Task allocation bypassing "Not in Use Cost" skill/cost restriction in IFS Cloud

Hi Experts,

We have similar requirement, where technician having special skills for a particular day should not be getting tasks without the special skill in that day. We have done the skills configuration by using the “Not In Use Cost” . But still resources are getting tasks.

To Explain the Situation: 

Resource R1 is on Special Duty on 5th October 2026. We use a special skill SKL-1 to identify the resource in on Special Duty. So the Not in Use Cost for the Skill we have configured as 50000. No other tasks without SKL-1 skill should be allocated to the resource on 5th October 2026.

But on the day of 5th October 2026, the tasks without the SKL-1 are also getting allocated to the resources as the other Skills on the Tasks are also present with Resource. Resource has an additional SKL-1 apart from other normal skills.

So this “Not in Use Cost” is not working what I understood from the situation. Could someone please help if this the standard functionality or an issue with IFS PSO not treating the “Not in Use Cost” as constraint.

If there is any work around to achieve this situation. It will be of great help.

Regards,

Could you elaborate on “We are trying to restrict task allocation to a specific shift ”? What exactly are you trying to achieve?

I did a quick test on 26R1. “Not in use” is correctly sent to PSO. I have an allocation to a resource that requires skill A, that resource possesses both skill A and B. Now I set the “Not in use” cost for skill B to 50,000 and the job gets allocated to someone else. Sounds exactly like the behavior you expected?

Hi Alexander,

Yes that is what we want, Task with Skill A only should not go to Resource who is having Skill A and Skill B and Skill B “Not in Use Cost” is 50,000. The task should never allocated to this resource. We are in 25R1 and in production we are having the issues. Also in PSO I can see the Not in Use cost interfaced properly. But still the issue is there in Production.

Regards,

I could imagine 2 reasons: 1) If the PSO load message is correct, there could be an issue that was resolved in the meantime. My instance is on PSO 6.17.0.93. 2) Look at your other PSO parameters such as activity base values. As an example, if your activity value is 100,000, a cost of 50,000 would still allow the allocation.

Hi Alexander,

We have the PSO version as :6.17.0.119

Activity Base value is high 9500 and Not in Use Cost for Skill is 100000.

But in production normal tasks are going to the resource having Emergency Skill with Not in Use Cost for Skill as 100000.

Can you please Suggest if we can use the Skill Availability Pattern for the resource and add the Not in Use Cost at this level. Should it work?

Will it be considered as hard constraint in this case?

Regards,

Rashmi Ranjan Patnaik

I don’t think skill availability will help but overall it's hard to assess from the outside, someone would need to look at the complete set of parameters.