Estimates
By default, OMD expects uploading systems to provide an estimated duration along with each task. The float value (in minutes) is used during the normalization of a trip. Alternatively, by setting the preference recalculateEstimatedDuration to true, OMD can calculate the estimated duration automatically. The calculation is based on the provided quantities in the task attachments with sub-type itemsPlanned.
| recalculateEstimatedDuration | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Default Value | Example |
| Boolean | false | true |
If no attachments are provided or if products or their category are not found in the Estimate table, the estimated duration will be equal to the value provided in the DefaultEstimatedDuration preference, which defaults to 0 minutes.
| DefaultEstimatedDuration | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Default Value | Example |
| Float | 0.0 | 10.0 |
Basically, the formulas for estimated durations can be based on two different approaches:
Staircase approach
If one or more quantity levels > = 0 are defined, the calculation method is based on the estimated duration provided per step, i.e. it will determine the estimate from the highest defined quantity level that is greater than or equal to the given amount.
For example, if there are estimates defined for the quantity levels 6, 12, 18 and 24 while the given amount is 11, then the estimated duration defined for the quantity level 12 is chosen. If the amount is above 24 then the calculation fails.
Linear approach
If you define the quantity level as -1, the provided estimated duration will be multiplied with the planned quantity.
Example
Suppose a task has three attachments with sub-type itemsPlanned:
6 items of Product A with an estimated duration of 3.0 minutes for a delivery lower or equal to 5 items and an estimated duration of 2.5 minutes for a delivery with a quantity greater than 5 and lower than 10.
8 items of Product B with an estimated duration of 15.0 minutes for a delivery lower or equal to 4 items and an estimated duration of 10.0 minutes for a delivery with a quantity greater than 4.
3 items of Product Category C with an average estimated duration 20.0 minutes for each item of the delivery (quantity level = -1).
The total estimated duration is 6 2.5 + 8 10.0 + 3 * 20.0 = 155.0 minutes.
Note that the process flow of a task attachment can influence the value retrieved from the Estimate table. For example, installing a product may take longer than removing it. Therefore, it is possible to provide a processFlow value with each estimate, if it is necessary to distinguish the type of work that is to be provided for a specific planned item.
If you wish to standardize the estimated duration for a product, regardless of the quantity, you may want to specify a very large quantity level to make sure that all product quantities will result in a fixed estimated duration.
The Estimate entity only supports either a product reference or a product category reference, not both.
Note that the Estimate calculation will first attempt to find an estimate for the product. If no estimate is found on product level, the calculation will search for an estimate on product category level. If a process flow is defined for the itemsPlanned attachment, these attempts will always search for an estimate matching the process flow. Estimates without a process flow definition will only be considered if the itemsPlanned has no process flow defined.