11.3 Specifying Your Availability

The Edit Availability action allows you to specify which resource requests with a delegate assignment you are unavailable to work on during a particular time period. During the time period when you are unavailable for a particular request, the user delegated to act on that request can work on it.

If you prefer not to specify your availability for each request definition individually, you can use the Edit Availability action to establish global settings pertaining to delegation.

HINT:Before using the Edit Availability action, you need to have at least one delegate assignment to work on. You need to have your team manager (or the Provisioning Application Administrator) create delegate assignments for you.

11.3.1 Setting Your Availability Status

  1. Click Edit Availability in the My Settings group of actions.

    The user application displays the Edit Availability page. If you do not have any existing availability settings, the display list is empty:

    If no delegates have been assigned for you, the user application displays a message indicating that you cannot change your status on the Edit Availability page.

    If you have one or more availability settings, the display list shows these settings:

    Edit Availability display list
  2. To see details about a particular resource associated with an availability assignment, click the name of the resource:

    Resource name link

    The page then displays a pop-up window that provides information about the delegate assignment:

    Delegate Assignment details

    This information is particularly helpful in situations where the same resource name appears more than once in the availability settings list.

  3. Specify your status by selecting one of the following options in the Change Status drop-down list:

    Status

    Description

    Available for ALL Requests

    This is the default status. It indicates that you are globally available. When this status is in effect, requests assigned to you are not delegated, even if you have assigned delegates.

    The Available for ALL Requests status overrides other settings. If you change the status to one of the other settings, and then change it back to Available for ALL Requests, any Selectively Available settings previously defined are removed.

    NOT Available for ANY Requests

    Specifies that you are globally unavailable for any request definitions currently in the system.

    Choosing the Not Available for ANY Requests status indicates that you are unavailable for each existing delegate assignment and changes the current status to Not Available for Specified Requests. Assignments are effective immediately until the delegate assignment expires. This setting does not affect availability for new assignments created after this point.

    NOT Available for Specified Requests

    Specifies that you are not available for certain resource request definitions. During the time period when you are unavailable for a particular request, the user delegated to act on that request can work on it.

    The NOT Available for Specified Requests option takes you to the Edit Availability page. It is the same action as clicking the New button.

11.3.2 Creating or Editing an Availability Setting

  1. To create a new availability setting, click New (or select NOT Available for Specified Requests in the Change Status drop-down list).

  2. To edit an existing setting, click Edit next to the setting you want to modify:

    Edit button

    The user application displays a set of controls that allow you to specify the time period for which you are unavailable and select the requests to which this setting applies.

    The list of requests displayed includes only those that have a delegate assignment.

    Edit Availability page
  3. Specify the time period during which you will be unavailable:

    1. Specify when the time period begins by typing the start date and time in the Unavailable From box, or by clicking the calendar button and selecting the date and time.

      Calendar control
    2. Specify when the time period ends by clicking one of the following:

      Button

      Description

      Duration

      Lets you specify the time period in weeks, days, or hours.

      End date

      Lets you specify the end date and time. You can type the date and time, or click the calendar button and select the date and time from the calendar.

      No Expiration

      Indicates that this unavailability setting does not expire.

      The end date you specify must be within the time period allowed by the delegate assignment. For example, if the delegate assignment expires on October 31, 2007, you cannot specify an expiration date of November 15, 2007 for the availability setting. If you specify an expiration date of November 15, 2007, it is automatically adjusted when it is submitted to expire on October 31, 2007.

  4. Specify whether you want to send e-mail notifications to other users by filling in these fields:

    Field

    Description

    Notify other users of these changes

    Indicates whether you want to send an e-mail message to notify one or more users of this availability assignment.

    Addressee

    Specifies which users should receive e-mail notifications:

    Selective: Allows you to send e-mail notifications to any users you select.

  5. Select one or more requests in the Types of Requests list, and click Add.

    On this page, you select the types of requests not to accept during the time you are unavailable. This has the effect of delegating these requests to other users.

    Request Type Selection box

    Each request you add is included in the Declined for the Specified Period list.

    Declined for the Specified Period list
  6. To indicate that this availability setting applies to all request types, click All Request Types instead of selecting the request types individually.

    All Request Types check box

    The All Request Types check box is only available when the resource search criteria for the delegate assignment is set to All.

    Resource Search Criteria set to All
  7. To remove a request from the list, click Remove.

  8. Click Submit to commit your changes.

11.3.3 Deleting an Availability Setting

To delete an existing availability setting:

  1. Click Remove next to the setting:

    Remove button