Dispatching Field Maps Tasks

[MDBowser]

With ArcGIS Workforce retiring, and replaced with Tasks within the Field Maps App - what are we supposed to provide for our dispatchers for Task Assignment?!  Is there an equivalent to Workforce for this?  The documentation on this is super limited at this point.

I understand there is the Field Maps Designer for deploying this, however, this is for the technical GIS staff to deploy.  The solution I require is something for dispatchers to assign and manage work assignments (tasks) for mobile crews.

Did Esri just abandon this component of ArcGIS Workforce and require users to develop it on their own?

Anyone in the know, please help!

Cheers,
Mike

[LizArmstrong]

Thank you for sharing. Would you mind sharing your use cases for why assigning tasks to multiple workers would be helpful? 

[Laura]

One example of how we're currently using tasks is at our city cemetery. We have two full-time field workers who often work together on assignments. When new tasks come up, they're typically not specific to one individual, so we end up leaving them marked as "unassigned"—which, frankly, gets frustrating.

It would be much more efficient if we could assign tasks to both workers simultaneously. That way, instead of having them filter their Field Maps for unassigned tasks, they could just see what's relevant to them directly.

[ChrisDunn1]

Hi @Laura,

While there is no way to, for instance, pick multiple users from a drop-down list as the assignee, it is possible to assign tasks to multiple assignees with some changes to the task layer and the task configuration.

Essentially, you can create a field that contains all of the assignee names, and use a task filter that looks for the current user’s username anywhere in the field. To do it:

- Create a text field called “all_assignees” or similar

- When creating or assigning tasks, populate that field with the names of all mobile workers who need to see the task, i.e. “mobile_worker_1, mobile_worker_2, mobile_worker_4” etc.

Think about how this should work from the dispatching side. Maybe you use templates for the different options, maybe you use calculated values based on a “Crew” field so the dispatcher can pick the crew and the crew usernames are automatically added to the field. Maybe you use arcade to intersect with a site boundary and assign the workers that way. There are a lot of ways to automate creation of this list to keep dispatchers from having to enter names manually, it will really depend on your workflow and data.

- Create your task filter. You could edit the “Assigned to Me” filter, or create a new one. The top filter in the list will be the default filter when opening the map. Use the expression:

all_assignees like ‘%CURRENT_USER%’​

Note that `all_assignees` is the example field name I used above, so use whatever field you created to hold the list of names.

This will result in any person listed in the field seeing the task in their list when they open the app

After that, any additional changes to the tasks configuration will depend on how you want things to work. Would the workers still pick up tasks individually? Or would they always tackle them as a team? You may want to adjust the “pickup” action accordingly to only change the status and not the assignee.

I’m happy to go over things in more detail if this looks like a solution that would work for you.

Chris

[Debert]

For me, having a handful of distribution techs that cover a very large area- and not knowing which tech will be in the area first- would be a reason not a assign the task to a single person. In fact, most task would be left open to the tech that arrives or is closest to the task area.

[LizArmstrong]

Hi, 

We do not currently have a video demo illustrating managing tasks with the Instant Apps Manager template but we intend to do a Tips from the Team video on that. Meanwhile, I can highlight the key functionality in the Instant Apps Manager template that Workforce also had:

• Ability to create, edit (including assign), and delete individual tasks
• Ability to batch create, edit (including assign), and delete tasks
• Ability to see a map and a table view of the tasks
• Ability to sort and filter tasks based on various criteria like due date, assignee, etc. 

If you have other dispatching requirements, I'm happy to take those down and share it with the teams that build Instant Apps and Experience Builder. 

Tasks does not currently support being able to assign a single task to multiple workers. Would you mind sharing your use case for that and I can log it as an enhancement request? I'm not sure if it would fit your scenario but there is a way to have an unassigned task list where workers can pick up work. 

[MDBowser]

Thank you for the information.  

I have been pouring over the documentation trying to understand how this relates to the Workforce functionality that is being deprecated and I am struggling to understand what functionality exists vs not.  In workforce I can assign a task to a mobile worker - this is linked to the data collection map for that specific assignment.  How does this work with Tasks now?  If my mobile worker has 4 different data collection maps in field maps, how does the assigned task steer them to the correct map to begin data collection?  And on this note, how does one expose all these tasks for a dispatcher to pick from?  From what I can see here - this functionality is lost as this is all based on one data collection map?

The challenge we have here is we literally just pitched workforce functionality for our org to get buy in as a solution for work order management for field data collection - and they loved the functionality.  Now we have to retract that, which is pretty frustrating. So I need to flush out what we can and can not do with this new paradigm.   Perhaps you have a functionality matrix between workforce vs tasks you can share?

Thank you for your help.

[Laura]

You enable a tasks layer per map in field maps designer. 

[ChrisDunn1]

Hi @MDBowser,

One of the key things to remember is that Tasks rely on a single feature layer as a way to be more flexible within our system. When you enable tasks on a layer, or create a new tasks layer from scratch, the appropriate fields are added to the layer, such as task type, assignee, due date, priority, etc. The layer can be added to any map, app, dashboard, or experience. That layer can be designated as the Tasks layer within a map using Field Maps Designer. This is a change from Workforce, where the assignments in a workforce project were managed in multiple layers that were joined "behind the scenes" by the application itself.

If the mobile worker opens a map where the Tasks layer has been enabled in Designer, then they’ll see the features in the to-do list experience. That layer is still just a feature layer, so dispatchers can create new tasks in the layer using any method you would normally use to add features: map viewer, web editor, an instant app, ArcGIS Pro, python, power automate, or even Field Maps itself.

The number of task maps and layers is really up to your needs and preferences. You could have one tasks layer with many different types of tasks and have them all available in a single map, or use filters on the layer to have specific maps for specific types of tasks. You could have a separate tasks layer and map for each task type, or site, or any other way you want to organize your task features. Filters, layer views, custom popups, everything you can do with a layer will work with a tasks layer.

If you’d like to go over this in more detail, feel free to reach out via arcgisfieldmaps@esri.com and we can set up a call to talk about how you can adopt Tasks for the project you had originally pitched Workforce for.

Chris

[Laura]

I've configured our tasks to support work order management rather than focusing on training and deploying the workforce. Field crews are now using Field Maps, and supervisors are assigning tasks through Experience Builder. I designed an editor interface that matches the format they're familiar with, allowing them to easily create tasks directly within the app.

The GIS team should collaborate with the supervisors to define the types of tasks that can be assigned, ensuring everything is set up properly in advance because you will choose a task type rather than type out what the task is every time.

[waddellt]

I've done the same but our dispatchers are used to assigning multiple assignments (Workforce) at once.  If we know a tree trimming crew is in one area we need to be able to select multiple which seems to be not possible.