Determining Call Coverage

A call record identifies an end user and an item. Once an item is uniquely identified in Call Maintenance, the system searches for valid coverage. This search occurs in the first frame of Call Maintenance, since coverage determines some of the other values of the call, such as:

The system uses coverage hours in conjunction with response time to calculate the call’s next status date and time, which is important for call scheduling.

Coverage can be found on a warranty or service contract. If the system finds neither, it uses the Default Call Service Type in Call Management Control.

The system looks at various information to suggest a timing sequence for events related to a call. When a call is first created in Call Maintenance, the event date and time reflect the current system date and time. Event date and time update each time you access the call from Call Maintenance or it is escalated by the Escalation Monitor.

If you are not using escalations, the system considers two factors when calculating the call’s next status date and time:

• The response time from the call’s service type. Response time is an agreed-upon time within which you want to respond to a call from your customer.

• The coverage hours defined for the call’s service type. These specify the days and hours your organization is open for service.

Example: You take a call at 4:00 PM (16:00 hours) with default coverage. The default service type specifies a 4-hour response time. Your coverage hours are 8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday. If response time is simply added to the call event time, a next status time of 8 PM (20:00 hours) would be calculated. This would create a problem, since you are only open until 5:00 PM (17:00 hours).

Since the system knows your service coverage hours are only until 5:00 PM, it schedules the next event three hours into the next business day.

If you are using escalations, the calculation of next status date and time is determined by the days and time allowed in the status of the first escalation step. The Escalation Monitor also checks the Use Calendar Days in Escalation field to determine whether to use calendar days or work days in the calculation.

See Use Calendar Days in Escalation.

For each item on a call, more than one source of coverage can exist, and each can have different terms and conditions.

• A contract can exist with a line for the specific item/serial/reference number.

• A second line for exactly the same item can exist on the same contract with a different service type. This enables you to use different service types and price lists for different hours of coverage. In this case, a call taken during the day could receive one kind of coverage, one taken at night another.

• A blanket contract may exist for the end user and item, covering all items with this number. See Blanket Coverage.

• A blanket contract may exist for the end user with a blank item, covering any items for this end user.

Whenever multiple coverage sources exist, you can select the one to be used for the call. A lookup lists each coverage source, the start and end date, service type, whether a contract is a blanket contract, and the hours of coverage. The more specific coverage sources are listed first.

Note: This lookup displays when you create a call or add more lines to it in Call Maintenance or Call Activity Recording.

The lookup lists the coverage records in the following prioritized order.

2 Contract with a line for the specific item/serial/reference number using a service type with coverage hours that include the call open time

3 Contract with a line for the specific item/serial/reference number using a service type with coverage hours that do not include the call open time

It is unlikely that any one item would have all these coverage sources. The lookup appears only if more than one source of coverage exists. If you do not select one of the listed coverage sources, the system uses the first by default.

When it creates calls in the background, the system uses alternate methods for determining the coverage to select, based on a standard method of prioritizing coverage sources.

• Installation calls created during invoice post always use warranty coverage, if available, then the highest prioritized contract coverage.

• Coverage for calls created in the Call Generator is based on your input selection of Warranty or Contract.

• PM calls created as part of Contract Maintenance always use the contract from which they are generated.

When the system searches for call coverage, it uses the call open date and time. It also determines if the day is a holiday.

Note: If MTZ is active, open date and time are relative to the end user’s time zone.

For contract coverage to be considered valid, the call open date must be within the range of the contract line’s start and end dates, and the contract currency must match the call currency. If more than one coverage source exists, the system checks the call’s open time to see if it fits within the range of available hours for the service type associated with the contract line.

The same algorithm is used to determine consumption of contract limits when you post a call invoice. The call open date is used to determine the effective limits. You cannot update the start and end dates of a contract header or line to exclude an attached call’s open date. This is also true of limit records: you cannot modify the effective dates to exclude the open date of a call that references them.