Task optimization suggests employees and work times for selected tasks. You can review the suggestions and apply only the changes you want. Fetching suggestions alone does not change the tasks.
Before you start
Optimization is performed in the browser's Work management view. The feature must be enabled in your environment, and you need permission to view and edit tasks. Completed tasks are excluded. A task must have a due date for a suggested time to be scheduled.
The employees available for selection are the user accounts permitted by your access rights that have an active mobile user or an active supervisor user. Set a work week for each employee: without one, they have no available working time. Also check existing resourcing and absence entries before optimizing.
Select tasks and get suggestions
- Open Work management and select Optimize Work at the top of the page. Alternatively, select the task checkboxes in the Gantt view and click Optimise.
- In the window that opens, narrow down the tasks if needed using Filter Tasks, and select the rows you want under Select Tasks. Select all Late also selects overdue tasks on other pages, up to a maximum of 5,000. If you started from the Gantt view, you can remove the original filter using the selected tasks filter button.
- Select at least one employee under Eligible User Accounts. Check the date range and other settings, then select Get Suggestions.
- In Distribution Results, review the suggested employee and time, the required and available time, and the reason. If no suggestion is found, check the reason shown, the task's due date, the selected users, work weeks, reservations, and limits. Change the selections or details if needed and get suggestions again.
For information on using filters in Work management, see How do I find work to plan in Work management?
How are suggestions formed?
Start Date and End Date define the period in which suitable time is sought. By default, the period starts today and ends seven days from now. For a task associated with a contract, the suggestion is also limited by its due date. For other tasks, the suggested date may differ from the current due date.
The required working time is based primarily on the task's planned duration, if it is greater than zero. Otherwise, the Use Worker Resourcing First setting determines whether the sum of the task's current resourcing times or the Default Hours value is used first. If the preferred option is missing, the other is used. If neither is available, one hour is used. A positive duration estimate has a minimum of 0.1 hours, or six minutes. Default Hours is initially set to two hours, and Use Worker Resourcing First is enabled.
An employee's daily capacity is based on the hours for that day of the week in their work week. Other task resourcing and holiday, sick leave, and general time entries for that day are deducted from it. Earlier suggestions in the same search reduce the time available for later tasks. Existing resourcing for tasks selected for optimization is handled separately: when searching for actual free time slots, saved reservations for other selected tasks remain occupied because only some suggestions may be accepted. The task's own existing reservations can be replaced.
For example, if a work week day has 8 hours, other resourcing takes 2 hours, and holiday takes 1 hour, 5 hours of calculated capacity remain before new suggestions from the same search. The time must also fit into actual free slots. The reservation is placed within working time starting from the default start time of the working day, across multiple free slots or days if necessary. Displayed hours are rounded to tenths of an hour; resourcing times are created to the nearest minute.
Max Daily Tasks is initially set to two per employee. Clear the field if you do not want to use a limit. The calculation counts distinct tasks associated with resourcing that starts on that day, as well as new suggestions from the same search. Balance Workload is enabled by default: it affects the order of candidates based on the hours suggested in the same search, but does not guarantee a perfectly even distribution. Suggestions are based on availability and the specified limits, not on an assessment of skills.
Interpret the duration source in the Reason column with care: if worker resourcing is selected as the preferred option, the text may still name default hours. If needed, check the task's planned duration and current resourcing, as well as the selected setting.
Review and apply changes
View Resourcing Comparison shows the current and suggested hours per user for the tasks included in the proposal, as well as the tasks each user would lose, gain, or retain. The comparison covers the proposal as a whole; if you accept only some rows, the actual change may differ.
Select Apply Optimization. In the table that opens, check the old and suggested responsible persons, due dates, any Repeatability Adjustment, and the View link in the Resourcing column. Tasks for which no suggestion was found are not included among the rows available for acceptance. Select the rows you want and click Apply Selected Changes.
Accepting a suggestion replaces the task's current responsible parties with the single suggested user and removes the task's role following. The existing task-specific resourcing for a user who remains assigned is also replaced with the suggested times. A regular task's due date is changed to the suggested date; a task associated with a contract retains its due date even if the resourcing changes. Before accepting, separately check any default resourcing and repeatability adjustment indicated in the table.
Tasks are updated individually, so some may succeed and others may fail. Open Show Results and check the successful, skipped, and failed tasks. Correct the cause of any failure and get new suggestions if needed. Finally, check the assignments and times on the tasks and the resourcing in the Gantt view.