Hi, I have following requirement in our current Field Service implementation: the field service technicians are all configured to have starting and ending location as their Resource Address. But it happens quite frequently, that their WO runs longer and they need to stay overnight in a hotel. At the same time, location tracking of resources is prohibited. The requirement is to make it possible to somehow define a temporary starting location for the resource to be able to schedule them for the next day from that temporary location. Is there a reasonable way to achieve this?
Some good workarounds from Shawn. If your engineers are using the system or the mobile app then the second resource would cause problems. Also if you're scheduling in advance neither will give you the flexibility that we've tried to create with our add-on.
Yes, there is a reasonable way to achieve this in your Field Service implementation. One way to do this is by creating a new custom field on the Resource entity called "Temporary Starting Location". This field can be added to the Resource form and can be made editable only when certain conditions are met, such as when a Work Order is marked as "overnight" or when the technician indicates that they will not be able to return to their starting location.
When a technician needs to stay overnight in a hotel, they can update their Resource record to reflect the temporary starting location. The next day, when scheduling their work, the dispatcher can choose the temporary starting location as the starting point for the technician's work orders. The location of the hotel can be used as the starting point for calculating travel time and distance for the technician's work orders.
Another option would be to create a separate Resource record for the technician when they are working from a temporary location. This would allow the dispatcher to schedule work for the technician at the temporary location, while still maintaining the original Resource record for tracking purposes.
Either way, it is important to communicate the process and guidelines for updating the temporary starting location to your technicians and dispatchers to ensure proper utilization and accurate scheduling.
Hi Robert. If it is not to labor intensive, you could create org units. Then set the start/end to the org unit when the Resource needs it done
Sounds like you have build something very similar. We have a video which shows our solution, it'd be interesting to know how similar it is to yours -
Thanks,
James
Hi Robert,
Are you using RSO ? If so we had a third party company create a function called Phantom booking within Field Service. We use this function to create a booking for a specific place, mostly hotels for when a tech has to work outside his territory. We create account with the hotel information. We then go into Phantom booking and create a booking for our resource with their location being the hotel account and we list the dates that we want to span. Once saved, the system creates 10-minute bookings at the beginning and end of their day allowing us to use RSO to schedule an efficient schedule for where the tech is located. It is an involved solution however if this something that is a regular occurrence for your business, in the long run it could be beneficial.
Hi Robert,
I appreciate this reply is quite late but we've released a product on AppSource to address this short coming in Field Service. It essentially does the workarounds listed below for your users and makes it far easier to manage. There is a free trial if you'd like to give it a go. You can find it here: appsource.microsoft.com/.../warptechnologiesltd1670946088918.warp_rlo
If you need anything more on it you can contact me james.taylor@warp.co.uk
Thanks,
James
(Sorry for the double post, didn't realise I wasn't signed in!)
Hi Robert,
I appreciate this reply is quite late but we've released a product on AppSource to address this short coming in Field Service. It essentially does the workarounds listed below for your users and makes it far easier to manage. There is a free trial if you'd like to give it a go. You can find it here: appsource.microsoft.com/.../warptechnologiesltd1670946088918.warp_rlo
If you need anything more on it you can contact me james.taylor@warp.co.uk
Thanks,
James
No sorry, under no circumstances, always just from the resource location. Tried several end times: exact work hours start, after work hours start, every possible booking statuses, schedule boards, schedule assistant, always the same.
Just tried it successfully. Compare today vs. tomorrow (tomorrow I'm starting from the hotel):
If your work hours start at 8:00, make sure your booking ends at 8:00. If it ends at 7:59 already (outside your work hours), it will not be considered.
Hi Alexander, I have checked the simpler solution with creating a booking from the field service mobile app with auto geocoding. It creates the booking correctly also with the correct lat/long. But the next WO I try to schedule is anyway calculating the travel time from my resource address and not from the location of that booking.
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