You set up a brand new Dynamics 365 environment, create a Bookable Resource and are pumped up to see map and routing work on the mobile app, but then you see the following error on a map – sounds familiar? Map is disabled for this organization. This was a story of my life in the last couple of hours – so thought to document resolution steps to save time in future 😊. Step 1 Go…
There are good days and then there are very good days in the life of consultants. Probably arrival of Self-Service Scheduling Portal (albeit in preview) falls in the later such events. The reasons are many but top of all is the fact: this was among the top of most requested features in Dynamics 365 Field Service. I have seen with many implementations, once customers see, feel and touch the value that Dynamics 365 product in…
This is a quick “How-To” article on an oft-used scenario in field service organisations: how to create a follow-up work order for future work? The ‘Why’ This may happen for several reasons, such as: How to achieve this? An obvious solution is to set up a ‘Follow-up Work Order’ which can be then scheduled by Dispatchers. Is this feature supported in Dynamics 365 Field Service? The answer is, as you may have guessed, yes 😊 – as an…
Since it is becoming more common that the solutions built on Dynamics 365 are hybrid (multiple first-party apps, use Power Apps app, PCF etc) and integration is becoming cheaper and easier (thanks to 100s of connectors), I talked about “Essential Azure for Dynamics 365 professionals” in Power Platform 24 event last week. We looked at a few problem statements (common challenges in D365 projects) and how appropriate Azure products can be used to resolve those…
The heart of every field service-related business (sales, service or operations) is ‘scheduling’. If you do it well, customers are happy, assets are up and working, and faults are happening less frequently (descending rate of failures) and getting fixed quickly. In this backdrop, anything related to ‘scheduling’ is of paramount importance to keep the entire machinery running well. One key area in this context is rostering (work hours and calendars) of resources. This needs to…
Long time ago (read web 1.0 era) there was a time when systems alerts meant sending emails to users. That led to ’email deluge’ with Dynamics 365 (err.. CRM in those times) sending emails to users on every new lead, case or order getting created in the system. Thankfully that time has gone and now we have actually so many smart ways to send alerts that it is sometimes hard to keep tabs with. This…
like implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service for clients in various industries because, in any field service organisation, there are literally dozens (if not hundreds) of rules, approvals and specific processes, and therefore every implementation is unique in many ways. It also underlines how broad and deep the landscape of the product is, to be able to fulfil business requirements in various business verticals. This article is related to one of those many rules and processes.…
Anti-patterns are generally defined as a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. These are those commonly suggested and used solutions, which actually don’t work although they may seem like working. They are usually a product of gut-feeling, imperfect analogies (comparing the situations when they are actually different), and due to lack of understanding of how the system works (and why the solution won’t work). In this…
The new Dynamics 365 Field Service app arrived in 2020 and is almost there (as of February 2021) in terms of features parity with the old app (called Xamarin app now in the Microsoft documentation). This new app is more native to the Microsoft platform as it ‘plays’ a model-driven app developed in Power Platform. Therefore, developing, configuring and administering this app is easier and cheaper since your team with Dynamics 365 skills will be…
How do products work in Dynamics 365 Field Service? Let’s look at three examples: Imagine we work in a fictitious Atlantis Coffee Servicing company where we install coffee machines, refill machines and fix if they are broken. To keep it simple, let’s consider the following three services: All these three kinds of products can be set up in Dynamics 365 Field Service to be estimated, consumed and charged to customers in different ways. 1. Coffee…