Smart Scheduler only. Not considered under manual scheduling rules.
A daily meal break can be set up for each user. The Smart Scheduler considers the User Break setting when building a technician’s schedule to ensure the technician is allocated a break during the specified window.
Breaks consist of a Window and a Duration. A Break Window is a period of time in which the user will be allocated a break. The Window should be larger than the Break Duration, giving the Smart Scheduler flexibility to schedule the break at the most optimal time.
User Breaks are settable and viewable in the web app
User Breaks are not settable or viewable on the mobiles or API
Setting up User Breaks
User Breaks are only considered if the toggle is enabled in the Scheduler Settings page (https://app.fieldaware.com/account/settings/scheduler/). When the setting is enabled for the first time, all users receive the same break window and duration which is set on this page.
In the example below, the Break Window is set to 2 hours and the duration is 30 minutes. The Smart Scheduler will allocate technicians a 30 minute break any time between 12.00 pm and 2.00 pm.
Applying Breaks to Users
When User Breaks are enabled, the related section will become visible in the User Record in the webapp. If the company-wide break setting is being used, it will be reflected on this page.
Customizing user breaks
If all your technicians follow the same working hours, then setting a single company-wide break will probably work well for you. However, you can also set Custom Breaks at the user level. The user in the example below has a custom break of 15 mins between 1.00 pm and 3.00 pm.
Viewing User Breaks
User breaks can be viewed in the Users List for easy reference.
If you do not wish to use Breaks in your business, toggle the switch in the Scheduler Settings tab to OFF.
It is also possible to use Breaks for some users but not all. For example, you may not set up break times for contractors. To do this, start by setting up company-wide or custom breaks for the appropriate users as described above. Then, for users who are not allocated breaks, set their Break Duration to zero, as shown below:
Gotchas
The Break setting only affects the Smart Scheduler while it is building a schedule. The system does not enforce breaks when scheduling manually via the Job Page, Scheduler, or API.