The correct configuration is an Excluded Resource preference on the Account. An Account-level Excluded Resource preference records that the customer should not receive that technician on future work. The Scheduling Policy ' s Excluded Resources rule can then prevent the technician from being considered.
Operationally, the goal is to preserve schedule integrity while minimizing manual intervention. Field Service should be allowed to use the standard scheduling engine wherever possible so that resource availability, travel, appointment constraints, priorities, and territory context remain consistent across manual and automated scheduling actions.
The alternatives address different parts of the Field Service model. Simply removing Preferred status would stop favoring the technician but would not prohibit assignment, and moving territories would affect unrelated customers.
The recommended choice also keeps the decision inside the native scheduling framework, so future optimization and dispatcher actions evaluate the same constraints consistently instead of relying on manual workarounds.
This approach keeps the implementation aligned with the standard Field Service data model and avoids unnecessary customization. Study Guide reference: Managing Scheduling and Optimization — Resource Preferences; Excluded Resources; Account-level preferences.