I have been doing some workflow extension work recently which requires setup for user’s work hour schedule and business closures. That’s how I noticed this function of CRM and embarked on setting work hours and business closure. It’s really a surprise to me that how useful it is and how little tutorial aid is currently online. This blog will walk you through how to manage these settings for your own organization.

Though we'll be working in CRM 2013 for this entry, this information is applicable to CRM 2011 users as well.

How to set work hours

The work hour schedule is not only a good self-planning tool, but also provides more accurate information for other users, such as a project manager. By controlling the work hour schedule of every team member in a project, a project manager can track and assign tasks better. Especially for a large multinational company that employees may be located in different countries and have different work hour schedules based on their time zones, or for some jobs that require several shifts, setting work hours for each individual user is very useful for HR management.

1. Go to Settings > Administration > Users > and then select a user

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2. Hover over on the user’s name and select "Work Hours" on the ribbon.

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3. Click on "Set Up" and three options are provided. Select "New Weekly Schedule".

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4. Click on "Set Work Hours" and a pop up window will open - this is where to set work hour on a daily basis. Breaks can be added as need for more accuracy.

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5. You can also select to Show Capacity, and enter the capacity for each working block. Capacity is used to determine how many services this resource (generally, the user) can perform at one time. For example in this case the user is very skilled and experienced therefore his capacity is 2, meaning he can work on two tasks at once. Another example would be for a garage if they have only a certain number of work days, you can set the capacity of the garage so only that many vehicles can be serviced at one time. More complex Services can also have a higher complexity, which means only a skilled resource can perform the service.

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6. This is what will be shown on the user’s work schedule. As you can see, this user’s work hours are 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday for July 2014.

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How to edit work hour

1. Click on the date that you want to edit, make sure it is highlighted in blue and click "More Actions > Edit". Or you can double click on the date. Sometimes it’s better to start over and recreate a new weekly schedule if there are too many changes to make.

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2. A pop up window appears with three options on editing: edit this date only, from this date onward or entire recurring weekly schedule from start to end.

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3. Then the same work hour schedule window opens and you will be able to follow the same instructions for editing.

 

How to set business closures

Business closures are the occasions in which the organization shuts down and no business operations are offered. During this closure, service activities cannot be scheduled. However, resources with the "Do Not Observe" option selected for business closures can be scheduled for services. For example, national holidays normally are business closures. Additional company events such as company picnic or quarterly company meetings can be set as business closures as well.

1. Settings > Business management > Business closure

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2. Click on "New" and create your business closure event.

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The following is an example of business closure:

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3. If the user chooses to observe the business closure, this is what looks like on his work hour schedule.

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Tips:

1. When recreating a new work hour schedule, the best practice is to delete the old schedule first, otherwise it may cause conflicts. As an example, let's say you have set work hours from July 1st to July 10th, then set another work hour schedule from July 11th to July 20th. Now you want to add a new work hour schedule for July 10th and 11th only, you can’t select both dates once to edit. You have to choose edit on July 10th only and repeat the same process for July 11th. The alternative is to delete all work hour schedules for July and recreate new work hour for July 10th and 11th.

2. Other options you may want to consider:

  • Observe business closure. Normally check the box of observing business closure. However, one exception will be an ER physician who is on duty even on the eve of Christmas.
  • Time zone settings. Make sure you have selected the correct time zone.

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Reference:

http://www.magnetismsolutions.com/blog/12-02-14/Scheduling_Work_Hours_and_Business_Closure_Dynamics_CRM_2011.aspx