Archibus SaaS / Maintenance
Maintenance / Corrective Maintenance
Maintenance / Preventive Maintenance

Concept: Using Microsoft Exchange with Craftsperson Schedules

Many organizations have craftspersons that maintain a calendar of appointments in Microsoft Exchange. Appointments that are defined outside of the Archibus applications impact the availability of craftspersons when it comes to scheduling work requests. If you purchase a license for the Archibus Extension for Microsoft Exchange, you can integrate Exchange calendars when creating craftsperson schedules. Specifically, the Define Craftsperson Schedule Variances view will show Busy blocks on the calendar for times that Exchange shows that the craftsperson as busy. These times are then included in Availability calculations for each craftsperson.

To integrate Exchange busy times with the Define Craftsperson Scheduled Variances view, the system runs the getCFBusyTimesExchange scheduled workflow rule, which:

• Connects to Exchange and checks for busy times for each craftsperson.
• For each busy time in Exchange, checks the cf_schedules_variances table for an existing time block during that same time. If one exists, then the workflow rule takes no action. If a busy block does not exist, then the workflow rule creates a new record for that time block.
• Confirms that each Busy record from cf_schedules_variances also exists in Exchange for the same time block. If not, then the workflow rule modifies or deletes the existing cf_schedules_variances record to match the Exchange record. It does not modify or delete any cf_schedules_variances records where sched_var_type <> "BUSY".
• Checks for changes made in Exchange since the last time the workflow rule was run. For example, if an Outlook user modified or deleted an appointment after the workflow rule imported it into Archibus as a Busy time block, then that Busy time will no longer be valid. The workflow rule creates the new Busy time block and also deletes the original Busy time block because it no longer matches an appointment in Exchange.

Since Exchange uses the UTC standard for all appointments, the workflow rule adjusts the Busy time blocks from Exchange to match the timezone of the craftspersons (as stored in the corresponding Employees record). If a craftsperson's timezone cannot be derived because the information is not available, then the workflow rule does not convert the time block; in the cf_schedules_variances record, the busy time is presented in the GMT timezone.

For information, see Extension for Microsoft Exchange / Configuring Maintenance (System Management Help).