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Introduction

Managing field service has changed a lot since the time of ghostbusters. And yet, companies are finding it challenging to manage their team of service technicians or field agents efficiently.

There was a time when the dispatchers used legacy field service applications and spreadsheets to track technician activities and field workers completed their work orders using paper and pencil. It was tough for organizations to keep up with increasing customer demands and remain competitive in today’s world.

Though the scenario has changed a bit, field service leaders still face problems in ensuring their workforce is operating at optimal efficiency. It’s difficult for organizations to deliver high-quality field service work within the specified time and budget.

Field service has got no room for miscommunications, delays or even incomplete information. All thanks to Industry 4.0, which helped in eliminating the inherent challenges of the traditional process and allowed communication through various devices. As a response to the technology advancement, came in the Field Service Management.

What Is Field Service Management?

Field Service Management manages the organization’s end-to-end field activities like scheduling, invoicing, billing, optimization, customer portals, vehicle tracking, and customer information.

There are three critical users in Field Service Management:

1. Field Service Agent/Call Center Executive:

Service Agent is the first point of contact for clients. Once the agent receives a service request from the client, he/she will create a case on a particular request. From the case, the agent will create a work order and service appointment.

2. FSL Dispatcher/FSL Admin:

FSL Dispatcher deals with the records, work orders, and service appointments. The dispatcher will have the dispatch console access to dispatch service appointments to the right Technician at the right time. The dispatch console plays a major role here to dispatch service appointments more efficiently.

3. Field Service Technician:

• The Field Service Technician uses Field Service Lightning mobile app on their mobiles/iPads to receive service appointments. The first task of the Technician is to inspect the work order if it needs any parts. If yes, the Technician needs to check for those parts in his inventory/ van location. If the Technician doesn’t have the required parts, he’d need to request the parts from a nearby warehouse or from other technicians. Once he receives the required parts, he adds them in the line items for the work order.
• While the technician adds parts to the work order, the list price automatically populates from the price book, which is associated with the work order’s work type.
• Once he adds line items to the work order, the Technician will generate a service report and take a signature from the customer and complete the work order.

What is Field Service Lightning Salesforce

Salesforce Field Service Lightning is an additional feature of Salesforce to expand the Service Cloud offerings.

Field Service Lightning deals with Service Cloud, adding functionality for dispatching, monitoring, and reporting field service representative’s activity.

It helps to dispatch the right Technician in the right place, at the right time. It optimizes and automates the core business process.

Benefits of Field Service Lightning:

• Recommends the right time to customers based on existing schedules and travel time.
• Assigns work based on skills and availability.
• Allows field service reps to complete their work orders right from their job location.
• Allows Technicians to capture electronic signatures for work orders or service reports.
• Supports around 3,000 and more field service reps, including contractors.
• Provides the ability to supervise by viewing and managing work from their Gantt charts or even map views.
• Provides the ability for admins to configure and manage specific work rules to manage territories, service level agreements, or business priorities.

Significant features of Field Service Lightning:

Field Service Lightning Configurations

When we install the Field Service Lightning package, we get three major users – FSL Agent, FSL Dispatcher, and FSL Technician. Based on each user type, corresponding permissions need to be assigned. For instance, we need to assign the mobile settings to get notifications on the Calendar of an FSL.

Work Order & Service Appointment Management

1. Work orders are the heart of the Field Service Lightning as they represent the work to be performed by the Technician for customers.
2. Service appointment represents field service visits to customers; service appointment describes the information related to scheduling, assignment, and work order details.
3. Technicians will get notified by Service Appointment to view customer information, work order, and asset-related information.

Asset tracking & Management

1. Asset tracking will be used to track the information about products that customers use. If customers installed sensitive/competitive products, a preventive maintenance plan may be created to plan, schedule, and track work on the asset.
2. Preventive Maintenance plans can be generated automatically from service contracts with the required duration according to requirement. Work orders will be created automatically depending on the set frequency.

Schedule and Work Dispatching :

1. Schedule Management will play a major role in Field Service Management. Dispatchers will schedule service appointments to technicians at the right time and the right place and for the resource with required skills.
2. In the Salesforce FSL, Dispatcher Console allows to manage and monitor technicians’ workload from one place in real-time and is available as a map or a Gantt chart.

Field Technician Mobility via FSL Mobile App:

Technicians will get an opportunity to access and update the crucial information in customer location with this app, like work orders, Service Appointments, inventory, and parts. The important advantage of the mobile application is it’s also available in offline mode.

Parts/Inventory Management

1. Parts/Inventory management is used to track and manage parts/products which are available for storage, request, transfer, and consumption to complete the work order by the Technician.
2. The Technician should take care of maintaining parts/products in the warehouse.

Service Report output Document

1. The Technician will generate a service report after completion of the work order. The service report will have all the information related to work orders like customer information, pricing information, product details (related to parts like a discount, list price, unit price, tax, and total price).
2. The Technician will take customer acceptance/signature while generating the service report.

Resource Management:

Resource management plays a key role in field service management. It will help you track resource availability, absence during the dispatching service appointment.

Conclusion

Salesforce Field Service Lightning meets the core business process of companies in different domains of industries, and it also helps resolve Field Service calls quicker, increases worker productivity in the field, and digitizes the appointment-scheduling.

Field Service Management will place the right employee at the right place and at the right time.

About Solunus:

Solunus is a dedicated Salesforce partner organization, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Our unrelenting focus on comprehending the unique needs of our clients coupled with our unrivaled expertise of the Salesforce platform enables us to deliver the perfect solutions that create the best value for IT and business analytics firms.