Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

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Posted on by Ionut

In my company we have the following scenario:

filter some work orders (20-50 items) by street and schedule them to a bookable resource person.

Currently this can be done, one by one, but takes a lot of time.

Is there any existent feature that can help us to do this faster?

If not, please consider to implement such a feature.

Thank you,

Ionut

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Thomas David Dayman 11,323 on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

Hi Ionut,

Just so I understand. You have a lot Work Orders that need to be assigned a resource but you wish to bulk assign them?

I don't think there is anyway out of the box to do it. (From what I know)

You can use KingswaySoft adapter with Visual Studio SSIS www.kingswaysoft.com/.../download

You can fetch all the work orders by fetch xml then bulk create them a 'Bookable Resource Booking' with resources attached.

Depending on if you will need to do this all the time or if this is a one of exercise. I t may take you some time to develop it and get it working.

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Ionut on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

Thomas,

Thank you for your answer.

I need to do this on regular basis, daily.

I googled it and I was pretty sure it is not an out-of-the-box feature, but I hoped it was more easy to implement.

I will study your suggestion.

I have also posted this idea to: ideas.dynamics.com/ideas/

As for me this is comon scenario.

We do door-to-door sales, and the sales-person is assigned everyday with WorkOrders of possible clients from one area (one or more streets).

Do you know how can we easily achive this kind of business schedule?

Maybe FieldService is not suitable for kind of tasks.

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Thomas David Dayman 11,323 on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

Hi Ionut,

How do you schedule these work orders? Is the any logic to how you decide to book?

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Ionut on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

We have a big list with clients (accounts). Each client has an address (and GPS).

We have 10 people, with FieldService mobile application, who should visit all of them and get a status: product presented, product sold (contract signed), nobody at the address, not interesed, comeback later at specific day/hour, ...

Each day, a planner should decide and schedule each of the sales.

He takes the unscheduled WOs, sort, and drag-and-drop one by one to sales persons (bookable resources). Schedule hour after hour to that person.

One mobile application can visit around 50 addresses a day, on the same street.

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Thomas David Dayman 11,323 on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

That's quite a lot of Work Orders for one Resource to have a day.

Either you would have to bulk upsert Work Order and Resource details. Or you would to model your data differently to support the way your business does things.

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Ionut on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

One resource visits a block with 40-50 appartments and knocks all doors in few hours. So it is not a lot of work.

What do you mean by "bulk upsert Work Order and Resource details"?

Do you have an idea how can I model my data differently? I thought to give up WorkOrders and do everything only with Accounts and Accounts Owners, but is not possible.

Do you know if I can achive this multiple-scheduling by writting my own code in Dynamics?

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Thomas David Dayman 11,323 on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

I mean that its a lot of work orders for the system for any one day per resource. Usually you wouldn't really expect more than 10 work orders a day per resource as the schedule board would look a bit cluttered.

Bulk Upserting records was in reference of using the KingswaySoft adapter with Visual Studio SSIS www.kingswaysoft.com/.../download

If you specify a FetchXML query you can create records in bulk to CRM.

E.g. I want 50 Customers to get scheduled for tomorrow.

FetchXML (Which will retrieve those 50 customers)

Create Work Orders to CRM

Create Resource Bookings CRM associating to those Work Orders

That's quite a simple way of doing it but its a little more complex when it comes to implementing it.

You could also have a view on those accounts you wish to book and you could bulk execute a workflow to create work orders against them:

http://www.encorebusiness.com/blog/running-on-demand-workflows-on-bulk-records/

Unless users are able to quickly get an advanced find or view of those customers that need a work order made on a daily basis it will be hard to do this solution

Field Service is usually used for:

Installation of equipment. Examples of installed assets could include a security alarm, or an air conditioning unit that are supported by a service agreement.

Maintenance jobs including an inspection, or changing components on previously installed equipment.

Break fix or repair jobs which are undertaken when a problem is reported and a technician is dispatched.

It can obviously be used for other types of jobs but I think for your situation it might be worth coming up with a custom solution. Like create your own entities etc.

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ram r on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

This may not be an exact answer to your question. Microsoft has released an add-on called RSO => Resource schedule optimizer which can schedule bulk work orders efficiently and its an add-on that works with CRM and field service. Worth having a look,

www.microsoft.com/.../use-resource-scheduling-optimization-to-schedule-multiple-booking-requirements-on-a-recurring-basis-field-service.aspx

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Ionut on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

Ramanathan Rajendran,

thank you for your feedback. I have already read that article, but somehow I cannot activate RSO on my online environment, even if it should be available. I have to post a ticket to Microsoft about that.

I'am very curious if RSO will completely solve my problem.

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Ionut on at

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RE: Schedule (book) multiple (bulk) Work Orders

Thomas,

Thank you for you complete answer.

I read a little bit about kingswaysoft.com, seems promising, but that means extra cost and extra learning. Fot the moment I'lll stick only with pure dynamics.

I've tried what you've said and I'm almost there:

1) create a process-workflow for each field-sales-person (10 in total)

if WO is Unscheduled

Create: Bookable Resource Booking Header

Create: Bookable Resource Booking

2) select multiple WorkOrder from a view

3) press the button to run an workflow against the selection (wich opens a lookup with all workflows)

4) chose the workflow for a specific field-agent

5) RUN (ADD)

The only problem left is with the Start-End dates of the inserted booking.

I can only choose:

dates fields from WorkOrder entity

process execution date

any fix date from calendar

I need some dynamic options like : today, tomorow, today + 1 day, etc

And I need that StarDate to be different from EndDate, otherwise the proccess fails.

Do you have any idea how can I implement this?

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