NEIL PARKHURST

FieldOne Sky for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is part of the latest CRM2016 release. But what is it and who would use it?? To help answer these questions I have created this overview of its capabilities.

FieldOne Sky is a cloud based application accessed from Dynamics CRM. It provides extensions to CRM to allow the creation and scheduling of work orders. And a mobile application to record work completed against the work order. Along with comprehensive MI capabilities to give insight into field service activities.

A work order is simply a request for service. A work order can then be scheduled and activities recorded against it to reflect tasks completed.

FieldOne configuration allows for a high level of complex possibilities. Including manging services, resources, resource skills, territories etc etc. All of which contribute to the scheduling of work orders on a graphical scheduling board.

The use of FieldOne can be thought of best by considering three types of operators …… dispatchers, field agents and managers.

Dispatchers

Within FieldOne Sky, “dispatchers” create works orders, schedule them and notify the field agents that the order has been scheduled. Think of a work order as being a definition of the “essence” of the service / task to be performed. Each work order can have an incident type which includes a definition of the service tasks to be performed, skills required, required parts and duration of the job.

Having created work orders the dispatcher schedules them on the scheduling board. This gives a graphical representation of the status for scheduled work orders and resource availability, enabling informed decisions on when the work can be completed. Options exist for manual and automatic scheduling. The scheduling board can display work orders and resources in grids or in a map view.

Field Agents

Field agents deliver services in the field making use of a mobile application. Which can be run from iphone, ipad, android devices or Windows phone / tablets. (So pretty much any mobile device.)

They receive notifications of work to be completed by either text, email or phone. Within the application they can see their scheduled of work orders, inspect the work order details, get driving directions, manage parts, take notes and pictures etc etc.

The field agent can control the status on work orders to show that they have accepted the order, are on route, have started work or have completed the job.

Other functionality within the application allows the field agent to reflect what part have been used, record photographs and notes about the work completed and capture a signature from the customer. They can also schedule follow-up work orders directly from the mobile application.

Managers

Managers use FieldOne management information data to create reports to help with operations and strategy. A FieldOne management dashboard exists to help with this plus having all of the data regarding work orders within CRM gives access to all of the rich reporting capabilities standard in CRM2016.

FieldOne Sky is useful for anyone with staff working in the field. In particular I like the integrated approach as office based staff can see the status of jobs in real-time supporting a joined up approach to customer service.

I’ve been using FieldOne on and off for a few months now, I’ve found it to be powerful although the downside is the initial configuration takes a little time / effort. Scheduling the work of field operatives can be a complex process and therefore defining all of the parameters needed to support this is going to need some careful planning. But once that configuration is complete FieldOne adds significant functionality to CRM 2016.

Hopefully this post has given you an initial overview of FieldOne.

I aim to make this part of a series of posts in which I will cover all aspects of FieldOne.