What’s new in Dynamics 365 Field Service?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service is an end-to-end solution that allows customers to transform their service operations by connecting people, places, and things to deliver customer-centric experiences. Microsoft releases two waves of updates per year to enhance usability and add new features. The 2021 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Field Service, which rolls out new functionality from April to September, includes streamlined onboarding, enhanced technician empowering, and comprehensive customer engagement capabilities.

Key features for customer engagement include track my technician and self-service scheduling. Admins and service managers can get tasks done quickly with new simplified workflows such as frontline worker setup and work order adoption, and collaboration within Dynamics 365 using Microsoft teams. Technicians will see improvements with knowledge management articles and enhanced inspections with ad hoc inspection support.

Below are key features that our team of experts believes all Field Service users should implement.

Your customers will greatly appreciate this new feature. Field Service rolled out a “track my technician” feature that improves the customer experience by providing visibility into upcoming service visits in order to help them prepare. Customers can now receive via email or SMS automated service schedule reminders and notifications of time changes. On the day of services, customers are notified of estimated arrival time and are able to track the technician’s progress to the destination in real time.

Another customer-centric update is self-service scheduling that allows customers to choose their own time directly from their own device. Customers will be offered available time slots based on real-time availability, location, and skills. Companies can apply themes and branding to the experience to match existing styles to maintain and consistent look and feel across the entire digital journey. This feature reduces scheduling errors and rescheduling events, plus reduces your organization’s back-office costs by reducing scheduling call volume and freeing up resources to focus on customer service.

Throughout the service journey, stakeholders across the organization are constantly collaborating. Field Service now embeds Microsoft Teams to allow users to collaborate directly within the Dynamics 365 workspace and link conversations to work orders. Dispatchers, asset managers, and other field service stakeholders can link existing conversations or initiate new ones, such as informing the scheduled technician of new information about the service.

Empowering technicians and frontline workers to perform better service is a core part of Field Service. Microsoft has added the ability for technicians to view knowledge management articles when performing or preparing their field service jobs. By embedding knowledge directly into field service processes, technicians can reliably resolve work orders and install assets the first time. This increases customer satisfaction and reduces cost by avoiding follow-up visits.

Click here for a full list of new features in the 2021 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Field Service.

To start utilizing this new wave of functionality, contact Rand Group to schedule and configure your system update. Looking to get your organization up and running with Dynamics 365 Field Service? Rand Group offers implementation and support services for Dynamics 365 Field Service. For more information, talk to our experts today.