The Schedule Board in Field Service for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 is an important tool, for the dispatcher it may be the screen the use the most. In this post I will look at how to configure / use the schedule board.

To load the schedule board, go to the Field Service option in CRM;

Colour Coded Work Orders

On the schedule board the colours of work orders indicate their status. For example, below the green box is a completed work order, purple is an in progress work order and blue is a scheduled work order.

Filter and Map View

In the left hand panel, you can access the filter and map view tabs. The filter option allows you to filter based on resource type, territory or even individual resources. If you change the options simply click “Apply Filter” and the resources shown on the schedule board will be adjusted accordingly.

The map view in this panel shows scheduled and un scheduled work orders. With the coloured pins indicating the field agent assigned. Or grey for unscheduled. From this view you can drag unscheduled work orders over to a resource to quickly schedule them.

When looking at maps you have three options. Road (the default) or use bird’s eye view to show a photograph. Or better still use my preferred option which is automatic. This shows a road view but as you zoom close in the map changes to a photograph.

Unscheduled Work Order View

At the bottom of the schedule board you can see a list of unscheduled work orders. Work orders can be dragged from this view directly onto the schedule.

Within the unscheduled work order view the dispatcher can opt to change the sort order or add and remove columns as required.

Also you can alter the “Unscheduled Work Order” view using standard CRM customizations to alter this view for everyone. Or alternatively multiple views can be created to show unscheduled work orders based on their type, territory etc.

Below you can see that I have created an additional tab in my schedule board by clicking “+”. I have called this “West Midlands”. I have then created a view of unscheduled work orders for the west midlands. Double clicking on the tab name lets me decide what view to use for unscheduled work orders. By using this approach the dispatcher can have multiple tabs, each one covering a specific set of work orders.

Tips:

• I have shown you here how to customize the unscheduled work order view but you can also change other views.
• Changing the colour off non-working time on each new tab might help give a visual distinction between each one.
• Typically, the tab created will be only available to one dispatcher. But you can use the public view option to make available to everyone.

Controlling the Resource Views

You can use the “settings cog” to alter the display of the resource grid. Below you can see the options.

One useful option is to decide to only show a limited view of working time. No point viewing 00:00am until 23:59pm if you only work 9am until 5pm!

Depending on the number of resources you manage you can also usefully control the height and width of columns. Having a deeper column may make reading information easier but a narrower view will show more resources per page.

Another useful option lets you define the time horizon. Showing columns on the resource grids in terms of hours, days, weeks or even months and years. (I must admit I tend to only use hours or days!)

By default, resources are shown veritically with work orders shown in time slots horizonally. The disapatcher can change this or swap to a map view using icons in the toolbar.

I hope you can see that the schedule board is pretty flexible and with some effort you can create tabs to really help the dispatchers focus on the “correct” work. J