For any field service organisation, one of the key goals of entire field service operations is to keep customer assets (devices, equipment and machines) up and running. And how would you ensure that? By booking resources who are skilled and have the necessary certifications for that type of work. In some industries, it is also a compliance/legal requirement to only assign resources with verifiable skills and certifications. Dynamics 365 Field Service supports this functionality out of the box and in this post, we will see how to set it up.
Setup Resource Characteristics
Go to Resource Scheduling -> Skills and click +New
There are two types of characteristics in the system: Skill and Certification, this can be selected in ‘Characteristic Type’ dropdown. Create a new skill or certification and save the record:
Setup Proficiency Model
Proficiencies can be set against characteristics to keep track of the resource’s ‘mastery’ against a particular skill/certification. Go to Resource Scheduling -> Proficiency Models.
Dynamics 365 comes with two proficiency models but these can be edited and new models can be created per business requirements. Click on Default Rating Model and you’ll see it has simple three levels of proficiencies: Familiar, Good, and Proficient.
Specify Skills for Resources
Go to Bookable Resources and open a resource profile. Click on Field Service tab. Click +New in ‘Characteristics’ tab to associate a skill with the resource.
This will open a Quick Create form. Select skill, optionally select proficiency and click Save & Close.
All characteristics (skills and certifications) appear in Field Service tab
View Resources filtered by skills on Schedule Board
Schedule Board and Scheduling Assistant both help in finding resources filtered by skills/certifications.
Hope this helps, feel free to share your feedback. Happy D365-ing.