How FSM software can help field service providers?
Every week there are news stories about how technology is advancing certain processes. Field service providers are not far from this. From maintaining schedules, tracking moving inventory, to submitting work orders, and more are now done by field service management software. But what is field service management? What is field service management? Field service management a.k.a. field service automation is the process that helps you synchronize your company assets with your distributed workforce. This is a means of organizing and optimizing operations performed in the field. This process includes scheduling and optimization of field technicians, dispatching those technicians, delivery of parts or products with proper information, and support through the process. To implement this field service management process, there is various field service management software like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, Oracle Field Service Cloud, Fieldpoint, Jobber, etc. While the field service management apps exist in all segments, it’s more common in the organizations that employ contract or mobile workers like facility management, mobile healthcare, utilities, logistics, and more. How field service management software can help your organization? Whether you are a small-sized field service provider, or an enterprise with thousands of field service agents, managing requests, orders, schedules, inventories, and billing needs an integrated approach. With a well-implemented field services solution, you can improve service delivery, reduce costs, gain efficiencies and exploit emerging digital opportunities. Bringing together processes, information and resources mean that a wealth of insights becomes available for growing your business. Benefits of working with FSM software – There are several advantages for businesses as well as to field agents when you are working with field management software. Here are some of them – Workflow management – FSM software help organize your workflow in a way that streamlines the work and up efficiency. With field management software, you can track your employees’ movements, their ongoing tasks, reassign or change their tasks, and more. It provides you tools and data that are necessary to control, supervise and make decisions about every aspect of your business and employees quickly, to minimize inefficiency and optimize productivity.  Related: Trends in Field Service Management after COVID-19 Revenues and cost management – FSM software also has an impact in revolutionizing accounting. Good FSM software like Microsoft Dynamics Field Service can help you in creating invoices quickly and efficiently. Moreover, you can also integrate your invoicing system with your accounting software so there’s no unnecessary multiple software handling involved. More customer satisfaction – Satisfied customers are the key to every business’s continued success, and good field management software provides more customer satisfaction by allowing better communication and service updates between you and your clients. Final words: Good field service management software can be worth it for any organization. It could provide a visible difference for your business through the effects it will have on your business productivity and efficiency. Scott Clayton Scott has over a Decade in Software experience having worked in a variety of roles, including running the sales and marketing for the past 3 Software companies he has been at. Scott started his career selling Microsoft Dynamics and Azure Solutions. Scott loves the constantly changing Technologies and that drives him to help people find the best Solutions. Scott currently leads Advaiya’s Engagement Strategy and Operations. Scott received his Bachelor’s Degree from Western Washington University and his MBA from the Whitman School of Business at Syracuse University
Trends in Field Service Management after COVID-19 
With all uncertainties, last year was a challenging year for almost all industries. Covid–19 and the pandemic have made everything difficult for the service providers (especially those dependent on field service). Innumerable companies were forced to shut down or exhorted to put their field services on hold. They were asked to either look for new ways of doing business or close with no hope. The desire makes things possible for individuals and businesses – where they desired and adopted the technological way of doing business while completing their field service tasks. The technical way with the promising tools in the market allowed them to look beyond possibilities and imagined the newer generation of a business era. In this era, they are no longer bound or dependent on the traditional way of completing their day-to-day activities. In this blog, I will be focusing on the key trends in field service management which can help business professionals benefit from the automation of field activities resulting in enhanced performance and sales. Remote assisting Since last year, we have experienced numerous examples of remote or contact-free services where the importance of assisting or completing services became a new normal. An increasing number of businesses are experimenting or adopting remote services with technology that enables real-time support or collaboration between field technicians and back-office support. The field technicians use advanced technologies such as AR (augmented reality) or Holo-lenses, which allows the technician to easily complete complex tasks with in-depth supervision and real-time service support. Internet of Things Internet of Things and other connectivity solutions covers the path to revolutionize service management processes and make them more proactive. This helps businesses to quickly react to the problems and monitor the state of the device. It ensures consistent operations by predicting, detecting, and resolving service issues before your customers even know about them. Sometimes it resolves the problems itself without dispatching the technician, thus reducing contact and maintenance costs. This results in not only happier clients but also simpler fixes rather than large-scale repairs. Contact Tracing Since it is a requirement for a field service technician to go from one place to another at a customer’s location, it becomes essential to know where they are going and where they have been. Field Service Automation enables tracking interactions and support contact tracing efforts. That way, if a technician does get sick or is exposed, you can quickly determine who that person has been in contact with. Real-time scheduling Field service solutions provide dispatchers with better visibility into different technicians’ scheduling availability and their skill sets. This enables the dispatchers to make schedule changes and update jobs at a moment’s notice to schedule the right technician for the job. The field service industry has a lot of room to grow and many opportunities to thrive in the next few years. There are various tools and techniques available to enhance field service with agility and automation – one of the technologies or platforms that embrace the efficiency of field service is Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service. The platform provides resource optimization with advanced scheduling and mobile enablement capabilities, strengthening organizations’ service capabilities by keeping the customer at the centre of the business. Dynamics 365 Field Service with advanced analytics, machine learning capabilities with a mix of Internet of Things enables the business to migrate from costly traditional models to a digitized & automated service model. Author – Preksha Jain Preksha is currently working as a Consultant with Advaiya Solutions for more than five years and responsible for Azure, Dynamics 365, and Project Online solutions. She has been working on multiple technologies/platforms like SharePoint, SSRS, CSOM, JavaScript, SQL Server, Workflows, PowerApps, Power Automate, .NET C# applications, and web services.
Seven emerging field service trends to look for in 2021
With the global pandemic, the year 2020 was uniquely challenging for all industries and sectors and more so for field service providers and management companies. Many businesses reported unexpected turnovers, and field service organizations were heavily hit by it. As there is uncertainty to global New Normal, field services companies are looking for ways to sustain by being available 24*7, so they get least impacted by such challenges. Let’s discuss seven emerging field service trends that will gain prominence in 2021 and beyond. 1. Remote Workforce With the frequent evolving work practices, field service organizations have come out from the traditional way of working offsite and have started their technicians to start remotely, reducing operational costs and boost productivity. With the cloud-based field service management solution, technicians and managers can stay connected for work and dispatch schedules, track the progress on different work orders and so on. 2. Leveraging automation Companies are focusing on modernizing their field service journey more than ever, and automation is one of the essential drivers that improve productivity and provides the ability to serve customers better. Cloud-based, always-on services have made information more accessible in real-time. It has become easy to manage everything from checking the technician availability to scheduling and confirming bookings in calendar apps and email to automated invoicing and billing. 3. Self Service Kiosks Many organizations have supported self-service, but now it has become a key to reach your customer faster by removing any intermediate barriers. Currently, customers are working more from home and have highly been digital for their routine work, so now they don’t want to stay in a queue, connect to a call center or log issue on the portal. Experiences like logging the issue or support ticket direct through Chat Boat or automated system where they live can see their service request, track & follow it personally. 4. IoT-driven predictive maintenance IoT has been a talking point for a couple of years, and we don’t expect this to change. In our previous blog on this topic, we had identified how intelligent devices and appliances would help companies know in advance if an asset is broken, a part needs to be replaced, or maintenance is required. These predictive insights enabled through IoT Triggers are transforming field services from reactive to proactive repairs and benefitting both customers and suppliers – identify and fix problems before customers raise, solve issues before failure, diagnose underperforming products and react swiftly. 5. Data-driven delivery Data-driven delivery remains a highlight for 2021 as well. The field service industry’s shift from corrective to predictive maintenance highlights the importance of how companies get data, make sense of it, and act on it to set them apart from the competition. To attain operational excellence and maximize service quality, it is essential to gain real-time visibility into metrics like customer acquisition cost, jobs per team member, daily fuel usage, travel time, cost per job, and more. In a recent study, Aberdeen Group found that best-in-class field service organizations that adopt analytics realize an increase in service profits by 18%, customer retention rates by 42% and SLA performance by 44%. 6. The growth of artificial intelligence As IoT offers field-service representatives the ability to talk to machines and quickly identify issues, AI makes them aware of problems before they even appear. Many companies in the field services industry have started experimenting with AI-based strategies. Whether it is to train their technicians, prioritize work order requests, improve levels of customer experience, dispatch the right technician to the right job, keep track of their workers’ performance, or manage inventory without much delay. In the form of chatbots, AI converse and guides many customer requests efficiently that allow operators to focus on more complex customer service cases and other essential chores. On the other hand, there are many times that before technicians arrive on site, they might not be knowing the parts and tools required for service. With the increased availability of AI/ML algorithms, soon the systems will become more intelligent, analyzing the error code when the customer reports the issue. Considering these error codes, the technicians will be ready in advance to perform the service faster and efficiently. 7. AR and VR transformations The field services industry has a lot to gain by integrating innovative technologies like AR and VR into their business strategy. AR and VR enabled devices increase the technician’s efficiency, service delivery rate, and customer satisfaction in many ways. Whether it is providing instant access to the entire knowledge base, getting instant access to maintenance history, discovering the right equipment to carry out maintenance, identifying the valuable information about the device, which is about to repair, and much more. As the customers are reshaping the needs and demanding improved/advanced support from companies and technicians who are front face to them, it has become critical for field service organizations to invest smart in the technology. Technology that enables their technicians to be more productive, efficient, and customer-friendly, ultimately improving lifetime value and customer loyalty. How are you preparing for these upcoming trends? We look forward to discussing field service management ideas and their implementation with you. Also-Dynamics 365: Field Service – An efficient way to manage mobile workers And- Field service management with Dynamics 365 Author: Swati Shrimali Swati is a Microsoft Certified Professional with 15+ years of project experience. She takes care of solution designing, requirement elicitation, managing projects and teams, and ensuring efficient project delivery. She has extensively worked on technologies, including – Microsoft Project, SharePoint, Power BI, Dynamics 365, Office 365, and complex integration with enterprise systems like Salesforce, Oracle, TFS, VSTO, etc. She is currently working as Solution Architect and also leading the Business Dynamics – PPM stream in Advaiya Co-author: Ravi Fulani Ravi is currently working as a Software Developer with Advaiya. Total experience of 2+ years. Focusing on Dynamics 365 and a certified MB-210 & PL-400. He has been working on multiple technologies/platforms like SSRS, JavaScript, SQL Server, Workflows, PowerApps, PowerAutomate, .NET C#