In this webinar, we demonstrate and explain what Field Service in the Microsoft Dynamics platform is—and how it can be used by a wide range of businesses and industries with employees or technicians working in the field: service and maintenance companies, telecommunications and cable companies, health and care services, as well as the energy, construction and civil engineering sectors.In the webinar, you will learn:- What is Field Service in Microsoft Dynamics 365?- Use cases- Value creation - Field Service demoWatch the presentation and demo here:

Video transcript:

What is Dynamics 365 Field Service?

Frode Stenstrøm: Hi, do you or your service employees have an overview of all the work orders you carry out, or the resources you need to complete them? Today, we will answer the question: What is Dynamics 365 Field Service? It is a Microsoft product specifically tailored to all of you who carry out work orders for customers.

In today’s broadcast, we’ll explain what this product is, the value it creates, the challenges it solves, and who it is intended for. We’ll show you how to gain complete control over resource planning for both internal and external resources, and how the Booking Board makes it easy to match work orders, requirements, and availability with actual resources at the right time and place.

Frode Stenstrøm: If this sounds interesting, I’d like you to watch the rest of the webinar, because today we’re joined by the leading expert from Prosesspilotene, Stine Hansen. Welcome, Stine!

Stine Hansen: Thank you very much. It’s great to be a guest on my first podcast.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, it is.

So is the webinar. Stine, who are you, really?

Stine Hansen: Well, my name is Stine Hansen, I’m 31 years old, and I’ve been working at ProsessPilotene for almost seven years now. It’s absolutely crazy how quickly the time has passed, but I’ve almost worked

Frode Stenstrøm: Has it been seven years?

Stine Hansen: Yes, it will soon be seven years.

Frode Stenstrøm: Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Stine Hansen: But I’ve actually worked in field service ever since I started, right up to where I am now, so I have a lot of experience in that area.

Frode Stenstrøm: So we're looking forward to hearing a little about that, and today we will be holding the first webinar, where we'll talk about what the field service product is and field service as a topic. And in about a week's time, we'll take a closer look at the operational side, namely how to use Field Service for booking.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: And we also have several more topics coming up after that, so stay tuned.

My name is Frode Stenstrøm, and I’m the host of today’s broadcast. As usual, we’re broadcasting live on YouTube, which means this is an interactive broadcast where you can respond and ask questions along the way. Tell us who you are, where you work, and so on, and we’ll be happy to answer your questions, as we have time for that during the broadcast.

We’ll add subtitles and chapters to the recording afterwards, so if you only want to know what a booking board is and what it looks like, you can skip straight to that chapter later. And of course, if you found it useful, feel free to share the recording with all your friends and acquaintances, and so on.

So, Stine, what are we going to talk about today?

What is Field Service?

Stine Hansen: We are going to talk about what field service is, who is involved, and which roles it affects. We will discuss the problems it solves and the value it creates. Then we will give a brief demonstration of how resources are registered and how a work order can be structured. Finally, we will look at how to match the skills required for the work order with an available resource who can take on the assignment.

And then a brief summary at the end.

Frode Stenstrøm: Let's do a brief recap. Stine, for those of us who aren't familiar with the term field service, we use “field service” in English, and in Norwegian we call it “feltservice,” which may be a somewhat unfamiliar term,

Stine Hansen: Yes, it’s really about how to send the right resource to the right job at the right time.

So it’s really about keeping track of everything that happens out in the field, at customers’ sites. Anything that requires someone to travel somewhere will typically involve a work order or something similar.

Resource planning and the booking board

Frode Stenstrøm: And so you've created this kind of overview for us, Stine, to help clarify some of the terminology.

Stine Hansen: Right. So the first thing you usually start with is entering all the master data. And there are a great many tables and options for categorizing both resources and work orders in Field Service.

So you start by adding all the resources you have, whether they are users—for example, an electrician, an inspector, or someone who will act as an auditor. But resources can also be equipment, such as a trailer, a sensor, or ... whatever your company uses.

Frode Stenstrøm: And in what you're saying now, there's a point that perhaps not everyone is aware of, which is that if you're simply not interested in work orders and all the other features, but you need to keep track of your resources, you can use products just to get an overview of who works for you and what they can do, almost like a small HR system.

Stine Hansen: Exactly. It can replace a wide variety of Excel spreadsheets scattered around, bringing everything together, categorizing it, and keeping it all in one place.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then there’s also the fact that, I think, when we’re onboarding resources—as you said—they don’t necessarily have to be your own resources; they can also be external ones.

Stine Hansen: Exactly, they can be contractors and other resources you use to handle the requests you receive. You also have very flexible options for registering both the roles of all the resources and their skills. For example, whether I am proficient, intermediate, or an expert in field service, you can enter that information.

Frode Stenstrøm: What does our database say about your field service skills, Stine?

Stine Hansen: I think you're listed as an expert. At least, I hope so.

Frode Stenstrøm: No.

Stine Hansen: But it is also possible to set up your own competency rankings like that. Very flexible. When you start working with this, it can be quite challenging to get an overview of everything the customer has and figure out how to fit it into all the different elements of Field Service, because there is a lot.

Frode Stenstrøm: But does that mean you can log things in the customer's customers' installations?

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. And the next item on the list is to say that you have an electrical contractor, which many people can relate to, and there are often a great many fuse boxes in various locations, and this could be a customer activity. When we at my company inspect these fuse boxes to make sure everything is in order, I want to have a register of all my customers, and I want all those fuse boxes registered with me.

That way, I’ll have a history for each fuse box whenever something happens or a technician is sent there.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have seen some specific examples among our customers that have been very real scenarios. Suppose you buy a product that you then sell to your customers and install at various customer sites, and your manufacturer informs you that there is a manufacturing defect affecting serial numbers 1000–2000. You then need to go back or know where they are installed.

If you have that customer register, or customer asset register, in place, you can combine it with Customer Insights and send out a communication and a flow notifying customers that it needs to be replaced.

And for those of you who have dealt with large-scale warranty claim processes, you know how much work it takes to determine where this is installed, especially if it has been assembled with multiple products.

So having that asset register—because, as I say, many already have the master data itself—is simply useful.

Stine Hansen: Exactly, so you don't need the entire field service package to get good value from it, especially when it comes to assets' own equipment register and keeping track of your equipment at the various customers' sites.

Another thing is agreements. If you need to visit a location quarterly, annually, or monthly, you don't have to create the work order again every single time. You can set it up once, and field service will generate it at the right time when these ... recurring jobs are due. This is very useful for preventive maintenance.

Frode Stenstrøm: And it almost becomes a kind of subscription where you can subscribe to service agreements and that sort of thing. That’s why I think that, for many people, simply getting the master data in place goes a long way, and then you’ve already made a great deal of progress.

Stine Hansen: You have.

Right. Not everyone has these repetitive assignments, but at least getting all the equipment and resources in place and gaining an overview of everything is a good start for many people.

Frode Stenstrøm: But it doesn't have to be limited to equipment and service assignments. We also have customers who use this to book interviews.

It can be used in so many contexts. If you have a straightforward customer service case and need to create a task to resolve a support issue, for example. We have also seen customers who need project management, but where using a full-fledged project management tool would be overkill, so they can create a work order instead.

Stine Hansen: Correct

Frode Stenstrøm: In a week or two.

Stine Hansen: Yes. With Filtrummer, you can also enable booking for all areas in the rest of the system. So if you work in sales and have a sales opportunity, you can enable the option to book a salesperson to handle it.

Frode Stenstrøm: I think that is very relevant, because very often, if you work with bids—that is, large sales projects—you can treat the bid as a small work order, book the internal resources needed to complete the order, and then you get a highly structured process for responding to a public tender according to a specific procedure, for example.

Stine Hansen: Yes, Field Service can be used for a wide range of purposes

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, but that was the master data, Stine. You have some other terms that may not be as familiar to everyone—or at least, I think those in the industry know them well, while those outside the industry don't know them as well.

Work orders and competency requirements

Stine Hansen: No, the Norwegian term for a work order, which you might start googling, is «arbeidsordre». It is a field assignment, meaning something that needs to be done at a particular location, and it can be created in many different ways. If you receive a customer service inquiry and realize that it cannot be resolved over the phone and that a technician needs to be sent out, the inquiry can easily be converted into a work order, with the information from the customer service inquiry carried over to the assignment.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. So this essentially means that the order can be created through many channels, and since we work with the Dynamics platform as a whole, it can originate from sales, service, projects, and so on, or be created independently—and even by customers.

Stine Hansen: Yes, exactly. It can be created in many different ways.

Frode Stenstrøm: And we often create websites for customers where the customer can create the work order themselves through a self-service My Page solution.

And that means the resources who will be using the system don't necessarily need to be logged in. They can use a customer portal, a mobile application, or whatever is best suited to the individual user.

Stine Hansen: Exactly, and as I mentioned, it can come from an agreement like that. If a company needs to do something very frequently, it saves a lot of time not having to enter it manually every time.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly, exactly. And I also believe that we now have a Copilot add-on for Outlook, so in principle, if you receive a question by email, you can now create the work order directly from your email system as well.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. A work order can consist of one or more events, as they are called in Norwegian, or incidents in English.

For example, if you need to visit a customer and inspect several sensors, or inspect several fuse boxes in a housing cooperative, you can have a work order that is split into several incidents, each of which is linked to the asset to be inspected.

So it can be structured in many ways, and you can add checklists—for example, for this task I need to do these ten things—and tick them off as you go. You can also add all kinds of information and send notifications in advance when you are on your way, and...

Frode Stenstrøm: And I think the checklist feature is interesting, because if, for example, you run a cleaning company that cleans people's homes, you can check whether or not you're supposed to clean the refrigerator.

Should I clean the refrigerator every three weeks or not? You can create templates like that for yourself, giving you a completely different routine. The same applies if you work in healthcare, for example in home nursing, using checklists while visiting a patient and dispensing medication. There are many opportunities here to keep records and, not least, track time.

Stine Hansen: Right. For example, what you mentioned about healthcare. Say you're visiting someone who needs a nurse—you may need to administer medication, while for others you may only need to perform other tasks, so different skills are required.

So you typically have a planner who creates a request and finds the right available resource who meets the competency requirements for that work order.

Planning Board and Resource Management

Stine Hansen: And it can do that in what is known as the planning board, which we will show a little later. You can work manually, using drag and drop, or have the system suggest a technician or another person, or a piece of equipment that is available, and then use that.

Frode Stenstrøm: But what I find quite interesting, and what I want those of you watching at home to take away from this when we talk about these work orders, is that you might think they are only for a field service technician.

But it can actually be used by a great many industries, and if you think about it, almost all businesses have some form of assignment.

Whether you're caring for a patient, carrying out an inspection, or teaching a course, for example, right?

Stine Hansen: You might hand it out at a trade fair. You might send three units somewhere, right? Then you can also register it as an order. So it really just means that there is something to be done.

Frode Stenstrøm: Something needs to be done. And what is also interesting to understand about work orders, which more people may be familiar with, I would say, is that... A work order is essentially a sales order, so all consumables, all hourly materials, everything that costs money, is posted to the work order, which then forms the basis for the invoice.

It has these dimensions showing what was planned and what the actual values are.

After all, Frode, who was supposed to work for three hours, may not have managed to complete the job in even six or seven hours.

Stine Hansen: Something might come up that meant it took longer. In that case, it is very useful for those working out in the field to have a mobile application where they can access all the information about the work order and add details about what equipment they used, whether anything unexpected came up, whether extra time was needed, whether there was something that did not...

If you had requested one thing, but perhaps expected something else to happen, you can register it while you are there. Not

Frode Stenstrøm: And often, when you're going to do something out there, certain prerequisites may need to be in place. For example, perhaps the carpenter needs to build the wall before the painter arrives.

And you can also include those prerequisites in the work order and document if they weren’t in place. And since I’m currently having a garden built, I’m constantly asking the landscaping company to make new changes.

Stine Hansen: I have only myself to blame for that.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that also means the work order becomes the documentary basis for the change order, and they would save a lot of time on data entry and administrative work if they could decide right then and there: If you want it that way, we'll order it, we agree on the order, and that's that.

Stine Hansen: And you sign off that this is okay, which saves time.

Frode Stenstrøm: But that was the work order part. I see you have a few more items here. Ordering.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that was more or less what I mentioned earlier, that we have a planner who... On the one hand has all the needs, all the work assignments that need to be carried out, and then there are a lot of resources and equipment that need to be allocated to them, so you then find an optimal...

A way to allocate it. For example, you can sort by region. This is Western Norway, this is Bergen, this is Oslo. And then link them. One cool thing is that you can map postal codes to regions.

So you can say that for this postcode, which is 2843, where I’m from in Toten, when someone enters 2843, it should be mapped to, for example, Toten.

And then only resources who live in that area will be eligible for the assignment. This avoids sending the wrong person or misallocating resources. It is set up to ensure that the right resource is assigned to the right job.

Frode Stenstrøm: And the thing is, all of you who work with some form of resource allocation, whether it’s shift scheduling or something else, know how challenging it can be.

And the system is designed to generate a proposed booking schedule, as far as I know, based on a whole host of parameters.

Stine Hansen: Yes, basically everything you enter, everything you want it to take into account.

Frode Stenstrøm: All of them?

Stine Hansen: Yes, you can have both regions and register working hours, so you can create these shift calendars, specifying when each person is working, and enter that information.

You can add it as a template, so you don't have to add it for each resource. This includes the region, which organizational unit you belong to, your areas of expertise, your roles—there are lots of configuration options.

Frode Stenstrøm: It's very exciting.

Stine Hansen: Yes, it's a lot of fun.

From the order, we have received a work order—something that needs to be done—and a request to schedule it, and then there is also the fieldwork that needs to be carried out?

It has to be carried out, of course—that’s how customers can see that things have been done. So the people going out into the field can register the work, and they’ll get a good overview of everything they need to do, giving them a clear plan of which assignments to carry out. They’ll have checklists and instructions detailing what to do, access to all the information, and can see things like, yes, I need to call this person because they have the key to the housing cooperative, and similar details—contact them and

Frode Stenstrøm: And this is also an area where we know we can add some more advanced features.

I'm thinking about taking digitalization further, using virtual reality headsets to see things, using a mobile app to take pictures of a device and look up instructions and manuals for those same things.

Stine Hansen: Scan the asset in question, for example, to make sure it is the right one

Frode Stenstrøm: Making sure you turn the right switch. So this is extremely exciting, and again, when it comes to accepting payments, if you were out cleaning houses, you could actually get paid right then and there.

Stine Hansen: Right?

Frode Stenstrøm: Integrate payment solutions into the job so that everything is done by the time you get home and you don't have to do a lot of office work afterwards. Right. But then we have the final part, which is the follow-up work, Stine.

Stine Hansen: Yes, exactly, you've completed a job and checked off everything on all the required lists.

Then, before the work order is closed, you can check whether anything else needs to be done. If you need to send a technician back because there wasn't enough time to finish the job, you have everything there. Everything is tracked against that work order, giving you a complete overview of what has happened and what follow-up actions are required. You can then close it and use the information in the work order as the basis for invoicing.

Frode Stenstrøm: Moving on to the next stage, I can see that we actually support several processes, Stine. To summarize what we’ve discussed, there’s the resource management process, which lets you keep track of all your resources. There’s also the process of managing all the installed equipment and the equipment located at customers’ premises.

We can also monitor the same thing using sensor networks if we want to.

Stine Hansen: Yes, exactly. But it’s possible to set up internet and things like that, so you can get back to full service directly. We’d be delighted to do that for you, so just give us a call!

Frode Stenstrøm: I know, that would be your dream project, Stine, so it's just a matter of monitoring a whole bunch of things.

Stine Hansen: Yes, if you have a sensor available, or we can provide one as well, then if you detect an anomaly in a piece of equipment at a customer's site, you can send signals to Field Service and automatically create a work order. That way, you can go there before something goes wrong.

Frode Stenstrøm: But there is also a hint of a sales element in this solution, because a work order is something we need to carry out, but I also know that a sales department can provide a quote for a work order.

Which you convert into an order if you've won the quote and the customer says yes.

So the system does not stand alone like a solitary planet; it is integrated with Microsoft's sales processes and customer service processes. And what is interesting is that you mentioned allocating resources to assignments—in other words, resource management—which can be handled centrally, locally, or using hybrid models.

Stine Hansen: It really depends on what you need.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. So it covers a very broad range of processes. In my view, it is also a very mature product from Microsoft, which they are now going to see. And I also firmly believe that much of the work involved is not so much about the product itself, but rather what you started with: getting the master data in place.

What kind of data should we have, and what kinds of assignments should we support? But if we move on a little, Stine, we'll take a look at who has innovated in the field service area. And with that, I'm just going to move us off camera for a moment so we can talk about Miljøpilotene, which is our demo company. Right?

And there we have three roles.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's Erik. He works in customer service, so he receives all kinds of requests, and with some of them, you can see that we need to send someone out to resolve the issue. We can't resolve this without sending someone. And then there's Thomas, who plans and allocates resources. He's the one who maintains the complete overview of resources and equipment and keeps track of everything we have.

Frode Stenstrøm: And it’s very common, Stine, for many customer service centers or similar centers to have an administrative back-office section where they can go in and take a look.

And that's the exciting part here. But then you have Ingrid, who is the one doing the work.

Stine Hansen: That's right, she's basically the one who makes sure the customers are satisfied. She goes out and carries out whatever needs to be done. She's the one who fixes things, performs inspections, and works out in the field. And she uses the mobile application.

Frode Stenstrøm: Which is also part of the platform

Stine Hansen: Right. It’s all on the same platform, isn’t it? Everything is on the same platform.

Frode Stenstrøm: Everything on the same platform, exactly. And the roles we have mentioned now are the most common roles in the field service world. But that does not mean that other roles are not interested in it.

You can let management report on it, and you can let the sales department keep track of how their customers are doing. If you carry out a lot of jobs for a customer, it is useful to know that. You can let the marketing department do what you just mentioned—send out customer satisfaction surveys to follow up on how things are going.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right.

Frode Stenstrøm: So that's that. We've talked about who is involved in the process, and we've talked about who else is involved. I thought we could now discuss the kinds of problems field search solves, so could you summarize some of that?

Stine Hansen: Right. It gives you a complete overview of all the resources you have, whether they are people or equipment, when they work, what skills they have, when they are available, and where they are located.

So you get an overview of everything, allowing you to allocate resources optimally so that you have the right resource for the right job at the right time. This helps you avoid wasted trips.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, it costs money, of course. And in Oslo rush hour, the whole day is gone.

Stine Hansen: Right? So we don't want that. You can extend your planning horizon by using these Agreements, allowing you to specify that all my monthly visits to this customer should be generated six months in advance, so I can see what's actually in the job pipeline.

This gives you effective work order management, because you can see how to maintain an even workload across your resources, avoiding major peaks followed by periods with nothing to do, and distribute the work as efficiently as possible. You also have tools for those working in the field, giving them access to all the information and instructions they need and allowing them to directly enter the hours and equipment used—essentially, everything they do.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and that’s the last one, Stine: reporting and analysis.

Stine Hansen: You get an overview of everything, really—how often this equipment has been serviced, and whether some of it may require far more repairs and maintenance than other equipment. Then you can see that perhaps you should... Choose the equipment that performs best and requires the least follow-up work.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have customers who manufacture their own products and provide their own services—physical products, that is—and each product is stamped with a serial number on the production line. What field service does for them is track where those products were distributed, which customers received them, and the locations to which they were actually delivered.

And that is a fairly key point in enabling precisely this kind of value creation, which we were going to talk a little about.

Stine Hansen: Right, yes. I just had to—there was a minor power issue, so I had to move the charger a bit here. ...

Frode Stenstrøm: Because we've talked about the process, we've talked about who it's for, and then, if a customer chooses to invest in this product, what do they get out of it, Stine?

Stine Hansen: They save a great deal of time. And they get a complete overview. No need for lots of Excel spreadsheets, which I know many people struggle with. You get the full history of everything that has happened on a work order. And for the various assets you have at the customer's site. For example, that sensor. So you can see how... Whether you need to hire more people, for example, or distribute the assignments more effectively. You really get a complete overview of everything.

Frode Stenstrøm: Sell more. But I also think it is a very important element of value creation, and it is about predictability going forward. If you can see that you are fully booked, or that you are selling a subscription for something that means you will be going out to do something for a customer in the third quarter, you get a fairly clear picture of your revenue—not just this year, but perhaps next year and beyond. We also have customers who make a sale today, but where the installation will not take place for another 2–3 years.

Stine Hansen: And then that will be in the project pipeline.

Frode Stenstrøm: And many of those who put it in place may have left during that period, so you have that continuity in it.

Stine Hansen: Yes, all the information is there on that order and on the booking, which may be 2–3 years in the future.

Frode Stenstrøm: So even though it’s called field service, which I think is a somewhat industry-specific term, it’s a tool with so many applications, ranging from IT consultants and auditors to course instructors and healthcare workers. It’s a very versatile product, and I don’t think everyone is equally aware of that when they may be working at a healthcare organization and searching for ways to manage their day-to-day operations.

I don't think people really Google field service at all.

Stine Hansen: I don't think so, perhaps. But given that some people have that expertise while others have completely different skills, you can target things very precisely by using field service.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. So that should at least be a good reason for you to consider the product, because we’re about to show you what it is.

And now, Stine, you're actually going to get started with a short live demo. And you had a little plan for what you wanted to show first, didn't you?

Live demo: Resources and work orders

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. We'll start by looking at resources. I just went straight into the PC here.

Frode Stenstrøm: But we'll just give you a few pointers, some mental reference points, so you can see what we're going to show you.

Stine Hansen: Right. First, we'll look at resources, including their skills and roles. Then we'll go in and show you a little of what work orders can look like, and finally we'll do some booking.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's exactly right.

And that actually brings us to what many people are really asking: show us the money. But today, we’re showing the three things, Stine, and the upcoming webinars will demonstrate very specifically how this works if you’re the person who only handles booking and planning, and what role this plays. That will allow us to explore the product in greater depth, so just keep an eye on our YouTube channel in about a week’s time.

Right. So, Stine, we'll do that with it, and then move it a little over there. Let's see if I can move myself a bit farther into the corner, so I'm out of the way of what you're going to show.

Stine Hansen: Right. So now we're in Field Service, and as some of you who may have attended the seminar earlier will know, this is part of many other modules, such as sales and customer service. So this has its own user interface, and this is the standard Field Service interface, but the features needed to use it as a planner have been selected.

Frode Stenstrøm: I'd like to add a few things. In what Stine is showing, we always present the products without any customization, to demonstrate how complete the product is out of the box. Of course, we will always tailor the product to you and your company. But seeing it as it is gives you a sense of how complete it is before we've done anything to it.

Stine Hansen: Right?

Frode Stenstrøm: And for this webinar and all upcoming webinars, we have created our own little demo company, Miljøpilotene, where Ingrid, Nina, and Vegard each have their own role.

We talked about Eirik earlier, and Kristin, the general manager, in the previous webinar.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: So, it’s basically Norwegian demo data. And this installation is actually running on Norwegian soil.

So everything we show here is available to you on Norwegian soil, which means you know that the data remains in Norway.

Stine Hansen: That's right. So if I now just choose to look at...

Frode Stenstrøm: Ingrid Bakken.

Stine Hansen: Ingrid Bakken, yes. She is a user, and once I’ve entered the address, you can immediately see where she lives in Oslo.

And then I've added some—this is what it's called in the Norwegian translation—skills. She can... She can perform technical building inspections, improve energy efficiency, measure air quality, work with sensor technology, and implement systems. Those are her skills, and in Field Service I've assigned her two roles: inspector and system installer.

So this is where you add everything you need to set up as skills and categories, and you can also add all kinds of custom information that you can later filter by on the planning board.

Frode Stenstrøm: But what you're showing now is just the standard stuff.

Stine Hansen: Completely standard.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what we often do here is add—okay, now you have some characteristics, your level of proficiency, and categories—but you can actually add a great deal of information about that resource here.

Stine Hansen: Right.

Frode Stenstrøm: And in this case, it is an employee, and you can see that the resource can be reserved, but it could also have been External.

Stine Hansen: Right, they could have been external.

Frode Stenstrøm: Or a car.

Stine Hansen: Or a car. Anything—a trailer, anything you use for, well, rentals, for example. Yes. That would be a resource here. Then you can easily see when they are working. So this person, Ingrid, probably works from eight to five, I think. We can look at that on the planning board later.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes.

Stine Hansen: So here you can add regions. There are many different options.

Frode Stenstrøm: But working hours are highly relevant, because you can also enter vacation and absence there.

Stine Hansen: That's right.

Frode Stenstrøm: And a little later...

Stine Hansen: It makes leisure time and holidays very simple, doesn't it?

Frode Stenstrøm: And what is interesting to know is that this resource section you are showing now is not limited to the field service area.

It is the same resource table used by the project management tool, Project Operations. It is the same resource table that can be used by a customer service center for case management.

And you mentioned that, in principle, anything that can be checked off.

So what we see is that, for example, if you have booked 50% of your time to a project, you cannot spend more than 50% of your time on work orders.

This gives you a complete overview of what is happening in your organization.

And I think that is a major strength of the resource table in particular.

Stine Hansen: Right. If I look at all the work orders listed here, we can see that Miljøpilotene has some customers, and some of them—let's see here—have an emergency case. They need immediate help with a system audit and a green roof.

Otherwise, you can see that there are several different types of tasks to be carried out, and this is where they are categorized.

things in the way you need. There are essentially two tables. You have an umbrella category, such as analysis, and then you can have environmental analysis, other analysis, and so on. This means that things are grouped into two levels, which are the standard levels for Field Service.

Frode Stenstrøm: But I think it makes everything very visual, Stine. You can see at a glance whether it is planned or unplanned, whether it is in progress or not, and whether it has been completed or not. So I think it provides a very good overview, and Miljøpilotene provides environmental services and environmental data analysis.

and climate risk assessments and sustainable building inspections or warehouses, they do those, so it makes it a little clearer what is going on here now.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. So now I'm going into the planning board. There are actually two ways to book, using two slightly different boards. So what I'm looking at now is, as you can see, I've created a separate view called field workers, where the users have been filtered, and then I have a separate board called rental equipment, which is a little different. This allows you to filter and separate things and, for example, have regions such as south and north.

Frode Stenstrøm: This really illustrates what we were saying earlier: if you need a consultant out in the field, you can have a view showing only my consultants—you can select just my team.

Stine Hansen: Right?

Frode Stenstrøm: And then, as you mentioned earlier, we can also sell and rent out equipment. If you had a training venue, you could offer training rooms and bookings for resources at the venue.

And that's really exciting, actually.

Stine Hansen: What I wanted to show was that the bookings had different color codes, which is something you can configure yourself. Here you can see that this one is green, which means that the appointment is in progress,

then I can see that you're working as the planner, and you can see when a technician checks in and says, “I'm on site now, the job is in progress,” and you can also see that tomorrow Ingrid has a scheduled job at Grønn Betong, which is shown in a different color, and that's also something you can configure yourself.

Frode Stenstrøm: And it becomes an interactive board, providing excellent visibility into each individual job, so you can simply point to it and see what it involves.

Stine Hansen: Right? And it’s also possible to customize what is shown here, right? Because this may not be all that intuitive, so you could say we don’t want this here, where it says: Is it on-site, or is it

on Teams, it's a meeting, right?

and it is on site, as the next image should show, if we take this emergency booking. Here I am working as a planner, and I can see that an urgent work order has come in. So we need to book it right away.

Frode Stenstrøm: But how do you do that?

Stine Hansen: Then I can search to see who is available.

Then I can click on it.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then you can see which of your resources are available.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. So then I can...

Frode Stenstrøm: View it either as a board or as a list, yes.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. And what it does now is based on the fact that you have an address for the customer where the work is to be carried out, as well as the resource's home address.

So here, it was very small, but it said on it...

Frode Stenstrøm: I see that the requirement was five hours, and he is available at 5:38, so I suppose that's why he's suggesting that time slot.

Stine Hansen: But the thing is, this also takes travel time into account.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, I see that. Yes, he did. He calculates the travel time, yes.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. It happened that there was a little, let's see, here

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, it's a few minutes.

Stine Hansen: Then you can see an eight-minute travel time.

Frode Stenstrøm: It’s not during Oslo rush hour, at least.

Stine Hansen: No, this is in Bergen.

Frode Stenstrøm: There are some rush-hour traffic jams in Bergen now.

Stine Hansen: Maybe after the rush, but then the system can check—it takes into account where the person lives and where the assignment is, and can select whoever is suitable. And then you can book that person here.

Order annual pay. Then you’ll also see the number of kilometers here.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes.

And then it is converted from an unplanned work order to a planned order.

Stine Hansen: Right. So you can see that a booking has been created here, and then you can see that there is a red indicator up in the corner here, which means that it is an emergency and has high priority. And if I go back to Ingrid, I can see all of her bookings and whether they are planned, completed, or in progress.

So then I can view the history for the resource, but also for the customer. Who has been there? And you can see in an agreement that a specific person is assigned to visit the customer, which can save some time.

Frode Stenstrøm: And it shows the duration, order type, and everything else, so it’s all connected, really.

But I also think what’s interesting is that once you’ve planned a few things, everyday life takes over, and then someone calls in sick.

Stine Hansen: Right?

Frode Stenstrøm: So what?

Stine Hansen: Then you can go back to the planning board and say that he is ill. Place a new order or order a replacement, so that is also...

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, so no one was available for that particular booking at the moment.

Stine Hansen: There are only three resources listed here, and Vegard is the only one in Bergen. So they actually need to hire another person in Bergen.

Frode Stenstrøm: But that is the reality for most people who work with these kinds of issues: production proceeds as usual, it is planned, and then there are daily changes, and being able to make those changes,

Stine Hansen: That's right, yes.

So you can do that on the screen we're currently on.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, so we've demonstrated three things.

Stine Hansen: So, we've demonstrated three things. In a week, we can take a closer look at booking. You can actually book several people at the same time, in multiple roles. We can also sort by region and go into a little more detail about resource management and work orders, including how to set them up with different events, for example, and link them to the customer's assets, and things like that.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that’s what we want to do, because then we can use a webinar to dive straight into a specific issue and get an even better sense of how advanced yet easy to use it is. Because yes, it is easy to use, but it still covers every possible use case.

Summary and next steps

Frode Stenstrøm: Well, let's see, I think we're actually nearing the end, Stine. What have we learned today?

Stine Hansen: We’ve talked somewhat superficially about what shared services are. It’s your master data, the resources you have, the equipment you have available for rent or want to keep track of, the needs of your customers, and creating an asset register of what you own or have installed at customers’ premises that you need to return to and inspect regularly.

We have talked about how it ensures that you get the right resource to the right job at the right time, and that the customer can be informed in advance so they know you are coming and the door is open, allowing you to go straight in and do what you need to do. And we have touched on what it looks like.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and today we've really only touched briefly on what it looks like, but first and foremost, today's goal was to understand what the product is and which problems it solves.

So next week, we’d like to welcome you back for a deep dive, as they say in Norwegian, into the role where you book and plan, and the various scenarios that may arise. If you have any specific questions for us about this, please feel free to ask them in the comments below on our YouTube channel, and we’ll make sure they’re answered in next week’s broadcast.

So stay tuned on YouTube. And Stine, thank you so much for your contribution to today’s broadcast. If you have any questions, as mentioned, just ask. If you want more professional insights, subscribe to the channel. And if you enjoyed it, click like and share it with your friends. As always, you can find the broadcast on the YouTube channel and at prosesspilotene.no.

The broadcast is produced by Prosesspilotene, which increases the value of your customers through the use of Microsoft technology. Our analytics team can help you create high-quality reports, forecasting models, data warehouses, and artificial intelligence models. The collaboration team can help you create customer club websites, mobile applications, and field service applications.

They handle most aspects of communication into and out of the Dynamics platform. I, Frode Stenstrøm, have been responsible for this broadcast, together with project manager Oddbjørg Berge. With the hope of better work processes for everyone, see you again next week.