Field services

A field-service operation dispatches technicians directly from home rather than a shared depot, matches or prefers specific certifications to specific jobs, keeps drive time between two appointments short, and often has a backlog of lower-priority jobs that only get slotted in when the schedule has room.

What makes this vertical distinctive

Skill preference — a senior technician is preferred on demanding jobs, without excluding a generalist when the senior isn’t available.
Opportunistic scheduling — lower-priority jobs stay optional and only get planned when the route has capacity left.
Travel-distance cap between jobs — a technician’s hops from one job to the next stay under a set distance.
Home start/end — every route starts and ends at the technician’s own home, not a shared depot.

Combined example

{
  "resources": [
    {
      "id": "technician-senior",
      "vehicleProfile": { "type": "car" },
      "departure": { "lon": 2.375, "lat": 48.872 },
      "arrival": { "lon": 2.375, "lat": 48.872 },
      "preferredStopTags": ["tag:senior-preferred"],
      "maxInterStopDistanceInKm": { "firstTravel": 100, "interStop": 15, "lastTravel": 100 }
    },
    {
      "id": "technician-junior",
      "vehicleProfile": { "type": "car" },
      "departure": { "lon": 2.362, "lat": 48.824 },
      "arrival": { "lon": 2.362, "lat": 48.824 }
    }
  ],
  "orders": [
    {
      "id": "order-demanding-client",
      "stops": [
        {
          "type": "single",
          "id": "stop-demanding-client",
          "position": { "lon": 2.38, "lat": 48.832 },
          "kind": "delivery",
          "operationDuration": "PT45M",
          "tags": ["tag:senior-preferred"]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "order-routine-job",
      "stops": [
        {
          "type": "single",
          "id": "stop-routine-job",
          "position": { "lon": 2.358, "lat": 48.836 },
          "kind": "delivery",
          "operationDuration": "PT20M"
        }
      ],
      "priority": 5,
      "optional": true
    }
  ],
  "objectives": ["maximizeMandatoryStops", "minimizeResources", "maximizePreferredStops", "maximizeOptionalStops", "minimizeDistance"]
}

Skill preference

technician-senior.preferredStopTags: ["tag:senior-preferred"] is matched against the same tag on stop-demanding-client. See Driver skills and qualifications — the exact worked example this pattern follows.

Opportunistic scheduling

order-routine-job sets optional: true with a positive priority (lower numbers matter more, so 5 ranks it below the default 0), so the engine only plans it once every mandatory and preferred stop is already placed, via the maximizeOptionalStops objective. A higher priority number pushes a job further down the queue relative to other optional orders. See Soft constraints.

Travel-distance cap between jobs

technician-senior.maxInterStopDistanceInKm bounds each leg of the tour independently: firstTravel/lastTravel (home to first job, last job to home) get a looser cap than interStop (job to job), keeping consecutive appointments close together without also restricting how far the day’s first and last jobs can be from home.

Home start/end

Each technician’s departure/arrival points to its own position rather than a shared depot — technician-senior and technician-junior don’t share coordinates. See Depot vs. position for how a “depot” is just a resource’s departure/arrival, not a first-class object.

Full payload

Full payload — ready to submit as POST /plans

The preceding example isolates the four mechanisms this vertical needs; this expands it to the scale of a real working day — a full fleet schedule (workingTimeWindow, departure, arrival), the complete objectives list, and enough jobs to look like an actual route rather than a minimal illustration. Submit it as-is via POST /plans — the service assigns the plan’s id, so don’t include one of your own. Its datetimes are local times, read in the plan’s tz (Europe/Paris); see Dates and time zones.

{
  "tz": "Europe/Paris",
  "resources": [
    {
      "id": "technician-senior",
      "vehicleProfile": { "type": "car" },
      "workingTimeWindow": { "begin": "2026-08-03 07:00", "end": "2026-08-03 17:00" },
      "departure": { "lon": 2.375, "lat": 48.872 },
      "arrival": { "lon": 2.375, "lat": 48.872 },
      "skills": ["skill:electrical-certification", "skill:gas-certification"],
      "preferredStopTags": ["tag:senior-preferred"],
      "tags": ["technician:1"],
      "maxInterStopDistanceInKm": { "firstTravel": 100, "interStop": 15, "lastTravel": 100 }
    },
    {
      "id": "technician-junior",
      "vehicleProfile": { "type": "car" },
      "workingTimeWindow": { "begin": "2026-08-03 07:00", "end": "2026-08-03 17:00" },
      "departure": { "lon": 2.362, "lat": 48.824 },
      "arrival": { "lon": 2.362, "lat": 48.824 },
      "tags": ["seniority:junior", "technician:2"]
    }
  ],
  "orders": [
    {
      "id": "order-job-0",
      "stops": [
        { "type": "single", "id": "stop-job-0", "position": { "lon": 2.385, "lat": 48.86 }, "kind": "delivery", "operationDuration": "PT30M", "tags": ["job:standard"] }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "order-job-1",
      "stops": [
        { "type": "single", "id": "stop-job-1", "position": { "lon": 2.35, "lat": 48.858 }, "kind": "delivery", "operationDuration": "PT30M", "tags": ["job:standard"] }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "order-demanding-client",
      "stops": [
        {
          "type": "single",
          "id": "stop-demanding-client",
          "position": { "lon": 2.38, "lat": 48.832 },
          "kind": "delivery",
          "operationDuration": "PT45M",
          "tags": ["tag:senior-preferred"],
          "preferredTimeWindows": [{ "begin": "2026-08-03 09:00", "end": "2026-08-03 11:00" }]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "order-routine-job",
      "stops": [
        {
          "type": "single",
          "id": "stop-routine-job",
          "position": { "lon": 2.358, "lat": 48.836 },
          "kind": "delivery",
          "operationDuration": "PT20M",
          "authorizedTimeWindows": [{ "begin": "2026-08-03 14:00", "end": "2026-08-03 16:00" }]
        }
      ],
      "priority": 5,
      "optional": true
    },
    {
      "id": "order-restricted-site",
      "stops": [
        { "type": "single", "id": "stop-restricted-site", "position": { "lon": 2.395, "lat": 48.845 }, "kind": "delivery", "operationDuration": "PT30M", "tags": ["site:restricted-access"] }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "order-gas-installation",
      "stops": [
        { "type": "single", "id": "stop-gas-installation", "position": { "lon": 2.34, "lat": 48.865 }, "kind": "delivery", "operationDuration": "PT90M" }
      ],
      "requiredSkills": ["skill:gas-certification"]
    }
  ],
  "objectives": ["maximizeMandatoryStops", "minimizeDelay", "minimizeResources", "maximizePreferredStops", "maximizeOptionalStops", "minimizeDistance", "minimizeWorkingDuration"],
  "additionalConstraints": [
    { "type": "forbiddenAssignment", "resourceTag": "technician:1", "stopTag": "site:restricted-access", "name": "technician-1-barred-from-site" }
  ],
  "additionalOperationDurations": [
    { "resourceTag": "seniority:junior", "stopTag": "job:standard", "additionalOperationDuration": "PT15M" }
  ]
}

By industry

What makes this vertical distinctive

Combined example

Skill preference

Opportunistic scheduling

Travel-distance cap between jobs

Home start/end

Full payload

See also

​What makes this vertical distinctive

​Combined example

​Skill preference

​Opportunistic scheduling

​Travel-distance cap between jobs

​Home start/end

​Full payload

​See also

What makes this vertical distinctive

Combined example

Skill preference

Opportunistic scheduling

Travel-distance cap between jobs

Home start/end

Full payload

See also