Planning Assignments with On-Site Appointments

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Create an On-site appointment

a) Creating am On-site appointment via an order

b) Create an on-site appointment via the project file

c) Create a site appointment via the deployment planning dashboard

2. Editing the on-site appointment

• Edit Date, Time, and Duration of the on-site appointment
• Add participants to the on-site appointment
• Remove participants from the on-site appointment and further settings
• Enter a different deployment location
• Note overnight stay and hotel booking
• Plan orders for the on-site appointment

a) Use of the on-site appointment planner

b) Linking or adding orders to the On-site Appointment

• Enter or retrieve weather data.
• Recording Travel and Work Times

For all activities to be carried out in the field, you create orders in TabTool. In these orders, you can specify what exactly needs to be done, by when it should be completed, and who is responsible for carrying out the order.

But have you ever wondered where exactly you can specify when the order should be carried out — that is, on which day and at what time?

There is no field provided in the order record where you could enter this information.

This is because scheduling in TabTool is done through the creation of so-called "on-site appointments." On-site appointments contain all the information that field service employees need for their workday, neatly summarized:

• Where is my assignment taking place today?
• When does it start and when is it scheduled to end?
• What needs to be done? (On-site appointments can include multiple tasks, more on this below.)

Additionally, field service employees can record the weather on-site and log their working and travel hours through the on-site appointment.

1. Create an On-site appointment

An on-site appointment can be created in TabTool — both in the browser and in the app — via the project or directly in an order. In the browser application TabTool Office, it is also possible to create an on-site appointment by assigning an order to the digital planning board ("Deployment Planning").

a) Creating am On-site appointment via an order

When you create a new order, you will find the "on-site appointment" line in the "Dates" section. Here, you can click to create a new on-site appointment. Using the button, you can link the order to an already existing on-site appointment.

When you create an on-site appointment from an order record, the corresponding order is automatically added to the "Performed services" section in the on-site appointment record (as shown in the example screenshot below, marked after "Repair orders").

b) Create an on-site appointment via the project file

You can also create a new on-site appointment directly at the project level and then assign the orders to be completed to it.

To do this, click on the "on-site appointments" line at the top of the TabTool PV O&M project record. In the right column, click to create a new on-site appointment.

c) Create a site appointment via the deployment planning dashboard

For easy and clear planning of field service tasks, TabTool offers the deployment planning dashboard, which functions like a digital scheduling board.

You can find the deployment planning dashboard in the TabTool menu bar on the left side of the interface in the "Calendar" section. 

Alternatively, you can access the deployment planning via the quick selection icon on the top left of the TabTool user interface.

As a Gantt chart, the deployment planning dashboard consists of a team calendar that shows the availability of individual employees and field service teams, as well as an order stack. This contains all orders of a TabTool package that have not yet been assigned to an on-site appointment.

Orders can be assigned to an employee or a field service team via drag and drop from the order stack. Simply drag the order into the corresponding date field in the team calendar.

When assigning an order in the digital planning board, TabTool automatically creates an on-site appointment for the order in the background.

You can open and edit the site appointment by clicking on the order field in the digital scheduling board. 

If you want to edit the on-site appointment directly in the on-site appointment record — for example, to provide details about a necessary overnight stay and possibly a hotel booking, or to make an entry in the "Important Information" field — click thebutton at the top left of the site appointment planner.

Otherwise, you can close the site appointment planner by clicking the "x" button at the top right after entering all the desired information. This will take you back to the deployment planning dashboard.

2. Editing the on-site appointment

When you create a new on-site appointment by clicking in the project record or within an order, the input form of the on-site appointment record opens in the right column:

The title of the on-site appointment record consists of its start time and a description that you can enter in the "Identifier" field. It is recommended to enter an activity or task description here (e.g. "Monthly Inspection").

This way, when viewing the on-site appointment overview (left column), it is quickly recognisable what tasks will be performed during the on-site appointment.

You can adjust the date as well as the start and end times of the on-site appointment by clicking on the "Start" or "End" date fields. A window will then open with a calendar and two time fields.

Adjust the date of the on-site appointment by selecting the desired day in the calendar.

To change the start and end times of the site appointment, click on the number in the "Hour" or "Minute" field. A dropdown menu will appear, allowing you to select the desired hour or minute.

Then click on the "Done" button to apply your date and time input.

Add participants to the on-site appointment

In the next step, you will add participants to the on-site appointment. This means specifying who will be present at the on-site appointment on the PV plant and perform the listed activities.

To do this, click on the relations symbolin the "Participants" row.

A pop-up window will open, listing all the contacts available in your TabTool package in two tabs:

• Tab "Contacts" = all contacts of the project you are currently working on
• Tab "Global Contacts" = contacts from all projects created in TabTool

Check the boxes next to the names of the individuals you wish to assign to the on-site appointment and then click the "Add" button

The added contacts are now listed as "participants" in the on-site appointment.

The added participants are automatically informed by TabTool via email and in-app notification that a new on-site appointment has been assigned to them. They are also notified of any changes to the appointment and/or the time of the on-site appointment.

Remove participants from the on-site appointment and further settings

In the "Participants" row of the on-site appointment file, you will find the menu-iconto the right of the cross-reference symbol.

By clicking on it, you gain access to additional functions and settings options:

If you want to remove added participants from an on-site appointment, click the checkbox to the left of the participant's name to select them, then open the cross-reference menu. From there, click on the section "Remove selected contacts from the on-site appointment."

If desired, you can create and download a PDF report containing the contact details of the participants in the on-site appointment. To do so, select the "Ony slected" button in the cross-reference menu.

In the window that opens, click on the PDF icon.

The PDF will then open and you can download or print it.

You can make the corresponding settings through the menu item "List Settings -> Contact" in the cross-reference menu. A detailed description of how to proceed can be found in the article.

Change list settings.

Enter a different deployment location

Is the deployment location different from the plant site stored in the project master data? In this case, you can enter a different address in the on-site appointment record.

To do this, click the checkbox on the right in the "Location (if different from site)" row. This will open an input area where you can enter the address and GPS data of the deployment location.

Note overnight stay and hotel booking

If an overnight stay and possibly a hotel booking are required for the on-site appointment, you can note this by checking the corresponding checkbox in the on-site appointment record.

Plan orders for the on-site appointment

The central function of the on-site appoinment is to consolidate and clearly list all the work orders that need to be completed during a site visit at a photovoltaic system. 

ChatGPT said:

a) Use of the on-site appointment planner

The quickest and easiest way to do this is through the "on-site appointment planner." To access it, click the button "Plan orders" in the "Performed services" section of the on-site appointment record.

The on-site appointment planner will then open in a pop-up window. The top third of the window lists the appointment and location details of the deployment (on the left) as well as the participating individuals.

Below this, there are two lists: on the left, the list of planned orders and on the right the list of all unplanned tasks for your project. These are all orders that have not yet been scheduled for an on-site appointment.

You can further narrow down the "unplanned orders" list if needed by checking the "Show only my orders" checkbox.

If you want to view not just the unplanned orders but all orders in your project, uncheck the "Show only unplanned orders" checkbox.

Orders from the list on the right which are to be worked on during the on-site appointment can simply be moved to the "Planned Orders" list using drag and drop.

To do this, click on the selected order and drag it with the left mouse button pressed to the "No data available" area or onto one of the listed planned orders (if you created the on-site appointment from an order record or via the deployment planning dashboard, a planned order will already be listed on the left).

In this way, you can now add any number of orders from the list of unplanned orders to the site visit.

Would you like to remove orders from the list of planned orders? No problem - simply drag and drop the relevant order back to the right into the list of unplanned orders.

Once you have entered all the necessary information for the new order, you can close the pop-up window using the X-button in the top right corner or click on to further edit the order directly in the order record. However, please note that choosing the latter option will exit the on-site appointment planner.

The newly created order is now also displayed in the list of scheduled tasks in the on-site appointment planner.

If you do not wish to add any more orders, you can close the on-site appointment planner by clicking the X symbol in the top right corner. This will take you back to the on-site appointment record (or to the scheduling dashboard if you accessed the on-site appointment planner from there).

By clicking on an order category marked with a number (e.g. Maintenance orders), you will see an overview of the orders in that category that are scheduled for the on-site appointment.

b) Linking or adding orders to the On-site Appointment

In addition to using the on-site appointment planner, you also have the option to directly add work orders to the file by linking existing orders or creating new ones. This is particularly recommended if you only want to add individual orders to the on-site appointment.

To do this, first select the desired order category in the  section of the on-site appointment record and click on it. In the menu that opens in the right column, click the buttonif you want to add an existing order to the on-site appointment, or click the button if you want to create a new order.

While clicking on opens a new order record that you can fill with information about the respective order, selecting the linking symboldisplays a list of all existing orders in the project belonging to the selected category.

By checking the box next to the record title of the order, you can now add one or more orders to the on-site appointment. After making your selection, click the button .

Enter or retrieve weather data.

Since the weather data for an on-site appointment should be as current as possible, it is recommended to update it in the TabTool app upon arrival at the site.

If this is forgotten, TabTool Office offers the option to automatically retrieve weather service data for the registered location—even up to 5 days after the assignment date.

The weather data for the selected time will then be automatically loaded. Only the radiation intensity must be manually selected from a dropdown menu if you wish to provide it.

You can learn how to proceed in the article

Recording Travel and Work Times in TabTool