View and Manage Crew Shells in the Daily Plan

The Daily Plan is where you manage your day-to-day operations with Crew Shells. This feature gives you a visual way to see your crews, their members, and their assigned tasks. You can use it to schedule work, quickly identify issues with your teams, and dispatch jobs to technicians.

• To learn more about setting up and defining Crew Shells, refer to Crew Shells (ENG).

• For details on managing individual technician calendars, see Technician Calendar Management (ENG).

How Crew Shells Appear in the Daily Plan

How Crew Shells Appear in the Daily Plan

The Daily Plan provides a clear, visual overview of your crews.

• Dedicated Rows: Each active crew shell gets its own row.

• Icons and Codes: An icon and a unique code identify each crew shell.

• Color-Coded Bars: A crew shell's daily bar shows its work hours:

  • Green: Working hours

  • Yellow: Lunch breaks

• Map View: On the map, each crew shell is represented by the color you assigned to it. The system shows the last known position of the team leader.

Understanding Crew Shell Composition Status

The Daily Plan uses specific icons next to the Crew Shell to indicate the status of its composition, informing the planner if changes have occurred since the last confirmation.

Icon	Status	Meaning
	Confirmed, no changes	The Crew Shell composition is confirmed and remains unchanged. Scheduled activities are associated with all confirmed members.
	Changed after last confirmation	The Crew Shell composition was modified. Scheduled activities are currently associated with the previously confirmed composition, which differs from the current draft. You may need to review the technical association before reconfirming.

Viewing Crew Shell Members

You can see which technicians are in a crew directly from the Daily Plan.

• View Members: Click a crew shell's row to see a pop-up card that lists its members. The team leader's name appears in bold. If the crew has no members, the card says "No Technicians assigned."

• Expand and Collapse: Click the arrow icon on the crew shell's bar to expand it. This shows a separate bar for each individual technician in the crew for that day. A black outline indicates the team leader. Thinner bars representing each technician associated with the crew for that day will appear below the main Crew Shell bar. If no technicians are assigned for a specific day, no additional bars will appear.

Managing Crew Shells in the Daily Plan

The Daily Plan provides a context menu for quick access to Crew Shell management options.

To access Crew Shell operations, right-click on the Crew Shell row in the first column of the Daily Plan. The context menu will display the following options:

• View/Edit Crew Shell: View and modify Crew Shell properties (excluding Id and Operation Center), addresses (Departure/Arrival), skills, and daily team composition. For more details, see View and Filter Crew Shells.

• View/Edit Calendar: Access and modify the work shifts for the selected Crew Shell. The calendar opens to the date displayed on the Daily Plan, with a two-week interval. For more details, refer to Manage Crew Shell Calendar.

• Crew Members: View and change the current Crew Shell members for the day of interest. For more details, refer to Manage Crew Shell Members.

Setting Up Crew Shell Warnings

You can set up warnings to help you identify potential issues with your crews in the Configure Monitor > Warning tab.

• Empty Crew Shell: Warns you if a crew has no members.

• Minimum Cardinality: Warns you if a crew has fewer members than required.

• Crew Members Skills: Warns you if crew members do not have all the required skills.

• Lunch Breaks & Calendar Hours: Warns you if a member's schedule does not match the crew's schedule.

When a warning is active, a red "danger" icon appears next to the crew. Click the icon for more details.

Warnings on Crew Shell Activities

NextGen FSM Platform can alert dispatcher if an activity assigned to a Crew Shell lacks the required skills. To activate activity-related warnings, click Not Congruent Skills in the Planning section.

When activity warnings are active, an alert icon appears in the interventions tab if an activity is assigned to a crew without the necessary skills. Hover over the icon for a tooltip describing the warning.

You can save and recall different warning configurations for Crew Shells using the Template functionality on the Daily Plan. This allows you to quickly apply specific warning settings for various planning scenarios or set a default.

Configuring Crew Shell Card Visualization

You can customize how Crew Shell information displays on the Daily Plan. To configure visualization options, navigate to Configure Monitor > Visualization and turn on the following options:

• Expand Crew Shell Cards: Forces the detailed card (showing technicians) to be open for all displayed Crew Shells, allowing for quick verification of assigned technicians.

• Expand Crew Shell Bars: Forces the individual technician bars to be open for all displayed Crew Shells, enabling quick verification of assigned technicians by observing the bars.

Understanding the Crew Shell Tooltip

Hovering your mouse over a Crew Shell code displays a tooltip summarizing key properties.

The tooltip includes:

• Code: The Crew Shell's unique code.

• Description: A descriptive name for the Crew Shell.

• Crew size: The minimum number of components defined for the Crew Shell.

• Movement Type: The movement type used by the Crew Shell.

• Crew members: The composition of the Crew Shell for the selected day (if not empty). The team leader is shown in bold with a "(F)" suffix (Foreman). Roles are listed in parentheses (e.g., "John Anderson (Roles: Role Contractor)").

• Crew Skills: The list of skills required by the Crew Shell definition.

Filtering Crew Shells in the Daily Plan

The Daily Plan's filter panel now includes a dedicated Crew Shell section to help you retrieve specific Crew Shells.

• Code: Select one or more Crew Shell codes from a dedicated list.

• Description: Filter by the Crew Shell's description.

• Minimum size: Filter by the minimum number of components set in the Crew Shell definition.

• Skills: Filter by the minimum set of competencies the crew must possess (multiple values can be selected).

• Only Crew Shells: Display only Crew Shells, excluding other resources (single resources, fixed teams, free teams).

• Only empty Crews: Display only Crew Shells that currently have no assigned members, useful for staffing unassigned crews.

Scheduling Activities to Crew Shells

You can schedule activities to Crew Shells similar to how you schedule to individual resources.

• Scheduling Methods:

  • Select one or more schedulable activities from the clipboard, the schedulable activities, or other sections, and allocate them to the chosen Crew Shell.

  • Use the context menu on the calendar bar or drag and drop activities directly onto the desired Crew Shell.

• Empty Crew Shells: You can schedule Crew Shells without technicians for activities.

• Restrictions: You can’t assign an activity to more than one Crew Shell, or to combinations of Crew Shells and fixed teams or single resources. FSM provides a warning and block the action if attempted.

Available Actions for Scheduled Tasks: After scheduling a task to a Crew Shell, right-click on the scheduled task to see a context menu with actions such as:

• WO Detail

• Activity Details

• Force Detection of Critical Activities

• Cancellation/Cut Activity

• Roles

• Associate tools/vehicle

• Add portion

• Set proximity address

• Modify Expected End Date

• Set Appointment Time Slot

• Associate Resource and Teams

Additionally, the Paste menu allows for scheduling previously selected tasks with options like:

• Paste

• Paste with preview

Unscheduling Activities from Crew Shells

You can remove activities from Crew Shells similar to unscheduling from individual resources.

Methods for unscheduling:

• Select one or more scheduled activities from the Crew Shell planning bar and use the Cancellation/Cut Activity function.

• Use the Cancellation Crew Shell Day feature to remove all tasks assigned to the Crew Shell for a specific shift.

• Empty Crew Shells can have activities unscheduled.

Dispatching Activities to Crew Shell Members

The Validate daily plan and Validate day functions were extended to correctly manage activities assigned to Crew Shells.

Dispatching process:

• Only with Validate day are activities initially planned for the Crew Shell distributed to its members and then received on their mobile devices in the field.

• Blocking Checks: FSM performs specific checks before dispatching:

  • The Crew Shell must have at least one associated member (you can’t dispatch empty Crew Shells).

  • The Crew Shell must have a team leader.

• If these checks fail, dispatching is inhibited, and the dispatcher is informed.

• After successful validation, the system confirms that dispatching occurred.

Receiving Crew Shell Activities on Mobile Devices

After validation and synchronization, technicians in the field receive planned and validated activities on their mobile devices.

Key points for mobile users:

• Consistent Workflow: Operations for managing work orders remain the same for technicians who are foremen or assistants within Crew Shells.

• Multiple Crew Shells: If a technician belongs to multiple Crew Shells during the day, activities from all assigned Crew Shells will be displayed on their mobile device.

Viewing Accounted Activities in the Daily/Multi-Day Plan

After a foreman completes and closes an intervention in the field, the accounted activity becomes visible on the server and within the Daily Plan.

Visibility of accounted activities:

• As soon as the intervention report is synchronized, it appears among the activities managed by the Crew Shell on the Daily Plan.

• You can consult the details of the intervention using the usual functions on the Daily Plan.

• The accounted activities bar for a Crew Shell displays activities accounted for by the Crew Shell.

• In the Accounting Monitor, the Crew Shell Code is reported in the "Scheduling" column after the foreman's name, and also in the accounting details of the WO Operation.

Using Crew Shells in the Virtual Daily Plan

All functionalities described for the Daily Plan are also available in the Virtual Daily Plan.

Filtering Crew Shells in the Virtual Daily Plan

• The filter panel includes a Crew Shell section with the same criteria as the standard Daily Plan.

• The Model Resources filter also applies to Crew Shells, allowing you to show Crew Shells included or not included in the model.

Crystallization - Confirmation

Activities assigned to Crew Shells must be confirmed and transferred to the Daily Plan, similar to other resources and teams.

Conditions for crystallization:

• Invocation: Can be invoked for all resources with scheduling within the day (including Crew Shells), or for a single Crew Shell via its context menu.

• Application: The action only applies to:

  • Crew Shells with no existing assignments in the Real Plan for the crystallization day.

  • Resources not included in a Crew Shell.

• Exclusions:

  • If a resource has activities in the Virtual Daily Plan and is also a member of a Crew Shell, confirmation is not applied, and activities are not transferred to the Daily Plan.

  • If a resource has activities in the Virtual Daily Plan as part of a team with a Crew Shell member, confirmation is not applied, and activities are not transferred to the Daily Plan.

• Visual Indicator: The calendar bar of a Crew Shell with activities in the Daily Plan will appear in red in the Virtual Daily Plan.

Virtual Scheduling

Crew Shells are included in virtual scheduling based on model parameterization and configuration.

Integration phases:

• Phase 1 - Processing Teams Creation Model: Crew Shells are managed according to configurations.

• Phase 2 - Processing Separated Teams Phase: Crew Shells are not considered.

• Phase 3 - Processing Final Assignment Model: Crew Shells are not integrated (model configuration does not include "Integration Type," and Crew Shells cannot be divided).

• Phase 4 - Post-VRP Optimization: Crew Shells are optimized according to configurations.

Rielaboration - Real Time Scheduling

• Crew Shells are not included in Real Time Scheduling.

• Resources that are members of a Crew Shell are excluded from rielaboration. The exclusion reason reported in the "Excluded Resources Detail" is "The resource works in a crew shell."