All great things are discovered in the quest of answers or to solve problems, isn’t it? So when a client’s requirement asked for “overtime costing” against bookings, we found a hidden gem of Dynamics 365 Field Service – called Resource Pay Types – to do exactly that!
This article is an account of Whats & Hows of Resource Pay Types.
What is Resource Pay Type?
Resource Pay Types are part of the system’s configuration data and are used to calculate field service organisation’s costs related to bookings. These costs could be related to:
- Normal work
- Working overtime
- Working during business closures
- Cost of travelling
- Working during breaks
How to setup:
Open Field Service app and go to Resources -> Pay Types
A Resource Pay Type record includes just two fields:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Name | The Title of the Resource Pay Type e.g. Normal Working Hours |
| Hourly Markup % | This is the markup cost in percentage. For normal work hours, it will be 100%. For overtime, if your resources cost you 50% more, then it will be 150% |
Once Resource Pay Type records are set up, we then need to set up Field Service settings. Open Field Service app and go to Field Service Settings. In the first tab, select Resource Pay Type records in Pay Type fields (as mentioned in the screenshot below)
This concludes the setup of Resource Pay Types but as a pre-requisite of this to work, we also need Holiday Schedule and Work Hours setup for resources. The hourly rate for Bookable Resources should also be setup. The roster may look like below for a resource working 8am – 5pm:
How it works
With the above setup done, create a Work Order and book a resource to work outside normal work hours:
Next, change the status of Booking. In my example record for this article, I changed the Booking status In Progress (outside normal working hours) before marking the Booking as completed.
Now to see the output of this exercise, go to the Booking record and click on Booking Journal under Related Records. Note: Booking Journal records are only created for records once Booking is Completed:
Open the record to see details, particularly the cost which is calculated as
Total Cost = (Bookable Resource.Hourly Rate / 60) * Duration * Pay Type.Hourly Markup Percentage
In a similar way, Dynamics 365 automatically creates Booking Journal records for normal work, travel, work over the holidays etc. and the fascinating thing about this solution is the fact that this is all out-of-the-box.