Discover Service Territories, Members, and Skills
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the relationship between a service territory, its members, and operating hours.
- Relate skills with service resources.
In this unit, we cover service territory, its members and operating hours, service resources, and their skills. Before we get started, let's have a quick look at some of the terms and object names you need to know.
|
Object Name |
Description |
|
Service Territory |
A branch and office location used for appointments and its associated office hours. |
|
Service Territory Member |
Associates an employee attendee or asset with an appointment location (service territory). |
|
Operating Hours |
Specifies a time zone and associated time slots for a branch or office location. |
|
Time Slot |
A time period on a specified day of the week when an appointment is available at a branch or office location. |
|
Service Resource Skill |
The skill, expertise, or certification of a service resource, or features within an asset. It also defines skill levels. |
Branches and Bankers
Cumulus Cloud Bank has many branches that are spread across several major cities, but not all of them are used for customer meetings. The branch offices that are used for customer appointments are service territories or appointment locations in Salesforce Scheduler.
The HQ branch, for example, has several service resources, including Ryan, who meets customers for appointments. In the data model, such service resources are service territory members because they’re associated with a particular service territory. The rooms or assets at a location can also be service territory members.
It wouldn’t be a good idea for Ryan to schedule appointments with customers late at night, or when the HQ office is closed. Thus operating hours and time slots set for a service territory define the ideal hours for appointments at the given service territory or branch location. Users can even define which timezone the operating hour is set in.
Operating hours and time slots can also be optionally set up for other data entities, such as:
- Service territory members (Ryan works only 10 AM to 1 PM on Mondays and Tuesdays at the HQ branch)
- Accounts (John, a customer, takes only morning appointments)
If operating hours are not set at these points, the system assumes that all 24 hours are available.
To sum it up, we have a bank branch or service territory (the HQ branch). The service resources that are part of this branch are its service territory members. Operating hours are the typical hours for appointments at the branch.
Service Resource Skill
Ryan is well-versed with investment banking options at Cumulus Cloud Bank. It goes without saying that a service resource needs to have the expertise and skill to discuss banking opportunities with a customer. If a customer wants to learn more about the retirement planning options that Cumulus Bank offers, for instance, they’ll likely get to meet Sai Manlolu who’s an expert on retirement planning.
In the Salesforce Scheduler data model, this is the service resource skill. Any distinguishing feature of a room or asset is also considered a service resource skill. For example, some conference rooms have projectors to facilitate meetings. Optionally, a skill level can define how much expertise or certifications a service resource has.
