In this installment of our webinar series on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, we focus on scheduling work orders and how this should be done to ensure efficient and well-organized service delivery. You will see a demo and a practical walkthrough of how you can use Field Service to streamline the scheduling and execution of work in the field: from automatically assigning work orders to the right person based on skills and geographical location, to optimal route planning and real-time updates for customers. You will also learn how to improve customer satisfaction by providing more accurate arrival times and up-to-date information throughout the process. In this webinar, we cover:

This video is relevant for anyone working in service delivery, maintenance, or technical support who wants to improve their company's efficiency, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction.

Watch the presentation and demo on our YouTube channel. Watch the recording here:

Here you can read the transcript of the webinar from September 18, 2024: How to schedule work orders in Dynamics 365 Field Service?

Introduction to Dynamics 365 Field Service

Frode Stenstrøm: Do you find it challenging to keep track of your work assignments, bookings, equipment and resources deployed in the field, and the service technicians and/or equipment you have rented out? There is a very simple way to get this under control: use the Dynamics 365 Field Service application to book your work orders and equipment.

In today's webinar, we'll show you how to carry out these processes, both for equipment management and work orders.

Meet the expert: Stine

Frode Stenstrøm: Joining us in the studio is Stine, who will show us exactly how this works. Welcome back, Stine.

Stine Hansen: Thank you very much.

Frode Stenstrøm: For those who didn't know from last week, you can watch Stine explain what Dynamics 365 Field Service is.

Today, we’ll explore the question of how, from the perspective of

Stine Hansen: planner.

Frode Stenstrøm: For planning

Stine Hansen: Yes, the people who are there and keep track of what... What the company owns and has, and

Frode Stenstrøm: what needs to be done. And we’re planning to run more webinars like this for the other roles, but we’re focusing on the person whose actual job and function is to plan bookings and work orders, ensuring that the right resource is in the right place at the right time.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's right. And you, Stine, are an expert and specialist in field service.

Stine Hansen: Yes, I would say so.

Frode Stenstrøm: Former youth politician

Stine Hansen: I used to be involved in politics and spent some time on it later in adulthood too. But now it's just...

Frode Stenstrøm: Just a marathon runner!

Stine Hansen: We'll see how it goes.

Practical information about today's broadcast

Frode Stenstrøm: My name is Frode Stenstrøm. I’ll be co-hosting with Stine today. A little practical information about today’s broadcast: As usual, we’re streaming live on YouTube, so this is an interactive broadcast. Just tell us who you are and say hello. That way, we can answer any questions that come up along the way. As always, we’ll add subtitles to the video. We’ll also add chapters so you can watch the parts of the video that are most relevant to you. Stine, what specifically were you planning to show?

Equipment registration

Stine Hansen: First, we'll talk a little about how to register equipment. This can also apply when you have installed equipment at customer sites. But you may also have equipment that you rent out, and this also involves registering your own resources—both people and sensors, which we'll show later.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and what were you going to show next?

Creating assignments and templates

Stine Hansen: That was how to create work orders. And there are many different ways to set up templates. For example, if you have a specific task, such as calibrating a sensor, there may be certain things that should always happen every time that job is performed. So, we will show you how to set up those templates here, so you don't have to do it all over again every single time.

We will also take a closer look at checklists. And when you have something like a sensor calibration, there may be a competency requirement associated with it, which then ties in with the competencies previously registered for the resources. So we will try to establish a clear link between the resources we register and how we book those people for assignments.

So we'll show you how to make bookings, as well as some of the master data you can enter, because there are many different areas, tables, categories, tags, and lots of other things that help you gain full control over everything the company has. I'll show you a little about how to do that.

Frode Stenstrøm: And Stine, we've created our regular company, which I've called Miljøpilotene FS, Fictitious Company.

Stine Hansen: That's right, that's correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: It is the new recognized company form in the Brønnøysund Register, Fictitious Company

It became so today, and then explained to Frode Stenstrøm.

Stine Hansen: You are the CEO and fill every role.

Frode Stenstrøm: No, it's not Kristin who is. Kristin, that's right.

Stine Hansen: But a little about the Environmental Pilots: we focus on environmentally friendly innovation and sustainable technology.

And we have various measuring instruments installed at some customers’ sites, which measure things like environmental footprints and emissions. Among them, we have a number of water quality sensors that check the water to determine the levels of various substances, including pollutants, as well as temperature, flow, and many other parameters.

And then we have dust and particulate matter monitors to assess air quality.

We also have more, but we'll come back to these two a little later.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what I find exciting about this in particular is that these solutions are highly relevant to a great many municipalities in Norway. Water utilities, for example, that need to monitor water metering and things like that. And last week we talked about what a field service application can be used for, and using it for municipal tasks, among other things, has enormous potential.

Stine Hansen: Right. And in lots of places, yes. At all construction sites and in many other settings, to measure dust and pollution. And we have some skilled, dedicated technicians at Miljøpilotene who travel around and carry out various installations, calibrations, repairs, and so on. And there are different tasks, events, and competency requirements associated with these types of assignments.

Frode Stenstrøm: And this forms the basis for the demo scenario we're using today, and we hope it will be relevant to the situation you have back home. And there wasn't really much more than that to cover in the introduction, Stine. Now you're going to switch over to your PC, aren't you?

Stine Hansen: That's right. So we'll be on this screen for most of the rest of the webinar.

If you just load it, it will appear there.

So the first thing I'm going to talk about is how to register equipment at the customer's site. And I'm sure many of you watching may currently have this registered in various Excel spreadsheets, which is something we can quite easily replace with Dynamics Field Service.

Frode Stenstrøm: Absolutely.

Stine Hansen: So if, for example, we go into a... Customer here called Fjordlaks oppdrett, you can see that we have two water quality sensors at that customer's site. So if I open this one, you can see the basic registration details. You can have a category, which I've filled in.

Frode Stenstrøm: Water quality meter.

Stine Hansen: Pretty straightforward... and you can also link it to a product; we mentioned that briefly last week as well. That gives you an overview—here, I’ve added a number at the end, so you could have a separate field for the serial number, for example. You can then see all the equipment registered to the various customers and which products they have.

So if you discover that there is something wrong with the product, you can quickly see how many need to be checked.

Frode Stenstrøm: One question that often comes up with assets like these, Stine, and that we often discuss with customers, is whether it is possible to have multiple levels of assets.

Stine Hansen: Right, that was exactly what I was about to mention, wasn't it?

Frode Stenstrøm: Oh, was it?

Stine Hansen: I thought you had read my mind. Here, you can set up multiple hierarchies, meaning multiple levels. So here it says it is subordinate to active, and then I can click Create here. And if I then say that this was perhaps a pH meter that was under the Aqua sensor.

Frode Stenstrøm: The closest I can get to any chemistry knowledge I had two years ago.

Stine Hansen: Right? So we'll just call this one water quality. You could create a separate category for pH measurement, for example, but it's registered to Fjordlaks.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what you can see now is that she is filling in these parameters. This doesn't involve any development. The product is already finished, so the work has really been about defining how the assets are described.

And I’ve seen some examples of our customers using that information in their communications, so that if something happens and they need to recall products, they suddenly know which products to recall, from whom, and where, saving themselves a lot of money.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right.

So I have already set up a water quality measurement where I have added four subordinates. And if I go there now—there was a bit of clicking back here—but in the overview I can now see that there is one of these

hierarchy icon

here. If I click on it, I can get an overview of how ...

Frode Stenstrøm: How the hierarchy is structured.

Stine Hansen: Right? So one of the challenges when we start working with a new customer is figuring out how to import a large Excel spreadsheet and determine what should be at the top, what should be underneath, and how everything should be structured. But field service is flexible enough that this can be solved in many different ways. And any data you want to record about the equipment can easily be added here as new fields.

Frode Stenstrøm: Great

It's absolutely fantastic. Are there any limits to how deep you can build this hierarchy? Is it limited to just two levels, or can you make it as deep as you want? I'm not saying it's a good idea to make it that deep, but... You can't make it as deep as you want?

Stine Hansen: It is certainly possible to have multiple layers. I haven't tested what the maximum is, but I think 2–3 is probably reasonable.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, exactly.

Stine Hansen: But it is at least possible to add it. Here you can see that Field Service has a standard field called activate at the highest level, so it is possible that when you add multiple layers, you will always see what is at the top on the lowest layer.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Stine Hansen: So that's kind of exciting.

And then, one thing is that you have two hierarchies for the equipment, or the customer asset.

Customer asset, as it is called in English—there are a lot of terms here.

What is a functional location?

Stine Hansen: You can also specify that a customer has different pieces of equipment, and that equipment can be located at different sites. Field Service has something called a functional location. So, to demonstrate that, I'll go to this one.

The customer I mentioned briefly earlier is Fjordlaks Oppdrett. Here we have an overview of Fjordlaks' locations. Let's see if it takes

a little time here.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have to give it time to load; we are running a live demo, after all. But this is highly relevant because you are now showing the connection between the types of equipment we have, where they are located, and which locations we have. And as we discussed last week, Stine, the customer had created a Google Map showing where everything was installed.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that is now essentially handled by this functionality.

Stine Hansen: That's right. Two locations have been registered for this customer, and Fjordlaks fish farming is registered at one of them,

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes.

Stine Hansen: You have a site with several onshore facilities. Then there are fish pens a short distance away, but you want to register it under one customer instead of having lots of registered customers and creating a hierarchy. Instead, you have one customer and use the functional locations to specify where the equipment is located.

Frode Stenstrøm: A fish farming company that may have facilities in Tromsø, Finnmark, Oslo, and Bergen—can they have multiple locations?

Stine Hansen: Yes, it can. Field Service is very flexible in that respect, so you can decide for yourself how you want to set it up. If the locations are far apart, I might divide them into different customers. But say you have one sensor in one place and another sensor somewhere else, and you want to organize them into groups, then you can use these locations.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I know that Field Service supports map coordinates, so you can plot it not only by postal address, but also by physical and geographical coordinates. So those who work with navigational markers could use it to pinpoint which markers they have maintained, when, and where.

Stine Hansen: Right. You can add longitude and latitude to these.

If we look at the geocoding for this one, we can see where it is located.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that was exactly what one of our customers asked about last week—whether it would be possible to add it. Right? Yes. It's spot on.

Stine Hansen: So this now applies to the functional location, and a couple of years ago, that was an area where geolocation wasn't available.

But it has been available for customers and work orders for a long time. So here you get an overview of where things are.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. I’d like to add something while you find the next item, Stine, and that is that the things we’re showing now—assets—often have accounting implications. They may be capital goods that need to be recognized on the balance sheet while on loan to customers, or require some other form of accounting treatment.

And this is a very common service we provide: connecting the asset register in field service to an ERP system, an accounting system, to show which assets we have in terms of impairment, depreciation, and all the other relevant parameters. And when we talk about the Internet of Things—that is, monitoring and sensor networks—these are the assets we can monitor.

Stine Hansen: Right, so then you go straight to the customer equipment. This is a live demo, so typically something that was working just before we went live might not work, but we'll just show another customer instead.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes.

Stine Hansen: If we go into...

Frode Stenstrøm: No, it was slow today.

Stine Hansen: So that was...

That was what I was looking for on the other customer as well, so we'll try to show it here. Here, I would then get an overview of all locations,

So when I click Show active, I can then stay on—now I'm in the customer record—and get an overview of all the equipment that customer has.

Frode Stenstrøm: Correct.

Stine Hansen: So I think we should try accessing Fjordlaks again and see.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, because it had quite a lot, there was a lot...

Stine Hansen: Where I've added a few things, right? So here I can see how—here are the locations, and I can structure them. And if I enable the option to also show all the equipment, I can see where the various assets are. And this can become quite a large diagram.

But then you get a complete overview of what is installed at the customer's site. And that's very useful when you're heading out on a job. Because if the customer calls and says, “Oh, this sensor here,” or “I'm at cage 1, as I just mentioned, and I can see a sensor,” then we can link the job to the correct sensor when we create it.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and the case. Right?

Stine Hansen: So here you get an overview of the sites, and not all customers need to divide them into locations, but it is very useful for some, so it’s good that this is possible.

Frode Stenstrøm: And we have seen in a number of projects that these assets are often linked to a serial number from the factory, and there is often a fairly clear distinction between production systems and field service, because their factory may manufacture a product, which is then assigned a serial number, and field service will then want an overview of which serial numbers are installed where.

Stine Hansen: Right? Yes, that's exactly what we're seeing here, because for now I've just assigned a made-up number to these sensors, but it could have been a serial number, right? That way, you can get an overview of

Frode Stenstrøm: By the way, you can see the hierarchy now. When I asked, you created the PO meter for it. Yes, that's right. Then it appears in the hierarchy again.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: Because that's something we also know: we have some customers with equipment where they may need to replace some of it, and then they move some of it to another customer.

Stine Hansen: That's right, yes, and then you can go into,

I can just double-click it and specify that it is being moved to another location or another customer. That way, you don't have to delete it in one place and create it somewhere else. Move.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that way, you retain the service history and everything associated with that equipment.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: As we said in the previous webinar, it is actually quite clear that people who only need an overview of customer assets and do not work with work orders at all can simply use this part of the Dyniamics platform and be perfectly satisfied.

Stine Hansen: Yes, exactly. This is low-hanging fruit for many people, and it doesn't take very long to get started either. A lot of the data is entered by you, such as which equipment categories to use. We don't need to help with that; you can manage and enter it yourselves. And other possible types and...

The challenge is really how to structure it so that what you have today fits and can be incorporated.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. No, I thought this was good, Stine. And there's something you haven't mentioned this time, but we always say it: We use the standard system without customizing it. This means that we only enter demo data.

And there is nothing stopping you from creating another field called serial number or production date, or for any other information you want. An asset can be physical equipment, but it can also be a room—anything classified as a resource can be considered an asset in this context.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Resource management and expertise

Stine Hansen: So, I think we can move on to resources.

Frode Stenstrøm: The resources section, yes.

Stine Hansen: We’ve added a few more resources here than we had last week

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, now we have the whole team on board.

Stine Hansen: Right. I’m on frontline workers now, but you can also start with equipment, because we at Miljøpiloten actually have a couple of sensors that we can rent out or use ourselves. Rather than everyone needing their own, we travel around and take some measurements, and that can be registered here as equipment.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that's fun—you could actually run a car rental company?

Stine Hansen: Yes, actually. You can rent out cars, trailers, excavators, and all kinds of other equipment. And you can set different working hours for equipment, because equipment can be rented 24/7, whereas a person can't work around the clock—they usually work 8 to 4 or 9 to 5—but you can set those working hours here as well.

And what I was thinking was to show you how I create a new equipment-type resource. And this field is something I can use to filter by later when I need to find what I want to book. But since I want to create equipment, I can just call it...

And here I could have added a field linking to the asset we showed. But this is the demo environment, so we haven't made any customizations yet.

Frode Stenstrøm: Just to give an example, if you had equipment—some equipment has its own web interfaces that show its status—you could enter the equipment's web address and monitor it directly.

Even the rowing machine at our gym is connected to the internet, so that's pretty cool.

Stine Hansen: So really, you should have added the equipment you have at your gym to...

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, I probably should have done that.

Stine Hansen: So I thought I'd show how easy it is to

Frode Stenstrøm: edit the working hours.

Stine Hansen: So let's say that from now on, since it's the equipment that's doing the work, changes can be made to a person afterward.

But here it says Wednesday 8 a.m.–5 p.m., so I just changed that, because it used to be 24/7, but I think it’s more interesting to look at the frontline workers we have, since it’s a little more relevant to add skills and categories then.

Frode Stenstrøm: But it is still relevant, because if you run a customer service center and want to plan who is on duty, you can use the same system to keep track of your shift schedules and that sort of thing.

Stine Hansen: Right. And as you can see, these people are also linked to different units. In Miljøpilotene, we have created what you might call five offices.

Frode Stenstrøm: They look very similar to the ProsessPilotene offices, Stine.

Stine Hansen: Did they? That was strange.

Frode Stenstrøm: Except for Bergen, that is, but it’s coming.

Stine Hansen: Maybe it will. But at least Bergen, Stavanger, Asker, Moss and Hamar.

And so, when you open a resource—let's open Amina—you can see that you can add ... Yes. Skills, right? And it's very easy, because we've already registered quite a few of these in the system. So I can just add that. And there's no need to use the ranking here.

The simplest approach might be that you either have the skill or you don't. But she has now been given a new skill. And it works exactly the same way with roles. If I click on it, I can add a new role or remove one. And here we can see that I have set the organizational unit to Bergen. She has also been given an address. And when I make a booking, I can decide which starting address the person has—that is, when they start their working day, whether they should travel from the office or from their home address.

So that does make a difference. For example, if you have hired people who live far apart so they can take on different assignments, you can send different people than if everyone goes to the office first.

Frode Stenstrøm: they come to work.

Stine Hansen: So here you can take into account that it may be easier for the person to start, so

Frode Stenstrøm: You can start at the office, but you can finish at home, for example.

Stine Hansen: Right? Yes, exactly. So there’s a lot of flexibility around...

Frode Stenstrøm: How you build up time.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. Okay.

And here we've already entered the working hours, so I thought I'd add a request for vacation—or rather, time off. So let's say that next week I work

Amina isn't working; she has been given a week off. Save.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then one appears as blocked.

Stine Hansen: So then you can see that she isn't working.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that's why I say, going back to using fragments and assets, it's great if that's all you need. If you need a simple, super-simple HR system that gives you an overview of your resources and their capabilities, use it. We've been doing that at ProsessPilotene for quite a few years now.

Stine Hansen: Right, because Field Service covers a lot, and you don't have to use everything. You can start by getting an overview of the resources, or simply by getting an overview of everything located at customer sites. Then you can build it up step by step, and everything works together.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what we have done at ProsessPilotene when adapting it to our world is, for example, to add information about the courses and certifications the consultants have, and many companies need to know whether they have completed a safety course or not.

Stine Hansen: Yes, if someone has security clearance, you can register that—anything, really. And the thing is, you don't need to ask us for help to add anything new; it's very easy to do directly in your administration center in Field Service. So I can show you that briefly before I move on. Let's see. Here you can see all the attributes that have been added...

Frode Stenstrøm: Which are registered for each individual resource, yes.

Stine Hansen: If I go into this one, then. Now I got in by identifier

Frode Stenstrøm: New trademark, yes.

Stine Hansen: So then I can create a new one. Do you have a good example?

Frode Stenstrøm: No, I was just improvising, Stine, but...

Stine Hansen: Yes, then we'll move on to environmental implementation.

Frode Stenstrøm: It has to be a word.

Stine Hansen: Yes, it’s not that simple.

We'll just enter something. It's a certification. Save and close. It was that simple. And now I can go back to Amina and register the one we just created.

Frode Stenstrøm: And this really just comes down to what we've said many times now. That's simply the job. The job is primarily just to add the parameter settings before you start customizing the system beyond that and adapting everything like that, yes.

Stine Hansen: Exactly. So what we would have done is perhaps make the forms look a little nicer. Remove everything you don't need. But much of the work is really about entering all the data and structuring it.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. So, we’ve now covered two things, Stine. We’ve looked at assets, and then we’ve looked at resources.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: And how you both create assets when maintaining assets, and the same applies to resources.

Stine Hansen: Right. And it looks pretty simple, doesn't it?

Frode Stenstrøm: No, I think it is—I don't understand why they don't just buy it.

Stine Hansen: So the next thing we'll look at is how to create and manage work orders.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

The Importance of Master Data

Stine Hansen: Before I get into that, I thought I would talk a little about the master data that can be entered into the system. When you create a work order—let's say we have a job in Norway—it could be anywhere, but to make things a little easier for the planners, it can be divided into districts.

So here I've created one district per county, as of 2024. It has changed a little, but that's the current setup. This means you can see that, okay, this job is linked to... Østfold, for example. If it's a job in Moss, you'd generally want a technician from the Moss office.

Frode Stenstrøm: Preferably.

Stine Hansen: Preferably. And the way we’ve structured our organizational units, if a company has different offices, you can add that and tag the various resources accordingly. I’ve also set up...

Frode Stenstrøm: The postal code table?

Stine Hansen: All postal codes, retrieved from Bring, and then analyzed by service district.

So what happens now is that when a work order is assigned postal code 0034, the service district is set automagically.

Frode Stenstrøm: Automatically, yes.

Stine Hansen: Automagically, because that's how we've set it up here.

Frode Stenstrøm: How fun!

Stine Hansen: So, for example... This is my old postal code, and you can see that if there is a job at that address, you can access it right away. That means you don't have to wonder where the job is or what to send, and here you can structure things according to how you want to work, how you want to plan, and which regions you operate in.

And then there are the different location types, as we mentioned earlier, which are things you configure entirely yourselves. Here, I’ve just set up an onshore assignment facility and a fish-farming pen, and basically just asked chat-GPT what might be a sensible location type. But you know what you need to enter, and everything I’ve shown now is data that you enter yourselves and use as needed.

Prioritization of work orders

Stine Hansen: Now, when we go into... work orders, you can see that some have higher priorities than others. Emergency—here you can set a color and create new priorities. And again, this is something you can do entirely on your own. I can simply create a low priority, set it, and then choose which color it should have. So it’s very easy to add.

Frode Stenstrøm: And we'll also see this on the booking board later, when you show the actual booking.

To be able to distinguish less important tasks from those that are critical.

Stine Hansen: So, I think we can go into work orders now. Here is the front page with some tips about new features. Here you can see some of the colors we were talking about. Emergency is here. You can see that it is red, and now you can see that a new one has appeared

So if I set it to low, it will be the blue one that I selected.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I see that you can sort by this too.

Stine Hansen: Right, so there weren't any here.

How to create and customize work orders?

Stine Hansen: So what I was wondering now was how easy it is to create a new one.

And then I’m going to take a step back and look at what I’ve set up in the background, so to speak. Now I’m going to show you a bit of how it works. I’ve added a template, and then I’ll apply it and see that things are added automatically. On a work order, you can specify who we’re going to perform the service for. And that may not be the same customer who will be paying for it.

So then you have... You can specify... For example, if you have a service agreement, during the service period someone else may be responsible for paying for a repair than after that period has expired.

Frode Stenstrøm: I also think this is highly relevant, because very often the company has entered into a service agreement under which it invoices for service throughout the year, and in that case, you should not necessarily invoice for each individual job, because it has already been invoiced through the service agreement.

Stine Hansen: Right?

Frode Stenstrøm: It may be the parent company that pays for the service assignment for its subsidiaries,

so it's very useful to be able to separate them out.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Categorization and planning

Stine Hansen: And then there’s the work order type, which is essentially a new way of categorizing things. So here we’ve added calculation, inspection, and installation, and it serves as an umbrella for everything we do.

Yes. So, for example, we'll choose one simply called... Installation. And then you can optionally add an event type as well. But I want to do it a little differently. I'll leave it blank. And then you enter when this is to be carried out. So it will be carried out next week.

Frode Stenstrøm: I see you're entering a range.

Does that mean you're telling the customer that I promise this will be fixed, for example, in week 40?

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right.

Because once I've set the start and end times, the system will try to find out who is available at that exact time. You can add many different things to a work order. We talked a little about equipment.

Frode Stenstrøm: I see it says “own assets” behind your menu.

Overview and reporting

Stine Hansen: Here you can see that an inspection is required for existing equipment in the field.

Then I create it. And then I see that I’m going out to Green Concrete. I think they had something... So I go in and check which assets they have first. Yes, indeed. There were lots of sensors here, so we can check those.

What I want is to have... There are five different sensors at the customer's site. So if I want to have one inspection per sensor, I create separate events.

So, for example, for calibration, I specify that it should be related to...

Frode Stenstrøm: The sensor that reported yours.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: And this is where we can retrieve your data directly from the sensor again.

Stine Hansen: Yes, exactly. You switch on this Internet of Things system, and then you get an error message. Something is happening. There are far too many large particles in the air. We need to go out and check whether something needs to be done or whether the sensor is broken.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Stine Hansen: So then I create an event related to this. And then I say that I want another one.

You can also apply a filter here so that you only see customer assets related to that customer. This is a setting that can be turned on and off in the system. Should there be a validation to ensure that the equipment you are inspecting belongs to the customer? Or could it belong to someone else?

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and that's actually highly relevant, because the customer may have the equipment, but you don't have a service agreement, or they may have paid you to monitor it, for example. Yes, that's great.

Stine Hansen: So you can control that yourself, and decide how you want it to work... Whether or not the system should block it, in a way.

So I can see that in this assignment, there are two particulate matter and particle sensors that need to be inspected. And if I go to tasks now, you can see that quite a few things were filled in without me having to do anything.

Automation, checklists, and templates

Stine Hansen: Because I've already set it up—I've cheated a little in advance—and specified that when you add that event, three tasks should be created.

Frode Stenstrøm: And these are the three tasks that are triggered, and they appear twice because you added two different sensors, I see.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: So it will be a predefined checklist, then.

Stine Hansen: Right. And then the technician who is on site can use the mobile application, check it off, and enter how much time they actually spent.

And then you can see how much time was actually spent on this job versus how much time you thought it would take.

Frode Stenstrøm: And how far you've come.

Stine Hansen: Right. And it may be that, okay, this is what's predefined, but you can easily add another task.

Frode Stenstrøm: You're missing, like

yes, testing.

Stine Hansen: Testing. Now it got a bit like this...

Frode Stenstrøm: A bit long?

Stine Hansen: Yes. Let's see.

Frode Stenstrøm: Save, yes.

Stine Hansen: So, let's see if we can...

Frode Stenstrøm: There that task appeared again. There it is.

Stine Hansen: There you go. So that was the last one I added here. You can make changes along the way. Things aren't set in stone, even if you have a template that adds them in advance.

Frode Stenstrøm: And the service technician doing the job can also add tasks.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: If the customer asks for something else or something like that, then this essentially becomes... Everything we're talking about now is a work order or an order, and that then forms the basis for invoicing in the next round.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Products and services

Stine Hansen: And the next thing I was going to show was products and services.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, because that is one of the tasks, and now it’s the products, yes.

Stine Hansen: Right? And that's also something that can be set up in advance for the different events that I'll show you later. If you select a certain event, there might be three products that should automatically be included. And then... They appear, just like the tasks that popped up when I showed you earlier.

Or you can add the product here. Maybe you need to add another Aqua sensor.

Frode Stenstrøm: And next again, do you have inventory information? You didn't mention that earlier, but we do have an inventory function here, so service vehicles and that sort of thing, consumables that are used more frequently, have also been taken into consideration here now.

Stine Hansen: That's right. Yes, you can track inventory in Field Service. I think we'll have to cover that in a future webinar. That's absolutely right. But at least you can get an overview of how many you have left in stock, and you can have different types of products, because some may be unlimited—for example, if you're simply offering a service.

Some had been added here...

Frode Stenstrøm: From the work order, I see?

Stine Hansen: Right, so then they came with...

Frode Stenstrøm: As services?

Stine Hansen: Yes, but I haven't entered a price here. I just entered something so I could see that it was included.

Frode Stenstrøm: But I think perhaps the most important thing we're talking about here is that a work order brings together all the tasks performed, all the services charged for, and all the products sold in a single financial unit.

Stine Hansen: That's right, and then you can link it to equipment at the customer's site, so the equipment will show the history of all previous inspections. And you can have products, tasks, and checklists all in one place, on the work order.

Booking and resource allocation based on availability

Frode Stenstrøm: But something has happened here now, Stine? I see that booking suggestions have appeared.

Stine Hansen: Yes, exactly. So you can see that the system wants us to book a resource, and it has provided us with some good suggestions. You can also see here that... We have been given a suggestion for a person, including travel time. So what I want to do now—I could click here and simply book someone, but I think I’ll first show you a little of what’s behind this.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have covered the assets part,

we have covered resources, we looked briefly at how to change the parameter settings for the resources, and then we covered how to actually place an order.

Stine Hansen: We have created a work order

Frode Stenstrøm: Created a work order.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right.

Frode Stenstrøm: Okay, and now we're moving on to the booking, where we assign a resource to a work order.

Stine Hansen: That's right. And here the system provides suggestions. Vegard Olsen lives 16.5 kilometers from the customer, and it estimates that his journey will take 21 minutes. Since his working day starts at nine o'clock, it says he can take this job from 9:21.

So then I think we’ll just—or the estimated arrival time is 9:21—I think we’ll just book it.

Ta-da!

Frode Stenstrøm: And then he is booked for that order.

Stine Hansen: Correct, and then you can see that the work orders now have a new status, indicating that they are now scheduled.

And when Vegard Olsen starts working, the status will change to in progress. It will then be shown in green. So that’s how we can see and track it.

But what I wanted to go back to briefly is how to set up those work order templates.

Flexibility, customization, and changes to work orders

Stine Hansen: Because if you need to create a work order and add products, services, and tasks over and over again, you can have the system do it for you. So you can do that, right?

I'll show you how to do it quite easily. We're currently looking at an event type here, and I want to specify that when I create a work order with this event type, then—yes, if I simply add a product here, it should be added to the work order.

Frode Stenstrøm: I think you need to set the quantity to 1.

Stine Hansen: I might need a name too.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, you need that too.

Stine Hansen: Let's see.

Frode Stenstrøm: No, you don't have to, but...

Stine Hansen: Adding that, then perhaps it was already stated here that there was a...

Frode Stenstrøm: A service, yes.

Stine Hansen: That were there. And then there were these tasks that we showed appeared automatically. So I'll see how easy or difficult it is to create a new one here, let's see. Creating a new one, testing, and then I've just added a few

Save and close. Then I forgot to set the duration.

Frode Stenstrøm: Which is the standard allotted time for carrying out that type of assignment.

Stine Hansen: And

then I’ll go back to the order. But we can see that when you set it up, you get the order in which things should be done and so on. And then there’s something called an inspector, which I haven’t added here, but that’s an even more meticulous way of setting up these kinds of checklists. So we can come back to that in a later webinar.

But you can also specify the competency requirements for this type of assignment. And that is why we started by registering competencies for resources. Because once that is in place, you can specify on the work orders what is actually required.

So I can say that if I add another competency now, the resource we are using may no longer be qualified. But... That’s how easy—or difficult—it was to add a new competency requirement to that event. All of this is something every customer can manage themselves: adding and setting up templates and building

the model.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then basically build a template for a work order.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: And you can start small. You don't have to add lots of tasks, but you can at least start small and let it grow.

Stine Hansen: Right.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I’m also thinking that, for those of you who may run a cleaning company, some clients will want the beds changed as part of the cleaning job, while others won’t.

Stine Hansen: Right?

Frode Stenstrøm: So it’s really great to include that part as well.

Stine Hansen: Right. And one of the things I’ve shown is that you don’t have to add anything. For example, you can simply have a work assignment that is based only on region, where you need someone who lives in or is in the same organizational unit or the same county.

But then it’s actually very scalable to set up, meaning it’s very flexible to configure what you need.

Frode Stenstrøm: So, we have the work orders and the bookings, but is there anything else on the booking board that would be useful to show in terms of how you work?

So, we can go back to the planning board, because as we mentioned earlier, when we were looking at the work order list, it was actually the system that made a suggestion to us.

But sometimes you may want to work a little more manually, and now we can see that we have a lot of resources here. Perhaps an emergency or a high-priority job comes in.

Stine Hansen: You can stay here and open the other board. You can then check who is available. Bjørn was here too, so I can select him. I think it's easiest to see where he has appeared—there he was.

Frode Stenstrøm: There you popped up, yes.

Stine Hansen: So then I can click on it and make a booking. And you can see that the system has taken the travel time beforehand into account.

And it is also possible to work a little more manually and filter out, for example, all the resources who live in Oslo to see whether they are available. Because once you start filling up all the resources, there may be lots of bookings assigned to everyone here. And then, if you see that this person is available, perhaps they can take on a rush job like that or do something a little more ad hoc.

But in any case, this board gives you a complete overview of all the resources. And that applies to both field workers and equipment.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Stine Hansen: Because here I have...

Frode Stenstrøm: So then you can see where the equipment is booked and located, whether it is loan equipment or permanently installed.

Stine Hansen: That's right. So I can... Let's see, I know I've made a few bookings for the equipment. Not always that long ago, but it shows where it is.

Frode Stenstrøm: You can use both the weekly view and the monthly view, so it’s not difficult to find when there were any bookings.

Stine Hansen: And then I can use this and make adjustments here, so it's a little easier to fit even more onto the board.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what is very important about the booking board—we've been talking a little about assigning a booking order to a resource, and then it stays there. But for many people, this is actually their source of revenue; in other words, all the sales that have been made for the future are now shown there. And that provides a good forecast of future sales.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's right. And as you can see, we've set the working hours from 8 to 4, so the time outside those hours is grayed out.

Frode Stenstrøm: In the other areas, yes.

Stine Hansen: Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: And you will also see vacation absences here.

Stine Hansen: Right? If I go to maybe next week, then...

Frode Stenstrøm: Honestly, I can't quite remember who you made a series about.

Stine Hansen: I thought it was Amina, but maybe it was someone else.

That made me a little unsure. At least that will be grayed out.

Frode Stenstrøm: This shows that the person is not available for any more work that day.

Stine Hansen: That's right. You can also see that these have different colors. A work order has a very fixed life cycle. It starts out as unplanned. Once a resource has been assigned to it, it becomes planned.

Once work has started, its status changes to In Progress. Once it is completed, its status changes to Completed. It then changes to Posted. It is very important never to change these system statuses. However, Field Service recognizes that this five- or six-stage breakdown may not fit your process, so there are a number of substatuses that you can configure.

For example, when it is not planned, it could be a newly received case, something that needs to be prepared, or something that needs to be investigated. These substatuses can be added under the main status so that Field Service can be adapted to the way you work.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Stine Hansen: And again, it’s the sub-status that you set up yourself.

And Field Service is very flexible—that's really what you should...

Frode Stenstrøm: That's something to keep in mind. But I think a great many companies use what they call a soft hard booking. We've had customers who reserve factory capacity for the production of goods on a tentative basis until the actual agreement is signed.

So it is possible to make different types of bookings, and presumably you can also overallocate. Can't you, if you're absolutely determined to?

Stine Hansen: That is also possible. You can check a box to ignore bookings and the like. If we go to Vegard's order.

Here I went in and clicked the wrong thing, but then I can go back to all his bookings.

Frode Stenstrøm: Because you can also go in—and we looked at it from the Booking Board's perspective—you can also go in from the resource's perspective. Vegard needs to know that he has been assigned a job.

Stine Hansen: Right. And here you can see that you can...

Frode Stenstrøm: Override.

Stine Hansen: Yes, override, and you can now set this booking as fixed or flexible, and you can also add whether it should have a status such as soft-booked, for example.

And part of it is which statuses are available, and that is part of the master data that you register.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and it is worth noting that what we are showing now with bookings, resources, and so on—we are discussing this in a Field Service context, but the same applies in a customer service context and in a project management context. So, if you work with project governance and project management, it is exactly the same system and platform that powers the three different platforms.

Stine Hansen: Yes, that's correct.

What

Frode Stenstrøm: So, what have you been through, Stine?

Stine Hansen: We've covered quite a lot. And when it comes to Field Service, I get the impression that many people feel that less is more, because there are so many tables, areas, and data communicating with each other all the time. So I think we've probably been talking for almost an hour.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have, but it’s actually very simple. So we’ve covered—let’s see—that one needs to be enabled, and that one too. We’ve covered customer assets.

Stine Hansen: Right, all the equipment.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have covered the resources, adaptation of the resources, and adaptation of the master data.

And then we’ve also covered booking, creating service advisors, and booking the work order.

Stine Hansen: That's right, and we've shown how easy it is to add templates to the work order, so you don't have to create things over and over again if there are recurring elements.

Frode Stenstrøm: And with that, I think we've covered everything we were supposed to cover, haven't we, Stine? I believe we have.

Yes!

Summary and conclusion

Frode Stenstrøm: In any case, one thing we haven't discussed that is relevant as a next step is Copilot; Copilot has been added here as well. You can receive a request from Outlook and convert the incoming email directly into a work order. Copilot can help summarize the work order history, comments, and feedback.

The world isn't so predictable that these are the only things that need to be done. Unexpected events happen, such as an accident on the road or something else, and everything that happens with the work order is compiled into a timeline—a history of the work order.

Stine Hansen: Right. I asked Copilot to summarize the order we just booked, so we can show you a little of what Copilot says.

Now this is in English. But at least it says here when we made the booking, who is involved, and that the product needed is an Aqua Pure sensor. And it says that he is going to

Then you can see which tasks, calibration, and preparation are involved, so you can see that this is indeed what we have done, and Copilot summarizes it correctly.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's wonderful. So now we've looked at this from the perspective of those who work with the booking board. Another webinar for us would be to show this from the service technician's perspective.

Stine Hansen: What this looks like on the phone, and how you actually do the job.

Frode Stenstrøm: It’s precisely about how you do the job. We also want to create a short webinar on reporting. So far, we’ve only looked at the practical use, but how do you actually use insights and analytics to determine whether you have good travel routes?

Stine Hansen: Right.

Frode Stenstrøm: Are resources being utilized properly? Is there equipment that frequently fails and perhaps should be replaced? Yes. So it is quite a broad area to examine, with many opportunities related to reporting. Yes. And then, Stine, we have actually already summarized what we have looked at, right?

Stine Hansen: Equipment, sensors, technology, and so on. Resources and technologies and templates and resources, and still a lot of master data—what can be filled in.

Frode Stenstrøm: So, do you feel you have any final tips, like ... anything you would recommend users do?

Stine Hansen: What I think is that you don't need to start with everything at once.

You can start with just equipment registration, or just resource management.

You can also start by simply getting an overview of work orders before adding skills for locations and the like. So I think you can take it step by step—you don’t need everything, and even a little can be very useful.

Frode Stenstrøm: It does indeed. I think we'll actually wrap up with you, then. Thank you so much, Stine, for putting together today's demonstration.

Stine Hansen: It was a pleasure.

Frode Stenstrøm: And if you have any questions, just contact us and leave a comment. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and share the video with anyone you think would benefit from hearing this message. The broadcast is produced by ProsessPilotene, which increases the value of your customers through the use of Microsoft technology. We have excellent functional consultants, such as Stine here, as well as others who can help solve everyday challenges for you and your organization.

Our analytics team can help you create effective reports and prepare for artificial intelligence and forecasting models. Our collaboration team can create web portals that allow the suppliers you work with to receive the collaboration orders that Stine has just demonstrated. And in our next webinar, we would like to show you more about these specific topics in Field Service.

So stay tuned, there’s more to come. This episode was produced by me, Frode Stenstrøm, with Oddbjørg Berge as project manager. Here’s to better work processes for everyone—and a better voice for me. See you next time.