There is indeed some overlap, but the 2 capabilities use entirely different capabilities in PSO.
Attention On/Off will create a Schedule_Event in PSO (which does not have a link to an activity_id). The resource gets highlighted and an exception will be raised. The text provided in MWO is not visible in PSO, only in the Dispatch Console. The dispatcher can easily turn attention off directly from the Gantt, which will also remove the exception. However both events will remain the the Gantt’s timeline.
Highlight to Dispatcher however updates the activity’s status i.e., PSO’s Activity_Status entity. The technician will be highlighted in the Gantt, but there is no symbol in the Gantt timeline, an exception for the activity is shown along with the text provided in MWO. The exception remains in the list, even when acknowledged. The exception is only removed when the MWO users clears the message.
From my PoV it really depends on your use case which option to use when. If it’s something ad hoc like “I’m running late, caught in traffic jam”, I would use option 1. The dispatcher can easily acknowledge the message. Option 2 makes sense for job-related messages.
If you wanted your techs to only use one of these options, there would always be trade-offs. I would discuss this with the dispatchers.
