Use skills and qualifications

Assign skills to the single resource

Audience: The technicians’ manager

⚠️ Important: Only the technician’s manager can add or remove skills from technicians.

Based on the company’s master data of skills, technicians may have one or more skills. Add or remove technicians’ skills to streamline assignments.

Types of skills

The Skill Assignment panel has two sections:

Available Skills: All active skills that aren’t associated with the technicians.
- These skills are sorted by description.
Assigned Skills: All the Skills currently assigned to technicians.
- They are sorted by level and by description, if they are in the same level.

Add a skill

Click Main Menu > Features > Core > Resource Management > Resources > Skill, Qualifications and Roles.
To the left of the technician's row, click the Three dot menu.
Select Skill, Qualifications and Roles.
Drag a skill from the Available Skills section.
Drop it into the Assigned Skills section.

Note: The default skill level is 1. You can edit this value with the plus and minus icons.

Remove a skill

To the left of the technician's row, click the Three dot menu.
Select Skill, Qualifications and Roles.
Drag a skill from the Assigned Skills section.
Drop it into the Available Skills section.

Assign skill priority level

When you schedule the activity, specify the priority level of each skill to suggest which of the technicians is preferable to use. The higher the level value, the lower the priority of the skill assignment. For example:

Level 1 skills are primary skills.
Level 5 skills are the lowest priority skills.

How teams are scored

To assign a WO to a team through automatic scheduling, the VRP module uses the level property. The VRP:

Calculates a score for each team that fits the work order skill configuration.
Chooses the team with the higher score.

The level helps calculate the two penalties which would lower the team's score:

Skill deficiency: When teams have skills assigned with a level greater than 1.
- The higher the level is, the greater the penalty.
Skill excess: When team members have extra skills not required by the WO.
- The lower the level of the wasted skills are, the greater the penalty.

Note: The parameters involved in automatic scheduling are impactWastedSkills, skillAdherence, skillDeficiency, and skillExcess.

To learn more about the logic of the parameters, see the dedicated page.

Assign qualifications

Add qualifications if a certificate or license is necessary to perform a skill. For example, to maneuver a crane, a resource needs a valid driving license and a special vehicle driver certificate.

There are different qualification types (See system path: Main Menu > Core Module/Parameters/Skill Management/Qualifications):

Generic qualification: Enables resources to perform any activities/WOs, regardless of specific competences or skills.
- E.g., Medical examination for work authorization.
- A resource may have one or more generic qualifications.
Specific qualification for the type of skill: Enables resources to perform a certain type of skill.
- E.g., A special vehicle driver certificate.
- A skill may have one or more specific qualifications.

To ensure all resources are qualified, the system registers the history of qualifications and certifications of each resource. Only authorized resources can be assigned to WOs.

Resources must have a valid authorization or certification for all required generic qualifications.
Resources must have valid certification for all the qualifications associated with the skill.

Access qualifications

On the right of the Qualifications table, click New Qualification.
In the dropdown box, enter a new qualification.
Select the Validity period.
Click Save.

Assign a qualification to a skill

On the left, in the Operations submenu, click Skill Types.
Select a skill.
Click Association.

Assign roles

To identify the job, one or more roles may be assigned to a resource.

Note: Roles are for information purposes only.

Manage multiple skills

When a resource has “parent” skills assigned to them, all of the “child” skills in the system are automatically included as well. When multiple skills are associated with a resource (regardless of the level):

If one of the child skills of the selected skill is already associated with the resource:
- An error is displayed.
- Multiple skill is NOT associated with the resource.
If none of the children skills are already associated with the resource:
- The multiple skill is associated with the resource.
- All its child-skills are removed from the list of available skills.
- Note: Only the parent skill associated with the resource is displayed, not the child skills.

Note: All the resources with multiple skills may be automatically or manually allocated as if they provided single skills.

Add skills to a multiple skill

Define a skill.
To indicate it is a multiple skill, click Multiple.
Click the button beside the specific multiple skill.
Drag and drop the single skills to the multiple skill.
Click Save.

Resources are associated with a skill (single or multiple) or a qualification (specific or generic). Activities are associated with a skill configuration.

To manage and assign skills for an activity to a resource or team, configure:

Skill Definition
Skill Division (Optional)
Skill Configuration - Minimum and Maximum Cardinality

Note: Skill configuration and skill division have more functions:

In manual scheduling, they are warning messages to help the dispatcher assign tasks.
In automatic scheduling, they help automate assigning tasks to resources.

Set skill definition

To define skills:

Click Main menu > Configuration > Core > Skill management > Skills.
Define the list of skills.
Define how many resources are needed.
Choose a combination of resources.
- E.g. There is 1 resource with all the required skills or 3 resources.

Create new skills

At the bottom left, go to the Operations section.
Click Add Skill.
To activate it, click Visible.
Set the foreman level at the master data level.
Click Insert.

Notes:

If the formation has multiple team leaders, the team leader is selected in the order:
- Flag foreman in the registry of the formation
- For the same flag foreman, the highest foreman level considers all the skills defined in the skill configuration of the formation
Kit field: Field no longer used in the product standard
Automatic Field: field no longer used in the product standard

Set skill division (Optional)

When there is more than 1 activity, skill division helps define how to distribute skills among the resources in the team. For example, a WO might have 3 required skills (like an electrician, mechanic, and welder). Therefore, there might be 1, 2, or 3 technicians needed to perform all three skills.

Click Main Menu > Core Module > Parameters > Skill Management > Skill Division.
At the bottom left, go to the Operations section.
Click Add Skill Division.
In the Description and Code fields, define how many resources are needed.
- Since skills list the number of technicians, they define the cardinality.
- E.g. At least 2 technicians with the mechanic skill need to be on the a _MEC_ELEC-2 team.
Click Save.

Set skill configuration - Minimum and maximum cardinality

Define the full list of the required skills of an activity and the team. To influence how skills are divided among technicians, set the minimum and maximum cardinality for each skill and related skill division. The skill configuration is associated with a single activity to be completed.

To create a new skill configuration:

Click Main Menu > Core Module > Parameters > Skill Management > Skill Configuration.
At the bottom left, go to the Operations section.
Click Add Skill Configuration.
Enter the minimum and the maximum cardinality.
Click Save.

What’s next

See Skill management examples.