Scheduling Policy
In Salesforce Field Service, a configuration that defines rules for the scheduling optimizer, specifying priorities like minimizing travel time, respecting skill requirements, and balancing workload when assigning work orders to service resources.
Definition
In Salesforce Field Service, a configuration that defines rules for the scheduling optimizer, specifying priorities like minimizing travel time, respecting skill requirements, and balancing workload when assigning work orders to service resources.
In plain English
“A Scheduling Policy in Salesforce Field Service defines rules for the scheduling optimizer, specifying priorities like minimizing travel time, respecting skill requirements, and balancing workload when assigning work to service resources.”
Worked example
Trentham Logistics' Field Service operations team configures a Scheduling Policy called Urgent-Travel-Optimized for emergency Work Orders. The policy prioritizes minimizing travel time over balancing workload, requires only the highest-skill technicians, and ignores normal capacity caps. A second Scheduling Policy called Standard prioritizes workload balance over travel time and respects capacity caps. The dispatcher applies the Urgent policy when scheduling emergency repairs; the optimizer produces different (faster but less balanced) assignments. Scheduling Policies let one Field Service deployment serve multiple distinct service patterns.
Why Scheduling Policy matters
In Salesforce Field Service, a Scheduling Policy is a configuration that defines rules for the scheduling optimizer, specifying priorities like minimizing travel time, respecting skill requirements, and balancing workload when assigning work orders to service resources. The policy tells the optimizer what matters most, and the optimizer tries to produce schedules that satisfy those priorities.
Scheduling policies are central to Field Service optimization because they express business priorities as optimizer constraints. Different organizations have different priorities: some prioritize travel efficiency, others prioritize skill matching, and others prioritize workload balance. Mature Field Service deployments tune their scheduling policies based on operational data, adjusting priorities to improve outcomes over time.
How to set up Scheduling Policy
Scheduling Policy defines the rules that the Field Service scheduling optimizer uses to assign work — minimize travel time / respect skills / balance workload / honor SLAs. Each Service Territory can have its own default policy; individual Service Appointments can override. Tuning policies is the single most impactful Field Service config decision.
- Confirm Field Service is enabled
Setup → Field Service Settings.
- Open the Field Service app → Scheduling Policies tab
Scheduling Policies are records, not Setup metadata. Most Field Service admins find them in the Field Service Lightning Console.
- Click New Scheduling Policy
Top-right of the list.
- Set Name and Description
Convention: per-purpose ("Premium Customer Priority", "Cost-Optimized Default").
- Configure Work Rules
Hard rules — "Service Resource must have all required Skills," "Earliest Start respected," "Travel time within Service Territory." Violations exclude resources.
- Configure Service Objectives (weighted scoring)
Soft optimizations — Minimize Travel (weight 40), Maximize Daily Productivity (weight 30), Honor SLA (weight 30). Weights drive the optimizer's tradeoffs.
- Save → set as default for relevant Service Territories
Service Territory has a Default Scheduling Policy field. Set per territory.
- For per-appointment overrides: set Scheduling Policy on the Service Appointment
Override the territory default for specific appointments.
Hard constraints — must be satisfied.
Weighted soft optimizations — tradeoffs.
What new appointments use unless overridden.
On the Service Appointment record.
- Service Objectives are weighted relative to each other. Weights must sum to 100 implicitly; non-balanced weights produce unexpected scheduler behavior. Test with sample data before going live.
- Hard Work Rules can produce "no candidate found" results — the scheduler can't find any resource that satisfies all rules. Audit Work Rules for over-restrictiveness if appointments stay unscheduled.
- Different policies for different territories enable multi-region tuning, but maintaining many policies is overhead. Most orgs have 2-3 policies ("Premium", "Standard", "Cost-Optimized") and assign them by territory or appointment type.
How organizations use Scheduling Policy
Configured scheduling policies to prioritize skill matching and minimize travel time.
Tunes scheduling policy priorities based on operational outcome data.
Uses different scheduling policies for different work types with different optimization priorities.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Scheduling Policy.
- Manage Field Service AppointmentsSalesforce Help
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is a Scheduling Policy?
Q2. What can policies prioritize?
Q3. How should you tune policies?
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