Introduction 

For this tutorial, we take the example of a mobile service application. In this application, the service orders that are created in the back-end system must be distributed to the relevant field staff.

Scenario

·        Service technicians are assigned to work centers. This assignment can change from time to time, for example, as the workload of the work centers changes or the company reassigns the technicians as holiday replacements.

●      Service technicians have different qualifications, for example, they may be qualified to service a specific type of printers.

●      Work centers are assigned to regions. The regions are defined by zip code ranges, and the customer’s zip code determines the region to which it belongs.

The back-end database contains all the information about the entities involved:

●      Service order: Service order ID, equipment to be serviced, customer involved, region to which the customer is assigned and so on

●      Equipment: Equipment type (for example printer), equipment brand (for example HP), exact location (building, room), service instructions (PDF file), and so on

●      Customers: Address, contacts

●      Employees: Names of service technicians, their employee IDs, mobile devices assigned, work center they belong to, their qualifications (the equipment types and brands they are qualified to service) and so on

●      Work center: Region (zip code range) for which it is responsible and so on

The distribution logic must be defined such that the service technicians only receive the service orders for the work center to which they are assigned and for the type of equipment they are qualified to service. The distribution logic must also ensure that the service technicians only receive the service orders when the information about the customers and the equipment is available as well.