This post talks about the new Dynamics 365 Field Service features planned to release for April-2020

 

Field Service Insights

 

• Incident type AI-based suggestions:

Incident type suggestion analyzes an organization’s completed work orders to make improvements in accuracy of incident types. The feature provides suggestions based on historical data to  improve incident types, suggesting where records may be improved by merging other incident types, or by adding existing products or services. Improved incident type accuracy will allow    higher first-time fix rates, inventory planning, and less time that a technician needs to spend on their device with fewer clicks to accurately capture work details.

 

• IoT alert AI-based suggestions:

As IoT device alerts are received, it helps to have smart suggestions about how to treat the alert, like suggesting priority or incident type. New IoT alert suggestions add AI-based        suggestions for the priority and incident type from the alert, based on past service history and actions. For example, an alert suggestion might show that a temperature-based alert is a high priority, and needs an incident type for re calibrating the equipment.

 

• IoT alert measure and service history:

In order for IoT alerts to be actionable, additional context is helpful to determine what to do with the alert. With IoT alert measures and service history, we’re building on the previous  preview by enhancing the time series experience and also adding a summary of the measures for the alert. For example, you can see the temperature and vibration reading history from a      piece of equipment overlaid with past work orders.

 

 

Proactive Service Delivery

 

• Combined asset capabilities across Dynamics 365 Field Service:

Aligning the customer asset entity across both Field Service and Supply Chain Management’s Asset Management solution helps in unlocking the full capability of Field Service scenarios for  Asset Management customers and the capabilities of Asset Management for Field Service customers. This supports the critical asset lifecycle that begins in manufacturing, continues          through installation, maintenance, and repair, and ends in retirement.

 

• Integration with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management:

This feature provides integration between Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Dynamics 365 Field Service for warehouse, payment type, and shipment method. It leverages the            Common Data Model and Common Data Service.

 

• Intune Support for Field Service Mobile:

Security and data protection are important for businesses, especially when working with technical employees deployed in the field. Intune brings this layer of centrally managed control to  devices, including corporate-managed devices and bring-your-own-device scenarios. With Intune, administrators can roll out the Field Service Mobile application to their iOS and Android    field technicians via standard Intune infrastructure and controls.

This feature enables the Field Service Mobile app as a first-party application within the Intune administration experience. By enabling Intune support, businesses can take advantage of all Intune features including deployment, configuration, security, and updates.

With an Intune-enabled Field Service Mobile app, IT administrators can:

• • Add and assign your Field Service Mobile app to user groups and devices, including users in specific groups, devices in specific groups, and more.
  • Configure the Field Service Mobile app to start or run with specific settings enabled and update your existing app when already on the device.
  • See reports and track app usage.

 

 

Scheduling

 

• Enhanced Work Hours Calendar for Resources:

Resource managers currently set resources’ calendars, establishing work hours and time off. This is a new and simplified experience for maintaining working hours. The experience is        accessible and consistent with Unified Interface experiences. Additionally, the calendar control will be a Power Apps component framework control, meaning that partners and customers      can enable scenarios to modify resources’ working hours from outside entity forms and views, like with a canvas app.

 

• Requirement dependency for efficient work flow:

This feature enables the configuration of requirement dependencies to ensure technicians follow the optimal workflow and achieve the most efficient service operation. Requirement          dependencies allow customers to schedule requirements in a specific order by relating them through a predecessor and successor dependency relationship. For example, a technician might      need to pick up a unique part from the warehouse and then perform work at the customer’s site. Critical jobs that rely on a series of tasks dependent on one another can now be linked      together as predecessors and successors and booked through the resource scheduling optimizer.

In 2020 release wave 1, this feature will only be supported by resource scheduling optimization with the ability to view these bookings on the schedule board. Also, these dependencies will work only for single-resource, single-day scenarios.

 

• Resource Scheduling dashboard:

This dashboard enables a field service manager or dispatcher to use the Resource utilization report to monitor resource utilization, bookings, and truck roll KPI. They can also unpack      territory insights such as fulfilling requirements with available resources, measure operation performance, and understand how resources are using their time and how each resource is      performing over time compared to other groups.

It helps a resource scheduling optimization admin/dispatcher to do an analytical recap of each optimization request such as number of requirements, number of bookings, allocated hours,    and least allocated resource.

 

 

Technician Success

 

• Integrated technician time tracking:

Field Service time entry aligns with Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation to capture time entries into the same entity that Project Service Automation has used for consistent capture,  regardless of whether your organization uses Field Service, Project Service Automation, or both.

Customers will not be required to install Project Service Automation simply to capture time entries within Field Service.

Field Service will support:

• • Automatic time capture for work orders based on booking timestamps.
  • Manual time capture.
  • Custom time capture mechanisms unique to specific business processes or needs.

This feature enables you to capture time actuals that capture costs from approved time entries, enabling organizations to drive more accurate accounting practices and profit-loss          calculations.

 

• Technician time-capture precision:

Field Service has introduced this configuration setting to simplify implementations for Field Service customers and to allow customers the flexibility of deciding the level of detail they wish to capture when performing work.

This includes:

• • Define in Field Service settings the frequency at which timestamps will be captured for each booking.
  • Enabling the system to respect that setting regardless of whether the booking status change occurs on the mobile device or via a web browser.
  • Capturing appropriate details on the relevant timestamps.
  • When a time entry is created from a timestamp, ensure that the time entry holds the right level of detail depending on the org’s setting.

 

Reference:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365-release-plan/2020wave1/dynamics365-field-service/planned-features