Calendar and shift information

Set up your calendar and define/apply shifts and shift break information. All Scheduler applications work with only one calendar but can work with multiple shifts but it is recommended that no more than 4 shifts be used. Ensure that your calendar work periods extends far enough into the future. For example, if you want to plan your work out for the next six months, ensure that your calendar information extends out for six months.  Shift patterns need to be set up as multiples of 7 for a 7 day week.  Maximo allows any number of pattern days but for Graphical applications those that are not divisible by 7 will have issues.
Always use Apply Shifts action to create the Calendar Work Periods, many issues will occur if the work periods are created incorrectly causing all graphical views to have issues.

Craft, Crew types, Labor and Crew information

Set up your crafts and crew types so that they can be specified on job plans and work order plan labor.

Set up labor and crews with their appropriate Calendar and Shifts to ensure that Schedulers have craft and crew type availability and Supervisors can assign work to specific labor or crews

        - please note that the Scheduler can now choose to use alternate resource availability not dependent on Labor and Crews so this step could be skipped if you have contract workers you do not plan to assign

Work orders and tasks

Divide your work orders and other work records into smaller tasks so that each task can be scheduled and divided between resources as needed. Plan your resources at the level that they are managed. For example, if you assign entire work orders, the resource requirement must be at the work order level. If you assign individual tasks within a work order, the resource requirement must be at task level. If you require resources at the task level, you must include tasks in the schedule to see them in the Gantt view.

Use the Interruptible check box to schedule work only during work time. If a task or work order is not interruptible, it is scheduled in a single block that might include non-work time.

Job plan information

Review your job plans to ensure that they require the appropriate craft and crew types. Also, carefully review job plan durations.

Durations affect scheduling and cost calculations. Ideally, all durations for craft or crew type requirement should be for the entire length of the job plan. For example, a 2 hour job plan for fire hydrant maintenance would require 2 hours for a plumber and 2 hours for a mechanic. Job plan and work order durations are synchronized in the Gantt view.

Service addresses

Dispatching?  Create service addresses for assets and locations. When you enter an asset or location as a service address the X/Y or lat/long coordinates are determined (also called geo location) to enable scheduler to place a map marker on the appropriate map. You can then view work graphically on the Dispatch tab in the Gantt view of the Graphical Assignment application.