(Re)Create Dispatcher/Worker maps for Specific Workforce Assignments?

[AndrewHargreaves2]

Hello Workforce for ArcGIS‌ team,

Is there a way I can create multiple Workforce Projects that reference the same Assignments and Dispatches layers? I know I can do this manually, through swapping out the feature services in the various maps after creation but just wondering if there is a more optimal way of doing this?  Ideally, I'd want a single Workforce Project with multiple assignments, each referencing a different map extent and group of users who can be assigned. This is related to this posting asking about users per assignment.

[CraigGillgrass]

Andrew,

No, this is not supported. I'd also add that your way of doing this manually is not technically supported and will probably run into issues.

What you're asking for in this post is not something that we have any plans to support.

Craig

[AndrewHargreaves2]

Craig Gillgrass‌ Thanks for the answer. Is there any other way to accomplish the below:

• Have multiple Workforce projects, each with their own Dispatcher and Worker maps (eg: Workforce Project A contains Worker map A and Dispatcher Map A)
• Each of these sets of maps contains other, additional different layers to assign tasks to (eg: Different Water Distribution systems in different parts of the county, so Project A contains Water Distribution System A and its extent is set on the east coast. Workforce Project B contains Worker Map B and Dispatcher Map B as well as Water system B and its extent is over the West coast)
• Have the same Assignments, dispatcher and Worker layers across all those Workforce projects/in all these maps

Here's why I need it - I want to be able view the Assignments layer etc in a single dashboard. However, if they are all separate Assignment layers I can't do that. It seems a little silly to me that Workforce enforces a standardized schema yet I can't take advantage of that by sharing it into other Workforce projects. It also goes against the idea of AGO being a collaboration platform...

[CraigGillgrass]

Andrew,

The workflow you're asking for; to be able to use the same Workforce assignments feature service across multiple Workforce projects, is not supported.

From your other posts, I'm guessing you cannot use a single Workforce project as:

- There is different types of work being done in different geographical areas

- Workers should not be assigned work outside of their area and the Dispatchers cannot be relied on to make this decision

Are there are other challenges you're facing on this?

We have other customers who have Workforce projects with these same challenges and are successfully using the product. Happy to outline what those are and the concessions they have made for it to be successful.

I agree that, Workforce does not currently handle these well, but we do have items in our backlog to tackle this, as I mentioned in another post.

Craig

[AndrewHargreaves2]

Hi Craig Gillgrass‌

I've created an idea here requesting this capability. I actually want the same type of work across all regions. The desire to split this out into different Workforce for ArcGIS‌ projects is for map performance. If i bundle everything into a single project I need to bring all "asset" layers into the dispatcher and worker maps. Not only is that going to dramatically impact performance of those maps, but is unnecessary for workers in the west to pull in assets from the east. True, I can set scale dependencies etc in my map to mitigate this, but I'd still prefer to have these as independent workforce projects. 

I'd be keen to hear how other customers are handling this.

Thanks

[CraigGillgrass]

Andrew,

Ok, sounds like what you're trying to use Workforce for is different than what I read it as from your previous posts.  My understanding is the following, please let me know if I have this correct or are missing anything:

• You have a large service area, on the national scale
• The same type of work is done across service area
• The service area is broken out in to regions, which are used to manage workers and their work assignments.  I'm assuming Dispatchers/Supervisors are also associated with those regions
• However, there are stackholders who need to view the work at a national scale, i.e. they need to view work across the regions.

This use case is not one we target for Workforce, but sites who have tackled this (and there have not been many) create a project for each region and then pull the assignments into a single service for reporting/use in dashboard, etc.

There are ways this *could* be handled but they would require edits to the Workforce projects that are not documented/nor supported.  I'm happy to suggest those to you if you'd like to try them.  While this isn't a use case we've targeted, it's an interesting one that we could look at in a future release of Workforce.

Craig

[AndrewHargreaves2]

Hi Craig Gillgrass‌

   Your description of the workflow is pretty much spot-on and exactly what I hoped to implement. How do those others pull assignments into a single layer? GeoEvent? Python? something else?

Thanks 

[CraigGillgrass]

Yes, they use Geoevent and/or Python, you can also use other webhook based implementations.

It really depends how real time you need the assignments aggregated.  You can set up an observer script using the ArcGIS Python API - there is a Workforce module for it that lots of examples on how to use it.

If you want near real-time, well, that's where Geoevent or another solution along those lines would come in.