idea Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements in ArcGIS Workforce Ideas

Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

DakotaDorn1 — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 19:12:05 GMT

I think it would be really useful to be able to create work orders in the field if you are in a dispatcher role, as well as complete workorders in the office. Sometimes when I am in the field I find something that needs to be a work order, but am then forced to write it down and create it back at the office. The paper trail continues...

I think it would also be useful to have a print button for the work order for in office use. Not everyone in our field crews has a city phone so print outs are how they get their work from their supervisor. The print out would need to contain both the details of the work and the map, which isn't possible right now.

Searching for features in the search bar would also be very helpful as opposed to searching for a certain address.

Notifications of incoming assignments or completions of assignments. I know this is possible when the app is running in the background, but it also drains battery. A better way to receive those or maybe an email would be nice.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

DakotaDorn1 — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 15:04:02 GMT

The ability to archive completed workorders or delete them would also be useful as the map gets cluttered with those unless you filter.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

BrianFausel — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 22:45:19 GMT

"I think it would be really useful to be able to create work orders in the field if you are in a dispatcher role, as well as complete workorders in the office."

Critical improvements for our organization as well.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

CraigGillgrass — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 16:41:39 GMT

Hi Dakota,

While Workforce does not provide the ability to delete or archive assignments, we do provide a set of Python scripts that demonstrates how to automate this:

GitHub - Esri/workforce-scripts: A set of scripts to help administer Workforce projects.

We are looking at how to best incorporate this capability into Workforce or ArcGIS, but that is not part of the short term roadmap.

Craig

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

UlfBecker — Fri, 26 May 2017 12:28:18 GMT

The original post sited notifications via email. I agree that this would be hugely valuable especially for companies or municipalities working with third part contract companies. I would also advocate for an option for a text alert in additional to an email.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

PatrickFilyer — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 20:11:42 GMT

Yep, our dispatcher spends 90% of his time in the field looking for work.

You can edit the assignments layer in collector but as of the latest collector update the editing of this feature causes collector for iOS to crash.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

CraigGillgrass — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 02:49:02 GMT

Patrick and others who've requested the ability to create assignments.

Would it useful to provide certain Workers with the ability to self-assign or pick-up already created, but unassigned work assignments? Are you able to describe how useful this would be to people in the field?

With respect to creating new assignments in the field; are you concerned with duplicate Assignments being created, e.g. A worker sees an issue and creates a new assignment, not knowing it's already been reported and someone else was assigned to complete it.

Thanks,

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

PatrickFilyer — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 13:42:08 GMT

Hey Craig,

It would be great if certain users could self assign work or pick up unassigned work. We use workforce for road maintenance so if one of our workers happens to already be in an area with an unassigned job it might be more efficient for them to pick it up.

As for creating new assignments in the field, it's likely that our road supervisor will identify a job in the field and assign it right away. I guess what I am trying to say is that it would be great if the dispatcher had a mobile app that is similar to the web app.

Thanks for the response.

Pat

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

XanderBakker — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 13:59:16 GMT

There is a possible work around by using the assignments hosted feature layer in a Collector project and add assignments in the field:

I have blogged about how to accomplish this in Spanish, but using Google Translate you get something that is almost "readable":

https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.esri.com%2Fdocs%…

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

PatrickFilyer — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 14:06:47 GMT

Hey Xander,

Thanks for the reply. We actually already do this. However, as of lately, whenever we try to update the workerid field in collector the app crashes (only on iOS). If this can be fixed it would be perfect.

Additionally, it would be great if the workerid field would handle the name of the worker instead of the worker id code. A drop down menu would be best.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

CraigGillgrass — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 14:48:48 GMT

Patrick, thanks for the reply and feedback.

It would be great if certain users could self assign work or pick up unassigned work. We use workforce for road maintenance so if one of our workers happens to already be in an area with an unassigned job it might be more efficient for them to pick it up.

This is the exact workflow we plan to target with the Self-Assign or Pick-up work functionality that we're planning. It will allow workers to see unassigned work so they can self-assign it.

As for creating new assignments in the field, it's likely that our road supervisor will identify a job in the field and assign it right away. I guess what I am trying to say is that it would be great if the dispatcher had a mobile app that is similar to the web app

This is great feedback thank you, unfortunately, we don't have any plans for a Dispatcher mobile app. We are working on improving the Workforce web app for use on mobile devices, both phone and tablet. Our solution for this workflow going forward would be to use the Dispatcher web app.

Are there any concerns with the Road Supervisor creating duplicate assignments while in the field?

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

PatrickFilyer — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 15:18:49 GMT

Craig, I am not concerned that the roads supervisor will create duplicate assignments while in the field. We have one roads supervisor per region so they should be familiar with the assignments they create.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

AndrewBartell — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 12:23:16 GMT

What's the timeline for rolling out this new feature of allowing the field crews to self-assign? It sounds like this is a fairly common work flow where crews are out in the field and see work that they would like to stop and complete. Writing down on paper and taking it back to the office to enter a work order at the end of the day kind of negates the idea of using this as a fully-integrated web product.

Re: Workforce for ArcGIS Improvements

CraigGillgrass — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 14:10:15 GMT

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for your feedback and questions. The ability for Workers to self-assign, and for the corresponding work in the Project configuration to support this, will follow our next major release for Workforce which is focused on Offline support. That is tentatively scheduled for Q4 of this year.

The ability to create new assignments in the mobile app is a separate issue in our backlog. This ability is is in our longer term Roadmap and I don't have it assigned to a release at this time. In the interim, several users have used the workflow of Collector or Survey123 to create assignments. We've also authored several blogs on how to do this:

I agree that, using paper to track this work negates some of the benefits of using a mobile app; our goal is for Workforce to be better than paper and for your mobile workers to not use paper for any of their field work.

Thanks again for the feedback, look forward to any thoughts or comments you have.

Craig