Call Settings - Planning Parameters

In the section Call Settings, Planning Parameters, specify the values that apply to the majority of your organization's customers.

Schedule calls

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 call schedule if an appointment has been entered on the Dynamics CRM calendar or a reservation has been set. Further information about reservations and appointments can be found in the user manual.

Call interval

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.

If you select the setting Specified, you can select a field which is used for specifying the call interval (in number of days). 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 Dynamics CRM entity, values are entered manually by users there. You can find information about customizing your Dynamics CRM system for example in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer Center.
• Form Scripting (JavaScript): the field is calculated according to other fields by means of Dynamics CRM Form Scripting. Refer to Write Code for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Forms on Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). 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 CRM.
• Workflow: The values of the fields are calculated from other fields by means of Dynamics CRM Workflow. You can find an example of this in chapter Example of a calculated call interval.
• Plug-in: the values of the fields are calculated by a Dynamics XRM Plug-In based on other fields. You can find out more about the programming of plug-ins in Write Plug-Ins to Extend Business Processes on MSDN.

Ensure that the field for the calculated call interval always contains a value and is either 0 (meaning 'do not visit customer regularly') or lies in the permitted range of between 7 and 730 days. Otherwise portatour® may not function correctly.

On the other hand, if you select a fixed value, a fixed interval that you have specified is applied as the default for your customers. Values between 7 and 730 days are permissible (in other words between once a week and once every two years).

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

Due after

It can happen that portatour®, in the interests of route optimization, suggests a call to a customer even though the specified call interval has not yet been reached. Therefore enter into the field Due after the minimum amount of time that has 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® call schedule at the earliest 21 days after the last call. Select a percentage between 0% and 100%.

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.

Appointment leeway

In this field you can 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.