Call Settings - Scheduling Parameters

In the section Organization Settings > Customer Call Settings > Scheduling Parameters, you define whether and how your organization's customers should be taken into account by default when portatour® calculates routes. Uncheck the Default checkbox to enter your organization settings.

Call interval or initial call within

With the help of the call interval, you can specify the call frequency for customers. A customer with a 30-day interval is scheduled by portatour® on average once a month, as long as it is set to default scheduling.

Specified

If you select Specified, a fixed interval that you have specified is applied as the default for your customers. Values between 7 and 730 days are allowed (i.e. between once a week and once every two years).

Calculated

If you select the setting Calculated, you can select an integer field for each account, contact and lead which is used for specifying the call interval. Usually you will select a custom property field here.

The data for this field can come from different sources:

• Manual entry: The field is displayed in the form of the entity. Values are entered manually by users.
• Form Scripting (JavaScript): The field is calculated according to other fields by means of Dynamics 365 Form Scripting. Note that in this case the calculated call interval is only recalculated if changes are made via the form, but not if a record is updated in another way.
• Export - Excel - Import: All the records are exported and opened with Excel. There you implement the calculation of the call interval. Afterwards the records are imported back into Dynamics 365.
• Workflow: The values of the fields are calculated from other fields by means of Dynamics 365 Workflow. You can find an example of this under Configuration of a calculated visit interval.
• Plug-In: The values of the fields are calculated from other fields via Dynamics 365 Plug-In.

Ensure that the field for the calculated call interval is either empty or contains 0 (meaning 'do not visit customer regularly'), or that the value lies in the permitted range of between 7 and 730 days (incl.). Otherwise, the synchronisation with portatour® will result in an error and will subsequently be aborted.

None

If customers of your organization are not to be visited regularly, set the call interval to None.

Follow-up calls due after

It can happen that portatour®, in the interest of route optimization, suggests a call to a customer even though the specified call interval has not yet been fully reached. Therefore, in the field Follow-up calls due after, enter the minimum amount of time to have elapsed within the call interval before a customer can be suggested for a call.

For example, 70% means that a customer with a call interval of 30 days can be included in the portatour® schedule at earliest 21 days after the last call. A value between 50% and 90% is recommended. Default is 70%.

Schedule visits

When Default is ticked, portatour® customers are automatically taken into account in the scheduling, according to the call urgency. To determine the urgency, portatour® calculates the timeframe between the last call the the current date and compares this with the specified call interval.

If scheduling is set to Manually, customers are only included in the schedule if appointments or reservations are set for them (see Calendar and Reservations).

Call duration

Here, you can enter the average duration of a customer call in minutes. The value must be between 1 and 480 minutes. Do not only take into account the duration of the call itself but also time for finding a parking lot, preparing the call, walking distances from the car to the customer, possible registration and check-out formalities and waiting times.

Adherence to business hours

Here is where you define how portatour® should handle your customers' business hours.

The selection Start of call ensures that the beginning of the customer call is scheduled within the customer's business hours. However, the call itself can last beyond the business hours.

With the selection Entire call portatour® ensures that the entire call is scheduled within the customer's business hours. Please note that this setting generally reduces the time available for customer calls and thus reduces the number of scheduled calls. Especially lunch breaks of customers have a very limiting effect.

Late arrival tolerance for appointments

In Late arrival tolerance for appointments, you specify whether appointments should be adhered to exactly according to the schedule (i.e. 0 minutes tolerance), or whether you grant portatour® an appointment leeway, e.g. 30 minutes late arrival tolerance, in the interests of flexibility and route optimization.

Changes to this setting only apply to new appointments created from then onwards. This setting does not effect appointments that have already been created.This setting does not effect appointments that have already been created.