Characteristics, proficiency ratings and resource categories

What it does

Characteristics are the skills and certifications a resource holds. A skill can carry a proficiency level drawn from a rating model, so you can ask for "gas safe, level 3 or better" rather than a simple yes/no. Resource categories are a separate, coarser grouping — job title or role — used for filtering and requirement matching.

Key facts

A characteristic has a Characteristic Type of either Skill or Certification. Skills are the ones that take a proficiency; certifications are pass/hold.
Rating models are created under Resource Scheduling > Settings > Resource > Rating Models. Each has a name plus a minimum and maximum rating value, with individual Rating Value records underneath carrying a Name and a numeric Value.
Resources are linked to characteristics through Bookable Resource Characteristic records, added from the Field Service tab of the resource. Characteristic is required; Rating Value is optional.
Requirements ask for skills through Requirement Characteristic records, reached from a work order's Related > Characteristics. Again the rating value is optional.
Rating value is optional on both sides. Where a requirement does specify one, the numeric Value on the rating value record is what the engine compares — the Name is only a label, so a model whose values are numbered out of order will rank people wrongly.
Enhanced characteristics is a preview feature, switched on from Field Service Settings > Features. It adds ID, Issue Date, Expiration Date and Description to the resource characteristic record.
With enhanced characteristics on, duplicate detection keys on the combination of Name, Characteristic, Rating Value, ID, Issue Date and Expiration Date — so the same certification can legitimately appear twice with different expiry dates.
Resource categories are separate records under Resources > Categories, with examples such as Technician, Supervisor, Subcontractor, Vehicle and Equipment. Resources are attached through Resource Category Associations.
A resource can hold many characteristics and many categories. Neither is exclusive.

When to use / skip

Characteristics are worth doing properly wherever the wrong engineer turning up costs real money — regulated trades, anything with a certification requirement, anything where a return visit is expensive. In that world, skill matching is most of the value of the scheduling engine.

Proficiency ratings are the part to be sceptical about. A three-level model (trainee, competent, expert) earns its keep. A ten-level model does not, because nobody maintains it and every requirement ends up asking for the top value out of caution, which defeats the purpose. If the client cannot describe in one sentence what separates level 6 from level 7, use fewer levels.

Skip characteristics almost entirely if the workforce is genuinely interchangeable — single-trade, single-product operations exist and they do fine matching on territory and availability alone. Adding a skill matrix there just gives you a maintenance job.

Configuration decisions

Which capabilities are Skills with proficiency and which are Certifications you either hold or do not. Getting this split wrong makes the requirement forms confusing.
How many rating models. One shared model is easier to maintain; per-discipline models are more accurate. Most projects want one.
The number of levels in the rating model and what each one means in the client's own language, written down somewhere the training team can reach.
Whether requirements are populated with characteristics manually by the person raising the work order, or derived from incident type. Incident type derivation is what makes this scale.
Whether resource categories are used for filtering only, or also carry through to pricing and costing.
Whether to turn on enhanced characteristics for certification expiry tracking, accepting that it is preview.

Gotchas

Characteristics without rating values on the resource will not match a requirement that specifies one. Half-populated skill matrices produce assistant results that look arbitrary.
Adding a characteristic to the requirement narrows results hard. The usual symptom of an over-specified work order template is an empty schedule assistant, not an error.
Certification expiry does nothing on its own even with enhanced characteristics enabled — an expired date does not remove the resource from matching. You need your own process or automation on top.
Enhanced characteristics is preview. Do not build a compliance story on it without telling the client it is preview and could change.
Rating values are compared by their numeric Value, so a model with badly ordered values ranks people wrongly and nothing on screen makes that obvious.
Resource category and characteristic look like the same idea to a client and get used interchangeably during workshops. Pin the vocabulary down early or you will migrate the wrong data.

Consultant notes

Run the skill matrix workshop with the operations team, not IT, and cap the first release at the characteristics that actually change who gets sent. You can always add more; removing them after they are on 300 resources is grim.
Demo the schedule assistant twice — once with the characteristic on the requirement, once without — so the client sees exactly how much the filter narrows results.
Push back on ratings beyond about three or four levels unless the client can point at an existing competency framework that already uses more.
Wire characteristics onto incident types rather than leaving them to whoever raises the work order. It is the difference between a skill matrix that is used and one that is decorative.
Before go-live, check for resources with characteristics but no rating value, and requirements asking for a rating value nobody holds. Both produce empty booking suggestions on day one.

Worth revisiting when enhanced characteristics goes generally available, particularly if expiry starts affecting matching.