Work orders are at the core of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Field Service capabilities. They include all the pertinent information about the location of the service work as well as the types of work to be performed and the estimated time the work will take. In addition, they also contain any particular skills that are required for the task, customer preferences for time and/or resources, financial responsibility, and more.
There are several ways to generate a work order:
- Convert a Case Record (usually done by a customer service representative)
- Convert an Opportunity (usually done by a salesperson)
- Use the Field Service Agreements functionality to create one automatically based on a pre-set, reccurring schedule (i.e. for quarterly preventative maintenance)
- Manually create a work order in the Field Service List view
Once a Work Order has been created, the Scheduling Assistant can be used to schedule resources for the work via a semi-automated process.
The Scheduling Assistants lets schedulers use search constraints to find bookable resources and available time slots that fulfill the work order requirements. Resources can also be found by their last known GPS coordinates by using “Real Time Mode.” The Constraints available within the Scheduling Assistant include:
- Duration (and allow for overlapping work orders)
- Radius
- Date
- Preferred Resources (if already identified)
- Characteristics
- Territory
- Resource Type
When the Schedule Assistant returns search results, it does so sorting by Start Time. It also shows the distance between resources and the work order location as well as the travel time it will take for the resource to reach that location.
There is an option which will display all available slots for a work order so that if a particular resource is not available, you can see the reason why. If the Real Time Mode box is checked, then you can see how much available time each resource has within the time slot to know if resources are available immediately.
Based on all of these settings, booking resources for a work order then becomes an automated process that can be completed with just a few final clicks.
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By Socius, Field Service CRM Provider in Ohio
The post Generating & Scheduling Field Service Work Orders in CRM appeared first on CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365.
