Scheduling with a Trade Partner

Now you can request availability from the Trade Partner on upcoming schedule tasks from the Actions menu of your Dashboard. These requests will be sent as emails and surfaced in the Trade Portal. This feature is meant to give you a clear picture of which tasks need to be scheduled. 

Request Availability

A "Scheduling Action Item" will appear on the task assignee's dashboard once the task start date is within the Lead Timeframe (see Manage Lead Times article for more information).

The assignee will click Request Availability and an email template will open. The task assignee can edit the template and select which contacts will receive the availability request email.

Note: The selected contacts cannot be edited after the initial email is sent

If the trade confirms the start date, a confirmation email will be sent to the task assignee. No further action is required and the task will disappear from the Scheduling section of Action Items.

Here there are yellow chips that might appear. See below. The chip will read "Waiting" if you have already sent the request for availability but the trade has not confirmed in the portal. The yellow chip will read "Needs Confirmation" if you have not yet requested availability. 

Requesting Trade Confirmation from the Schedule

In the updated schedule experience you can easily click the envelope next to a schedule task and communicate with a trade via email about the task. 

If the date is changed on a task and the status is marked as "needs confirmation" then clicking "publish" will direct you to the Publish Workflow where you will have the option to Email trades about this change.

Once the emails are sent and the dates are published in the schedule then these dates will show up inn the trade portal for confirmation. Here is more on how the trade portal side of this.

Review and Confirm Dates

If the trade reschedules, an action item will appear on the task assignee's dashboard. The assignee will click Review and Confirm Dates. The task assignee will update the schedule task dates from their dashboard. The assignee can click Notify Trade of New Dates to send a final email confirmation. Here the yellow chip will read, Unavailable as shown above.