments regarding the leave in thhe Comments text box.
Click Save. The technicians holiday will be indicated in a different colour.

Leave can also be marked by clicking Quick Actions -> Mark Unavailability under the Scheduler block. This opens the Mark Unavailability pop up window. Follow the above steps to mark leave.

Notifications rules can be configured to keep other technicians informed about the leave of absence of a technician. Once the technician applies leave, selected technicians or the group in which the technician is present will be notified about the leave when it is added, modified or cancelled.

Configure Backup Technician:

To configure a Backup Technician on the day of unavailability of a technician,

Click the name of the technician who will be on leave in the Technician Availability Chart. This opens the Technician Calendar for that month with the technician's days of unavailability indicated in a different shade.
Click on Backup Tech link displayed in a different colour. This opens Backup Technician Assignment screen.

Choose one of the 3 options provided to handle the upcoming requests assigned to the unavailable technician.
- Move requests to unassigned state - The requests assigned to the technician on leave are moved to an unassigned state, which means, it is assigned to no technician. This is done so that the unassigned requests can be re-assigned to another available technician by the administrator or help desk coordinator.
- Assign to following technician - This option allows you to configure a Backup Technician throughout the absence of a particular technician. On choosing this option, one can select the Backup Tech from the list of technicians displayed in the drop-down box. If Sites are configured, this drop-down box displays only the names of the technician who are associated with the same site as that of the technician who is on leave.
- Don't take any action on the requests - This is the default option visible in the Backup Technician Assignment screen. In this case, no action is taken on the requests that is assigned to the technician. The request is assigned to the technician even if he is on leave.
Click Save after configuring the Backup Tech.
Once the Backup Tech is configured, an icon appears in the calendar indicating that the backup technician has been configured. By hovering the mouse pointer over the icon, a description box appears (as shown below) indicating the status of the backup technician configuration.

If notification rules are configured, Once the backup technician is configured, notification e-mails will be sent to selected technicians or the group in which the unavailable technician is present.

Note: Backup Technicians can be configured only up to one level. This means, if the backup technician is on leave, another backup technician cannot be configured.

All information relating to unavailability of a technician, including the period of leave and backup technicians (if configured) are displayed in the Backup Tech Chart.

Re-assigning Requests

Requests assigned to a technician can be re-assigned to another technician through the Technician Calendar.

To re-assign requests to another technician,

Click on the number of requests and this opens the Backup Technician Assignment screen along with the list of requests in the second half of the screen.
Select the requests that need to be re-assigned by clicking on the check boxes.
Select the Technician from the Technician drop-down box.
Click Re-Assign button to assign the requests to another technician.
Click on Calendar View to go back to the Technician Calendar.
You can also re-assign requests by clicking on the requests in the Technician Availability Chart and selecting Click here to view map from pop-up.
Follow the above steps to re-assign the requests.

Note: Re-assigning requests is different from assigning requests through Backup Tech. Although Backup Tech can be configured only up to one level, in the absence of the backup technician, the pending requests can be assigned to another technician through this feature.

Click the name of the technician to have a detailed view about the number of requests, problems, changes and tasks assigned to the particular technician in My Schedule.

Editing/Cancelling Leave

To edit leave then,

Click on the leave of the technician which needs to be edited from the Technician Availability Chart. This opens the Mark Unavailability pop-up window.
Make necessary changes(Leave type or Leave period).
ClickSave.

To cancel leave,

- Click on the leave of the technician that needs to be cancelled from the Technician Availability Chart. This opens the Mark Unavailability pop-up window.
- Click Cancel Leave button. The leave gets cancelled.

Note: If a continuous period of leave is applied, then the entire period will be cancelled.

Viewing Requests

To view the requests assigned to a technician for a particular day,

Select the requests on the day of absence of the corresponding technician from the Technician Availability Chart.
Click here to view map in the following drop-down box.

This opens the list of all open request due for that day.
Click the request you want to see and the request information is displayed in the same screen.

Viewing Logged-in Technicians:

If you are an SDAdmin, SDSite Admin or SD Co-ordinator, then the Technicians logged-in the application is indicated in the Technician Availability Chart. Click Logged-in Technician button to view the list of logged in technician irrespective of the associated sites. You can also view the logged-in technicians from Quick Actions drop-down.

Backup Tech Chart:

Backup Technician Chart displays information such as absence of leave of a technician, name of the technician and the backup technician configured through the period. This chart helps to keep a check on the backup technicians whenever a technician applies for leave. To view the Backup Technician Chart, click on the Backup Tech Chart link next to the My Schedule link.

Using the Navigation buttons at the left top of the screen one can navigate to the previous and the forth coming months to get a broader idea about the technicians on leave, their period of absence and the backup technicians configured for that period.