Creating Business Calendars
Follow these steps to create a new business calendar:
- Navigate to the rule package to which the business calendar will belong in the Explorer Tree (verify that you have selected the correct Tenant from the Tenant drop-down list).
- Select Business Calendars under the rule package in the Explorer Tree.
- Click New Calendar.
- The ID field is populated automatically. This is not editable.
- Enter a Name for the business calendar. Use something descriptive that will make it easier to identify the rule, such as Regular Work Week.
- Select which day of the week the week starts on (such as Monday).
- Select the ending day of the week (such as Friday).
- Enter the start time (such as 9:00 AM).
- Enter the end time (such as 5:00 PM). If the end time is earlier than the start time, it is assumed that the workday spans midnight.
- Select which time zone applies to this business calendar.
- If necessary, you can configure business calendar rules for your new business calendar.
- In the lower pane, click
.
- A new row will appear in the Business Calendar Rules panel. Enter a Name for the rule, such as New Year's Day.
- Select the Entry Type for the rule, such as Holiday.
- Select the Calendar Placement, such as Annual for New Year's Day, or Relative for Memorial Day. You might also need to configure a Fixed holiday, for example, if the holiday will be observed on a different day one year, because the actual holiday falls on a non-working day.
- Enter the parameters for the rule, such as the specific date (January 1, for New Year's Day), or the x day of a specific month (such as the third Monday in May, for Memorial Day).
- Click Save.
- In the lower pane, click
Business Calendars
A business calendar is a set of rules that define working days and hours, and holidays that are applicable for the business. Business calendars can be used in rules to perform date and time calculations, taking into account the working schedule of the business. Business calendars can be assigned once (for example, at the Global Rule level), or can be assigned dynamically in a rule when needed.
Business calendars consist of a set of standard mandatory attributes and optional business calendar rules. Business calendars must be assigned to a task before any business calendar-related calculations can be performed on task values. A Calendar can be assigned at the parent rule level, or to an individual rule. Only one calendar can be assigned to a task at a time, so a calendar can be assigned by one rule and then, overwritten by a later rule. Rule packages can contain one or more Business Calendars. Business calendars define the working days and hours of the organization. They can also be associated with any rule in the package.
Calendars are out-of-the-box classes available in the Fact Model that can be used by Rules. A calendar contains:
- Name
- Time zone
- Week start day and time
- Week end day and time
- Holidays (one or more)
- Time Change (one or more)
A holiday is fixed, relative, or annual.
- A fixed holiday contains the date of the holiday, including day, month, and year, such as 1/1/2010.
- A relative holiday contains the month and weekday of the holiday and whether it is on the first, second, third, fourth, or last day of that month, such as the third Thursday of November.
- An annual holiday contains the month and day of the holiday, such as July 4.
A time change indicates how the work hours can be adjusted on particular days; for example, defining a half day on a particular day of the work week. Like a holiday, a time change is fixed, relative, or annual and contains the same date definition as the corresponding holiday definition. In addition, the time change contains the start and end time for the defined date.
Business calendars are needed for defining rules based on work hours. For instance:
WHEN Task is idle for more than 3 Working Days THEN increase Priority by 20
WHEN Today is a holiday AND Task is urgent THEN Agent Group is “Urgent Care”
The italicized portions of the above examples use business calendar information.