Estimating the workload across work groups
Pega Robot Manager anticipates the workload across defined work groups by using the Auto-balancing evaluation interval. The auto-balancing engine uses a time window consisting of three equal intervals. At every interval, an algorithm checks how many tasks in a particular work group have an SLA deadline. The auto-balancing engine can then foresee how many robots will be needed in each work group, in a given period.
The default value of the auto-balancing evaluation interval is 60 minutes, which means that Pega Robot Manager will decide whether to move robots by checking the SLAs every 60, 120, and 180 minutes from now.
Adjusting the auto-balancing interval
When defining the intervals, you need to analyze the SLA of your assignments. SLAs have to be realistic and match business objectives. The optimal setting is when the look-ahead window is equal to or slightly longer than the SLA of your assignment. The minimum recommended SLA is 1.5 hours, so you should not set the Auto-balancing interval to be less than 30 minutes.
Robots will be moved between work groups if the interval is too short. Moving a bot is an expensive operation that takes minutes. The shorter the evaluation interval, the less time bots have to react and gradually adapt to an alternating workload.
On the other hand, with evaluation intervals that are too long and work that is received in bulk, you will need lots of bots for short periods, that will not be used the rest of the time.
Be aware that the auto-balancing engine will ignore tasks with an SLA longer than the look-ahead period. For example, a task with an SLA of four hours will be ignored in a system with a 60-minute evaluation interval.
You can adjust the value of the Auto-balancing evaluation interval in Pega Robot Studio, in the Settings > Configuration > Interval menu.
For more information about defining intervals and using service-level agreements (SLAs) to estimate workloads, see: Estimating workload across work groups
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