Schedules
A schedule is a group of facilities to be surveyed for a specific time period, such as a month or year. The same schedule can include multiple facility types as well as facilities requiring bi-monthly, annual, and multi-year inspections, if those inspections are due in the same year. You can set up some schedules to include every facility that may be due for inspection and others to include one type of facility or survey period. PCS dynamically generates a schedule with the most current information.
A schedule is different from a route. A schedule is a list of facilities that are due to be inspected, whereas a route assigns a specific order to facility inspections. A schedule is always ordered by due date and then as an option, sorted by facility ID, address, or route order. If you plan to create a schedule in route order, routes must be defined first (Data Entry > Define Routes).
Scheduling allows you to create a blank survey form based on a schedule for data collection that includes prompts only for scheduled facilities. You can also transfer a survey based on a schedule to the field computer. Survey data is then transferred from the PCS field computer or other mobile device or entered in PCS from the survey form.
A valuable feature of scheduling is the ability to transfer a survey based on a schedule to the field computer or other mobile device. Once the survey is complete, the PCS database is easily updated by transferring inspection data from the mobile device to PCS.
Most PCS users can work with schedules.
Scheduling properties set up in the Time Between Surveys tab will be applied system-wide. However, settings can be overridden at the facility type level in the Facility Level Override mini-grid of the Information grid for a module's data entry grid, in the ROW hierarchy pane of the Hierarchy Level Overrides tab, or in the Schedule Type Settings tab. The settings made in the Facility Level Override mini-grid of the Information grid for a module's data entry grid override the other two. Therefore, it is not recommended to make changes at the facility level.
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