It was their regular Sunday Afternoon ritual but Shae noticed that her brother, Kevin seemed in an exceptionally joyous mood. He was whistling around while helping her lay down the lunch plates on the table. “What is new? You met somebody? Did you get a promotion? You got a new job? what is it?”, Shae asked in desperation. “O it’s nothing. I just get more time for myself nowadays, post-work, and that, dear sis, gives me time to practice my cello again”, Kevin winked and smiled.

“So, you did change your job, right?”, Shae reasoned. “Nope! My job changed its perspective, and that changed my life”. “Can you just explain in normal words?”, Shae shouted. “Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service is the reason for my happiness. Finally, my management thought of moving away from spreadsheets and blessing us Field Reps with the miracle of the CRM World!”, Kevin happily sang praises.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service – a quick overview

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service business application helps organizations deliver scheduled on-field service to customer locations. The application combines workflow automation, scheduling algorithms, and mobility to set up field reps for success when they’re on the field with clients, fixing issues, or installing services.

What does Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service offer?
Territories for Accounts

Accounts can be classified into territories for the resources to manage

Territories can be created as per resource convenience or easy management

Postal codes can be associated with the Territories

Resource management and scheduling becomes easier

Advance Scheduling of Appointments

The client appointments can be pre-scheduled and followed

The same for all the resources can be viewed in a comprehensive manner

Time constraints per appointment could be added

Advanced schedules can be made for multiple resources for multiple days

Resource Routing

Travel routes for resources can be predicted and tracked

Time of travel too can be predicted and viewed over the schedule boards

Device Compatibility

Field Service enables reps to access their pre-planned schedules, client data, route maps, etc. with the mobile app from anywhere.

The resources can utilize help manuals for the situations on the field.

They can consult experts in real-time from the field and get their queries regarding an in-progress problem, resolved.

Field Service mobile apps make tracking activities easier for field reps.

They can access bookings, work orders, and assets even when offline.

Predictive Maintenance

With smart technology in place, issues can be detected in a system even before a client is aware of them and can be resolved before time.

Field Service and Supply Chain Management work in tandem with combined capabilities.

A 360-degree view of the client’s assets makes management easier.

Analytical Dashboard Views

The dashboards enable a field service manager or dispatcher to use the field service reports to monitor KPIs.

Analytical Dashboards enable users to calculate failures in systems, and crashing of reporting alerts and calls.

The system comes with several dashboard layouts tailored for any role. A Sales Activity Dashboard could show the status of open opportunities in the pipeline, progress toward goals, open leads, etc.

Does this make Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service a complete package?

They say, perfection in itself is a myth, but perfection can be attempted when working as a team.

Similarly, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service is an excellent package for Field Service Management. However, it can be improved multi-folds with assistance or plugin from many other all-inclusive add-ons available in the market.

80% of the CRM data is associated with a geographical factor. This factor when explored sincerely aids organizations in making location-based strategies. Directions and visualizations could help in redefining business decisions and help pre-empt travels, global expansions, etc. Dynamics users at times feel hindered due to a lack of geo-location-based intelligence while viewing their CRM data. This hampers decision-making and leads to sub-optimal operating efficiencies, lack of real-time visibility into daily operations, etc.

Maplytics, the 5-star rated App of the Microsoft AppSource is a comprehensive geo-mapping app that empowers business decision-makers to harness the power of geo-analytics by visualizing CRM data on the Map. Maplytics works smoothly with all the modules of Microsoft Dynamics 365, i.e, Sales, Field Service, and Customer Service. Let us have a look at how Maplytics acts as a perfect plugin for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service.

Territory Management

Creating territories for disciplined sales is amazing, but having a chance to visualize the territory records on a map makes it possible to generate balanced territories.

Maplytics gives the user an opportunity to auto-create balanced territories and accommodate hierarchical territories as well.

The boundaries of the existing territories can be edited to be associated with more CRM Records or to divide the records into multiple other territories.

Auto Scheduling

Meetings can be pre-scheduled for multiple days/weeks and for multiple field reps with Maplytics as well.

The view of the schedule board is detailed, and the UI is user-friendly with the travel routes coordinated with the appointment details using color legends

The appointment schedule for each rep can be displayed for each day and/or each week as per requirements.

The travel distance, time, break time, time of the meeting, a destination address, etc. can all be plotted on a single page

Ad hoc meetings, canceled meetings, additional meetings, etc. undertaken by the reps are added and viewed in the schedule

Route Optimization

Along with plotting optimized travel routes, Maplytics offers end-to-end navigation directions for the field reps to email, print, or save for later.

A rep on the field can search and plot clients along the route and visit an available one by adding it as a waypoint to his plotted route

Similarly, the rep can search for clients in a specific radius with Radius/ Proximity Search around his current GPS Location and add them to the route for a meeting

The rep can freely search for a café, hotel, airport, or gas station around his place of interest with POI Location while on the field

Land Area Mapping

With the help of Land Area Mapping in Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, Maplytics users can visualize the area of agriculture, residential, commercial properties, etc., on the map. They can easily define the area of land for the respective entity records and then visualize the same on the map.

Census Data Mapping

Maplytics enables Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM census data visualization on maps like Housing units, land area, water area, population demographics, and others to take strategic decisions.

Multi-language

Maplytics auto-detects the language of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM application and sets the language automatically. It currently supports German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Hungarian, Dutch, Arabic, Polish, and Russian along with English as the default language.

Mobility across Across

Maplytics can be accessed from the Microsoft Dynamics 365 App for Phones and Tablets using a dashboard for the Detail Map. The current GPS Location can be picked up for advanced auto-scheduling. Maplytics is compatible with desktops, laptops, mobile, tablets, windows, iOS, and Android.

This is just a glimpse, there are many more hidden add-ons of Maplytics.

Combining the features of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service with Maplytics could create a Field Service Management Genius. Let us explore all the possible plug-ins Maplytics could offer for better utilization of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service in this series. Maplytics is equipped with many outstanding features and a proper trial will help you to see the potential within! It has been a valuable contribution to multiple industries such as Healthcare, Manufacturing, Construction, Civic and Social Good, and many more!

You can write to us at crm@inogic.com for your mapping queries, a free trial of 15 days, or a personalized demo within Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM / Dataverse. To learn more about Maplytics, its applications across industries, and another multitude of features, do visit our Website or the Microsoft AppSource. For further details, you can hop on to our Blogs, Client Testimonials, and Video Library.

Until then,

Stay tuned!