Per Job Bonus Calculators

Grouping

Increasing this bonus will encourage Jobs with the same group reference to be allocated contiguously to the same Resource. Jobs with a group reference will attract a better score than Jobs without and be preferred for scheduling.

A group reference could be anything i.e. number, text etc. The Grouping Bonus setting applies a bonus when allocating a Job to a Resource directly after another Job with the same group reference. A group reference could be anything i.e. number, text etc.

For example, by allocating a Job to a particular Resource from group x, and then allocating their next Job to them which is also from group x, a bonus is applied. The idea is to keep the same Jobs and Resources in the same group. Group references could be postcodes, skills etc. For example, a council's parks and recreation department want Mendel to allocate work to mow grass in one particular area. The name of a particular park could be used as the group reference and when that Job is allocated to a Resource, that Resource knows to mow all of the grass in that area until it has been completed.

Mandatory Resource / Pinned Resource / Preferred Resource

The Mandatory Resource / Pinned Resource / Preferred Resource Bonus settings are the values that Mendel subtract from the score of Jobs pinned to Resources in its Rolling Initialisation Calculation.

Only configure these settings if you have a mixture of Jobs with and without Mandatory / Pinned / Preferred Resources. If every Job came in with a Mandatory Resource, there would be no point in changing this setting as it wouldn't make a difference to anything. Reason being, if every Job has a Mandatory Resource, the Job can only be allocated to the person who is the Mandatory Resource. Focus on the other settings first, Mendel may work efficiently without these settings.

Scenario

There are two Jobs scheduled with the same time slot and one available Resource. The Resource is the Mandatory Resource for one of the Jobs but not the other, however, the other Job is located closer to them. Mendel knows to give the Mandatory Job to the Mandatory Resource but it's not the only Job they can do, considering the other Job is closer. When configuring Mendel to make a choice between the two Jobs, configuring the Mandatory Resource Bonus will make the Job for what they are the Mandatory Resource more attractive even though the other Job is closer to them. If Mendel is configured to give the closer Job to the Resource, the Mandatory Resource Job can no longer be done because both Jobs have the same time slot.

Pinned and Preferred Resource Bonus settings work in a similar fashion.

Priority

Bonus applied when allocating a Job with a priority weighting to a Resource. This bonus is multiplied by the defined weighting set for the priority in Optimise Admin. Use this for Jobs with a defined priority to be preferred over other Jobs for scheduling.

Urgency of Appointed Job / Urgency of Non-Appointed Job

Jobs with scheduled appointments are more important than Jobs with a specified due date and required distance to travel. Jobs located in a bad location without an appointment will not win on the importance metric and distance metric. As a result the Job will get left out of the plan produced by Mendel and eventually you will run out of time to complete the Job. Apply the Urgency Bonus or Urgency Appointed Bonus depending on what type of Job you want to make more attractive. Since Jobs with scheduled appointments are considered more important by Mendel, it's best practice to apply the bonus to the Urgency Appointed Bonus setting.

The Urgency Window and Urgency of Appointed Job / Urgency of Non-Appointed Job Mendel settings are connected. The Per Job Bonus values defined will only be used in Mendel calculations when a Job has been marked as urgent, which occurs when the Job enters the urgency window defined. If the Urgency Window is set to 0 the bonus values will never come into effect and similarly if the Urgency Window is defined and there are no bonus values, different types of Jobs won’t take any preference when they enter their Urgent Window.

Only configure the Urgency settings if scenarios exist where due date Jobs are being pushed outside of their due date window and not completed because of the required distance to travel, when Resources have free time or when Resources have less urgent Jobs allocated to them.