Optimizing technician schedules at set intervals
Efficiently reassign tasks and maximize productivity by continuously running schedule optimization at selected intervals throughout the day.
About intraday optimization
Intraday is an event-based mode of Schedule Optimization that runs on a set interval to optimize schedules. It triggers when the following events occur:
- Canceled tasks
- Technician running late
- Technician calling in sick
- Technician using PTO
- New high priority task added
Create a policy, a grouping of optimization features that run in combination, to define the rules for optimization. Policy objectives prioritize technician task assignment. Policy constraints determine the criteria that must be met for an assignment group or territory to be assigned a task.
The basic intra-day flow runs every 60 minutes by default, with a minimum option of every 15 minutes. When a trigger condition is met, an intraday event is created. When the next intraday flow runs, an intra-day job is created for each of the groups or territories that have intraday events and those qualifiers are optimized. When a group or territory is selected for optimization, all tasks within the group are considered for optimization, except for schedule-locked tasks. When optimization is complete and the tasks are updated, the intraday job shows a status of Assignment Complete.
When intraday optimization runs, it determines each technician's starting location in the following order:
- Location of the technician's previous scheduled task (if applicable)
- Start or End location specified in the technician's Resource Schedule Attributes
- Technician's home location (fallback)
Admins configure Start and End locations for each technician in their Resource Schedule Attributes. See Configure an agent's profile for details. The starting location is locked in when the engine runs and remains fixed for task assignments until the next optimization cycle.
Prioritized event optimization responds immediately to critical events instead of waiting for the next scheduled intraday run. When a high-priority event occurs, prioritized optimization triggers shortly after and targets only the specific technicians and tasks affected by the event. This focused approach allows urgent scheduling changes to be handled quickly without rescheduling all tasks in the group or territory.
Dispatchers can manually trigger optimization to run from the Dispatcher Workspace when both conditions are met:
- Intraday optimization configuration is enabled
- An on demand applicable policy has been added to the scheduling attribute
See Create a scheduling attribute for Schedule Optimization to add an on demand applicable policy to the configuration.
Note that agent schedules can't be manually updated until intraday optimization is complete.
--- title: Optimizing technician schedules at set intervals description: Efficiently reassign tasks and maximize productivity by continuously running schedule optimization at selected intervals throughout the day. locale: en-US canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/field-service-management/field-service-scheduling/optimize-your-schedules-intraday.html release: brazil product: Field Service Scheduling classification: field-service-scheduling topic_type: concept last_updated: "2026-09-10" reading_time_minutes: 2 breadcrumb: [Schedule Optimization, Setting up a Field Service scheduling method, Configure, Field Service Management] --- # Optimizing technician schedules at set intervals Efficiently reassign tasks and maximize productivity by continuously running schedule optimization at selected intervals throughout the day. ## About intraday optimization Intraday is an event-based mode of Schedule Optimization that runs on a set interval to optimize schedules. It triggers when the following events occur: - Canceled tasks - Technician running late - Technician calling in sick - Technician using PTO - New high priority task added Create a policy, a grouping of optimization features that run in combination, to define the rules for optimization. Policy objectives prioritize technician task assignment. Policy constraints determine the criteria that must be met for an assignment group or territory to be assigned a task. The basic intra-day flow runs every 60 minutes by default, with a minimum option of every 15 minutes. When a trigger condition is met, an intraday event is created. When the next intraday flow runs, an intra-day job is created for each of the groups or territories that have intraday events and those qualifiers are optimized. When a group or territory is selected for optimization, all tasks within the group are considered for optimization, except for schedule-locked tasks. When optimization is complete and the tasks are updated, the intraday job shows a status of Assignment Complete. When intraday optimization runs, it determines each technician's starting location in the following order: 1. Location of the technician's previous scheduled task \(if applicable\) 2. Start or End location specified in the technician's Resource Schedule Attributes 3. Technician's home location \(fallback\) Admins configure Start and End locations for each technician in their Resource Schedule Attributes. See [Configure an agent's profile](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/field-service-management/workforce-optimization-for-field-service/configure-an-agent-s-profile.md) for details. The starting location is locked in when the engine runs and remains fixed for task assignments until the next optimization cycle. Prioritized event optimization responds immediately to critical events instead of waiting for the next scheduled intraday run. When a high-priority event occurs, prioritized optimization triggers shortly after and targets only the specific technicians and tasks affected by the event. This focused approach allows urgent scheduling changes to be handled quickly without rescheduling all tasks in the group or territory. Dispatchers can manually trigger optimization to run from the Dispatcher Workspace when both conditions are met: - Intraday optimization configuration is enabled - An on demand applicable policy has been added to the scheduling attribute See [Create a scheduling attribute for Schedule Optimization](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/field-service-management/field-service-scheduling/configure-scheduling-attributes.md) to add an on demand applicable policy to the configuration. Note that agent schedules can't be manually updated until intraday optimization is complete.
| title | Optimizing technician schedules at set intervals |
| description | Efficiently reassign tasks and maximize productivity by continuously running schedule optimization at selected intervals throughout the day. |
| locale | en-US |
| canonical_url | https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/field-service-management/field-service-scheduling/optimize-your-schedules-intraday.html |
| release | brazil |
| product | Field Service Scheduling |
| classification | field-service-scheduling |
| topic_type | concept |
| last_updated | 2026-09-10 |
| reading_time_minutes | 2 |
| breadcrumb | Schedule OptimizationSetting up a Field Service scheduling methodConfigureField Service Management |