Dynamics 365 is a one-stop solution for all your enterprise needs; it reveals new opportunities across your organization and transforms how you do business. The host of intelligent applications help you manage and run your business with detailed precision, while enhancing customer service and engagement — from applications for sales, customer service, operations, field service, project service automation, marketing, financials, and customer insights — Dynamics 365 is the perfect tool for end-to-end management of your business processes.
Dynamics 365 for Field Service
Mastering the service call (for installation, maintenance or repair) is critical for any organization. With Dynamics 365 for Field Service, you can keep your customers at the center, and turn every service call into a strategic one. Optimize your service schedule with efficient routing, resource skill matching, and reduced travel time.
Dynamics 365 for Field Service is the perfect tool to manage all your field service operations. It helps you efficiently manage a large mobile workforce, and deliver products and services directly to customer locations. It has a plethora of built-in intelligent, predictive, and intuitive capabilities, designed to improve both customer fulfillment and field agent productivity, enabling you to deliver exceptional customer service on all of your calls. Let’s look at six of these smart features:
1. Set up Smart Schedules
Powered by a scheduling assistant, Dynamics 365 for Field Service takes requirements from a work order (time range, preferred technician, skills or certifications required, and geographical territory) and shares a list of the most qualified resources for a particular service call. The interactive schedule board lets you see and manage work assigned to your mobile workforce. You can get a real-time view of all field technicians and work orders and respond quickly to customer requests and cancellations.
- Get details on all your field service agents (in a list view or map view) by hours, days, weeks, or months
- Assign the most qualified technician and respond to customer requests easily and more efficiently
- Enhance real-time communication and collaboration between service technicians, dispatch agents, back-office staff, and customers
- Optimize service schedule (and reduce travel time) with efficient routing, and resource skill matching
- Perform the required back-office administrative tasks when the work is completed
2. Enjoy Anytime Anywhere Connectivity
The Field Service mobile app makes winning at customer service easier; when technicians are booked for a work order, they instantly receive a notification in the mobile app (that can help them plan their agenda). Field technicians can also provide progress updates (including background details) about the job and associated customer information.
- Glance through maps to see daily routes, accounts, and assets you are responsible for and reduce travel time and costs
- Provide technicians with all the information they need to get to a customer location and complete work orders quickly
- Tap the work order to see more details, change the status to traveling to let the back office know the technician is out for the job
- With instant access to information, ensure better first-time fix rates (and on-time delivery) and complete more service calls every week
- Turn completed work orders into customer invoices for instant billing
- View daily dashboards to see completed work and assess technician performance
3. Efficiently Manage Inventory
Dynamics 365 for Field Service lets you keep track of inventory and get info on parts needed for upcoming work. Maintain a list of serviceable items related to a service location, record specific information about the item, and create a historic log of all of the work orders that are related to the item (and get a complete service history for the item).
- Get a snapshot of all the inventory you have at a warehouse including quantity available, quantity allocated, quantity on hand, and quantity on order
- Follow an efficient and standardized process and track defects, returns and ownership changes on every customer asset
- Create an inventory adjustment or transfer to add or subtract inventory to or from a warehouse or to change the warehouse location of product inventory, and automatically have an inventory adjustment product record created within the inventory transfer record
- Whenever a product is returned (to the warehouse or vendor), have a return merchandise authorization (RMA) created in the system with details of the product, unit, quantity, related work order, and price list for the return
4. Manage Service Calls with Ease
Dynamics 365 for Field Service makes managing service calls and agreements simple. By including recurring service calls and contracts, installed products, and warranties across customers and locations, you can improve your service delivery and identify ways to increase revenue.
- Create agreements to automatically generate work orders and invoices for routine maintenance
- Choose how often work orders will be generated (daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly) and enter necessary details (incidents, products, services, and tasks)
- Enable numerous agreement schedules to be created with a single agreement (weekly in-person visits or monthly on-call maintenance checks)
- Have the liberty to edit details of agreements at work-order level (add more products, edit price list, or modify work order type)
5. Enable Connected Devices
With Connected Field Service, you can monitor your service representatives’ devices and make sure they are functioning properly. If a piece of equipment fails, you’ll be notified immediately, so you can troubleshoot the problem remotely or send someone to fix it.
- Detect, troubleshoot, and resolve issues remotely and save on on-site costs before customers even know about them
- Address issues faster by remotely monitoring devices and keeping customers in the loop
- Reduce maintenance costs by dispatching a technician with the right skill
- Reduce downtime by receiving proactive alerts on failed devices
- Send a technician for a service issue based on the availability, and location
6. Enhance Customer Communications
Dynamics 365 for Field Service lets you put your customers at the center of every interaction. The highly interactive customer portal, and interoperability with advanced APIs, gives them a complete view of their cases.
- Login to your field service portal and pull up KPIs to see what’s happening with customers in real-time
- Get a 360-degree view of your customers and achieve complete organizational alignment with sales, marketing, and field service teams
- Give customers the required visibility and insight into service requests and the status of their requests
- Offer them self-service options that are tailored to their requirement and enhance the customer experience
- Provide customers with a live map and photo of the technician en route
- Notify them through text or email about a changed or canceled appointment
Effectively Manage Resources and Time
Dynamics 365 for Field Service combines monitoring and predictive maintenance, IoT, and machine learning to automatically schedule multiple work orders on a recurring basis. It queries and ranks the best available resources and time slots for a job, and allows you to optimize routes and schedule the closest (and most qualified) technicians to a job. Set up smart schedules, enjoy anytime anywhere connectivity, efficiently manage inventory, enable connected devices, and manage your service calls with ease. What’s more, by considering several constraints (resource availability, skills required, priority, duration, and time window), you can reduce travel time and make efficient use of all resources (and time) to offer a seamless experience to all your customers — a requirement for service excellence.
More Information About Field Service!
Service Agreements
Field Service helps organizations improve customer satisfaction with reliable service through predictable service delivery and inventory management with flexible service schedules that can be recurring if needed.
It also maintains the accuracy of service contracts, warranties, and installed products across customers, geographies, and locations.
When contract data is accurate and available, SLAs are met, customers are satisfied, and all service revenue is accounted for. Enhanced visibility into accurate contract information not only drives faster, more accurate billing, it enables field service teams to identify new sales opportunities to drive additional revenue.
Schedule board and dispatch
A flexible drag-and-drop schedule board lets dispatchers assign resources and set up schedules for multiple work orders using a list or map view.
The Scheduling Assistant provides an intelligent allocation of people, teams, and resources based on your business rules, defined by customer, organization, or regulatory requirements. Organize and find available resources by any number of categories, including skill sets, geography, customer preferences, and more. Color-code based on any criteria you choose — for example, if the resource is in transit, in progress, or another status.
Inventory management
Extend the Dynamics 365 product catalog with an inventory management system that tracks real-time inventory levels by warehouse, including mobile truck stock.
Need to keep track of and manage inventory? Whether it’s repair parts, office assets, vehicles, or anything else that needs to be tracked, poor inventory management is a drain on profitability and customer satisfaction. However, when it’s done right, it can be a powerful advantage! Timely repairs by technicians with the right parts and fast, easy replacement build customer loyalty and referrals. The efficient management of refurbished products and parts and effective handling of RMAs can provide significant cost savings.
Inventory management lets you manage the inventory, updates, and stock history for any type of location — warehouses, offices, homes, depots, or trucks.
Inventory is accurate, and replenishment and purchasing can be done within the system or through integration with ERP systems. Truck stock is managed as part of the scheduling process, ensuring technicians have the right parts for every call.
Mobile app
The mobile app gives field tech quick and easy access to everything they need to execute a work order, including schedule information, customer contact information, turn by directions, and more.
The app leverages the built-in features of each device, providing significant features that help you leverage the full power of smartphones and tablets:
Remote administration with no-code customization. When the business needs change, quickly create new customizations — with no coding — and instantly update all mobile platforms. Centrally manage all users and devices, including remote data, wipe for lost or stolen devices; and ping to see where those devices are at any given moment or turn on tracking to see the travel history.
Native mobile apps provide a robust offline user experience. Leverage all device capabilities, including barcode scanners, RFID readers, credit card readers, and more — all from a device most users already own.
The mobile calendar view of work orders provides a simple view of what jobs need to be done and when. Calendar items are 1-touch linked to customer and case history, installed products, parts information, pricing, orders, invoicing. and more.
Using the built-in map feature of mobile devices, color-coded pins quickly identify scheduled appointments, preventive maintenance schedules, existing customers, prospects, and anything else with a physical location. In addition to viewing records on a map, users can reduce travel time and expenses using turn-by-turn directions.
Connected Field Service
Connected Field Service allows a field service organization to detect, troubleshoot, and resolve issues remotely so a technician is dispatched only when necessary.
In a traditional field service organization, the customer has a problem and calls to get it fixed. Connected Field Service eliminates the customer concern by attempting to complete self-healing repairs remotely before sending out a technician.
Customer-Centric Experience
Field Service puts customers at the center of all interactions by keeping them informed, making communication easy, and ensuring they have positive interactions at every step.
- Customers can see upcoming service appointments and view completed and open cases through a portal.
- Integration with Glympse keeps customers informed of actual arrival times of the technician in real-time and provides the technician’s photo and vehicle information.
- Customers automatically receive text messages and phone calls to keep them informed at every stage of service.
