OO Calendars: controlling when Assignment Groups run

OO Calendars let you decide exactly when work is handed out. You build a calendar of opening hours, holidays and closures, and Q-assign checks it before each assignment run. When the calendar says the time is Free, the Assignment Group assigns records. When it isn't, records wait in the queue until the calendar opens again.

OO Calendars are a shared Ortoo feature rather than something tied to Q-assign alone. The same calendars are designed to be used across the Ortoo app suite, such as Ortoo Orchestrator and other Ortoo apps, so one set of opening hours and holidays can drive several products. This article focuses on using OO Calendars with Q-assign Assignment Groups.

What you can do with OO Calendars

• Set the hours an Assignment Group works, for example Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:30.
• Close a group for a public holiday, office closure or training day without changing the group itself.
• Run an out-of-hours group only when your main team is closed.
• Enter times in the time zone of the team the calendar describes. Daylight saving changes are handled for you.
• Repeat entries daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, with or without an end date.

Who can use OO Calendars

Access follows your Q-assign permission sets:

• Q-assign administrators can create, edit and delete calendars and entries, and can link calendars to Assignment Groups.
• Q-assign managers can open and view calendars and their entries, but cannot change them.
• Other Q-assign users do not have access to calendars.

If you cannot see the Calendars page or its New Calendar and New Entry buttons, ask your Salesforce administrator to check your Q-assign permission set.

Opening the Calendars page

Open the OO Calendars tab from the Q-assign app (you can also use the Open OO Calendars link on an Assignment Group edit page). The page has three areas:

• Mini calendar (top left) to jump to any date.
• Calendar list (bottom left) to search for calendars and tick the ones you want to see. The arrow next to each calendar gives you Edit and Delete.
• Main view (right) showing the selected calendars by Week, Month or as a List. Use the arrows and Today to move around.

Example: the Calendars page in Week view

Creating a calendar

1. On the Calendars page, click New Calendar (bottom left).
2. Enter a Calendar Name that describes what the calendar represents, for example UK Support Desk Hours.
3. Optionally add a Description so others know when to use it.
4. Leave Active ticked.
5. Click OK.

Example: creating a calendar

Adding an entry

An entry is a block of time on a calendar, such as one working day or one holiday.

1. Tick the calendar in the calendar list, then click New Entry (top right).
2. Enter a Subject, for example Support desk open. This is the label shown on the calendar.
3. Set the Start Date, Start time, End Date and End time. Tick All Day if the entry covers whole days.
4. Check the Time zone. It defaults to your own time zone. Change it to the zone of the team this calendar describes if that is different.
5. Choose how the time should be read in Show Time As (see below).
6. Click OK.

Example: a working-hours entry, choosing Show Time As

Show Time As: what Q-assign reads

• Free – the time Q-assign picks up. An Assignment Group linked to the calendar assigns records during Free time.
• Out of Office – closes the time. Out of Office always takes priority over Free, so the group does not assign records during it, even if a Free entry covers the same time.

Tip: to control Q-assign, use Free for the hours you want the group to work and Out of Office for the exceptions.

Repeating entries

Most opening hours repeat, so you rarely need to add entries one by one.

1. In the New Entry dialog, fill in the details as above, then turn on Repeat. The dialog becomes New Recurrence.
2. Choose how often it Repeats:
   • Daily – every N days.
   • Weekly – every N weeks, on the days you pick, for example Monday to Friday.
   • Monthly – on a day of the month (for example the 1st), or on a chosen weekday (for example the last Tuesday).
   • Yearly – once a year, for example 25 December.
3. Set the Start Date. A recurrence cannot start in the past. The start time you entered is the time every occurrence starts.
4. Choose an End Condition: Never ends, Ends on a date, or Ends after a number of times.
5. Check the summary at the bottom of the dialog, which describes the pattern in plain words, then click OK.

Example: every Monday to Friday from 09:00 until 17:30, Europe/London

Skipping a day: holidays and closures

You don't need to edit or break a recurring series to close for a day. Add a separate entry marked Out of Office for that day instead. Because Out of Office takes priority over Free, Q-assign skips that time and uses the normal pattern again afterwards.

1. Click New Entry.
2. Enter a subject such as Christmas Day – support desk closed.
3. Tick All Day and set the date. Use a date range for a longer closure.
4. Set Show Time As to Out of Office and click OK.

Example: closing the support desk on Christmas Day

For holidays that fall on the same date every year, you can turn on Repeat and choose Yearly so you only set them up once.

Linking a calendar to a Q-assign Assignment Group

1. Open the Assignment Group and click Edit.
2. Set AG Enabled Hours Mechanism to OO Calendar. The other options are None (no time restriction) and Salesforce Business Hours.
3. In AG Enabled Hours Reference, choose your calendar. If you have just created a calendar and it isn't in the list, click the refresh icon next to the list.
4. Leave Active only outside enabled hours unticked for a normal working-hours group (see the next section for when to tick it).
5. Make sure the group is Enabled, then click Save.

Example: an Assignment Group using an OO Calendar for its enabled hours

The text under the calendar confirms how it will be used, for example This Assignment Group runs when this OO Calendar has an entry marked Free. The Open OO Calendars link takes you straight to the Calendars page.

Once saved, the Active indicator on the Assignment Group shows whether the group is working right now. It is green when the group is active and red when it is inactive.

Example: the group is active because its calendar is currently Free

Out-of-hours groups: Active only outside enabled hours

Tick Active only outside enabled hours to reverse the calendar. The group then assigns records only when the calendar is not Free. This is useful for an out-of-hours or on-call team. Link it to the same calendar as your main team, and one group takes over when the other closes.

How Q-assign uses the calendar

• Q-assign checks the calendar at every scheduler run, so changes take effect on the next run. You don't need to edit the Assignment Group.
• When the group is outside its enabled hours, matching records are not lost. They stay where they are, for example in the queue, and are assigned on the first scheduler run after the calendar is Free again.
• Each entry keeps its own time zone, so a calendar for a London team behaves the same for users anywhere in the world.
• If a linked calendar is made inactive or deleted, the Assignment Group will not run until you choose another calendar or change the mechanism. Q-assign won't assign records outside the hours you intended.

Example

The UK Support Desk Hours calendar has a weekly Free recurrence, Monday to Friday 09:00–17:30, plus an all-day Out of Office entry on 25 December.

• Tuesday at 10:00: Free, so the group assigns new cases.
• Tuesday at 19:00: no Free time, so new cases wait in the queue and are assigned at 09:00 on Wednesday.
• 25 December at 10:00: the Free recurrence covers this time, but the Out of Office entry takes priority, so the group does not assign.
• An out-of-hours group linked to the same calendar with Active only outside enabled hours ticked handles Tuesday 19:00 and 25 December instead.

Editing, deactivating and deleting

• Edit an entry: click it on the calendar, change the details and click Save. You can also delete it from the same dialog.
• Edit a calendar: use the arrow next to the calendar in the calendar list and choose Edit.
• Deactivate a calendar: untick Active. An inactive calendar can no longer be chosen for new Assignment Groups, and any Assignment Group already using it will not run.
• Delete a calendar: use the arrow next to the calendar and choose Delete. This also removes its entries and recurrences. Check that no Assignment Group relies on it first.

Tips

• Give each team or region its own calendar, for example UK Support Desk Hours and US Support Desk Hours.
• Add public holidays for the year ahead as Out of Office entries, so no one has to remember to switch groups off.
• After changing a calendar, check the Assignment Group's Active indicator to confirm it reflects the current time.

Please contact us at support@ortooapps.com for any questions.