A CalAmp schedule is a plan of the specific days of the week and hours of those days designated for an entity's use. For drivers and assets, an applied schedule would be the time you expect them to be driving/in operation. If a schedule is assigned to an alert, the alert will be triggered only during the apportioned hours — for example, you can create a schedule from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and associate it with an excessive idling alert if you want to be notified about overidling only during the workday. (Also, you can select for an alert to be triggered any time outside the applied scheduled, such as if you want to be notified if a driver is using a vehicle beyond their approved work hours. See Adding an Unauthorized Usage Notification for details.)
Note: Make sure to create the schedule before adding a new alert, asset, or driver that will need it.
To create a schedule, follow these steps:
- In the sidebar menu on the left, click
.
- Click Schedules on the flyout menu that appears.
The Admin - Schedules screen will appear.
- Click Add New at the top right of the screen.
The Add Schedule dialog box will appear.
- Type the name to use for the schedule in the Name field.
Note: For example, you might create a schedule called "Weekdays, 9 to 5," which will cover just the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
By default, the group you currently have selected in the Group Chooser will be set for the group to add the schedule to.
- If you would like to place it in a different group, click the Group drop-down arrow and select the group from the list.
Note: Only entities assigned to the group you choose will be able to have this schedule applied to them, plus its subgroups if you make the schedule inheritable. If you want the schedule to be able to be used by every alert, operator, and asset, in every group, place it in your top-level group (and leave Inheritable selected). - Type an explanation of what time frame the schedule is planned for in the Description field (such as "Weekday work hours only — 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.").
- Leave the Schedule Status field at its default value of Enabled.
Note: If you set the status to Disabled or Suspended, you won't be able to associate the schedule with an entity. This isn't likely to be what you want when you are adding a new schedule, though. - If you want the time zone used for the schedule to match your assets', you can leave the Timezone field at its default value of Asset Time Zone (Default).
If you want to use a different time zone for the schedule, click the Timezone drop-down arrow and select it from the list.
- If you want the schedule to be able to be applied to alerts, drivers, and assets in subgroups of the group it is assigned to (so the subgroups, or child groups, inherit the schedule from the parent group), leave Inheritable selected.
If you want it to be available only for that single group's entities, deselect Inheritable.
- Under Schedule Configurations, click the Day drop-down arrow and select the first day of the week you want the schedule to include, such as Monday for weekdays.
- Click
in the Start Time field.
Note: Alternatively, instead of performing steps 11 through 15, you could type the values in the Start Time box, using the format hh:mm (a or p)m, such as "03:30 pm."
A time picker will appear.
- Click the up or down arrow above or below the minute value until it lands on the minute of the hour you want to use to begin the shift (such as 00 for 9:00 a.m.).
Caution: It is a little counterintuitive to set the minute value first, but this can save you a step — because if you set the hour value first and THEN set the minutes, if you click until the up or down arrow goes above or below 00, it will change the hour value. You can of course set the hour first, but you might need to correct it in this case. - Click the up or down arrow above or below the hour value until it reaches the beginning of the part of the day you want covered by the schedule (such as 9 for 9:00 a.m.).
- If the selected 12-hour time period isn't correct, click AM or PM (depending on which you need).
- Click Okay.
- Click in the End Time field.
Caution: The time span cannot cross midnight, but there are plans in the future to change that limitation. Currently, though, if you want to create a schedule that covers 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., for example (such as if you want it to be applied to an alert that checks for Ignition On events so that you can make sure no one is operating your vehicles after hours), you'll need to use two configurations to cover that for each day — one for the first day (such as Monday) from 10 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. and a second one for the following day (Tuesday in this example) from 12:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.
Alternatively, for the notification in the preceding example, you can set a schedule from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. and use Outside Schedule for the Schedule Reference value when configuring the alert (which will trigger the notification during the exact opposite time period of the associated schedule). See Adding a Notification (Alert) for more details.
Note: Again, instead of performing steps 16 and 17, you could type the values in the End Time box, using the format hh:mm (a or p)m, such as "11:30 pm." - In the End Time time picker, repeat steps 12 through 15 for the time of day that will complete the time frame for the schedule (such as choosing a minute value of 00, an hour of 5, and then PM for 5:00 p.m.).
- If you need to add other days for the schedule, click
to the far right of Schedule Configurations.
A second row of Day, Start Time, and End Time options will appear.
- In the row of the second configuration, click the Day drop-down arrow and select the next day of the week you want the schedule to include, such as Tuesday for weekdays.
- Repeat steps 11 through 17 for the second day's time range.
- For every day you need to include in the schedule, click to the far right of Schedule Configurations and repeat steps 10 through 17.
Note: If you add a day you don't need, you can click
and then Yes, Delete in the confirmation dialog box to remove it. - After you have added all the days you need, click Done.
Your new schedule will appear in the grid (if you are viewing its group, or a parent group with View Subgroups selected).
Also, a success message will appear at the bottom of the screen.
- Click OK to dismiss it. (Or you can wait a few seconds, and it will automatically close.)
Note: After you create a schedule, make sure to associate it to the alerts, drivers, or assets its time frame applies to. The schedule won't fulfill its function if it's not applied to an entity.