Introducing Field Service Lightning: Streamline Work Orders, Resources, and Schedules
The benefits of Salesforce Clouds are highly strategic to businesses across all industries. Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and other cloud solutions aim to enhance the customer experience and ROI significantly. As a result, many organizations are eager to integrate these clouds into their operations. A statistic from CloudZero says that “99% of CEOs from the IT industry say that comprehensive cloud monitoring has direct business value”.
Service Cloud is designed to enhance the functioning of the customer service team and create strong customer bonds. The valuable data insights from Service Cloud help to resolve customer issues accurately and quickly, with negligible response delay.
Field Service Lightning features extend the Service Cloud’s functionalities, such as adding, dispatching, monitoring, and reporting field service representative activity. It is a powerful set of customized features to meet your unique field service needs. The blog explains the flow of Field Service lightning and features like work order management, resource management, and schedule management.
Defining the Field Service Lightning starts with the Salesforce admin setting up Field Service Lightning according to the organization’s needs. The agents can create work orders as customer service calls are initiated. The dispatcher schedules appointments, optimizing them according to who has the right skills, can carry the right parts, and is in the right location. The technicians complete the service appointments and close out the work orders.
Steps to Enable Field Service Lightning
The Field Service Lightning has standard features that are available when Field Service Lightning is enabled in the org. To enable it, follow the steps –
- From Setup, enter Field Service in the Quick Find box, then select Field Service Settings.
- Select Enable Field Service Lightning, as explained in the figure below.
The Three Management Modules
The standard features of Field Service Lightning offer three management models, i.e., Work order management, Resource management, and Schedule management.
1. Work Order Management
Work orders represent tasks to be performed for customers. You can attach Knowledge articles to work orders, split them into sub-tasks called work order line items, and track terms in service-level agreements using milestones. Service appointments can be associated with work orders and line items and include details about the appointment schedule. Time-saving templates called work types help you standardize your work orders.
2. Resource Management
Service resources are users who can perform field service work. You can assign service resources to service appointments and specify each resource’s skills, service territory, and hours of operation. Service territories represent regions in which field service work can be performed. The service resources can be assigned to a territory and create territory hierarchies.
3. Schedule Management
Operating hours help to define when your service resources are available and when work can be performed in service territories. You can also track service resource absences. If you want, select the option to turn on notifications for Salesforce1 and Lightning Experience users when any of the following actions occur on a work order or work order line item that they own or follow:
- A text or file post is added
- A tracked field is updated
- The record owner changes
- The resource assignments change on a related service appointment
Note
If the option to track all related objects is selected in your feed tracking settings for work orders, users are also notified when child records of work orders, such as service appointments, are created or deleted.
Optionally, configure the Due Date on auto-created service appointments by indicating how many days past the created date it should fall; also, you can select the field to search when suggesting articles from Salesforce Knowledge.
To give your team access to Field Service Lightning features, assign the necessary object permissions to users with the help of permission-set licenses. Field Service users must have a Service Cloud license, a Field Service license, and a Field Service permission set license.
You can start with the core Field Service Lightning features and add the managed package and mobile app as needed.
The Field Service Lightning managed package includes scheduling optimization, an interactive dispatcher console, and more. Installing managed packages extends the FSL Functionality.
Field Service Lightning, the Perfect Assistant for the Support team
Field Service Lightning’s key features are service automation and optimization. The management modules, as explained, automate tasks like scheduling appointments, preventive maintenance, product requests, inventory management, and service report creation. The module supports the field team with real-time data synchronization, even in case of network interruptions.
It has a vast collection of customer data that helps the support team identify the tools and materials required before every appointment. It helps the dispatcher choose the professionals for each task based on the required skills. The reports help proactively understand the customer’s problems and provide quick and accurate solutions.
It enhances the productivity of the field service team and results in great customer response. The result is a happy customer who receives instant and accurate answers to her queries. The trust that grows between the service provider and the customer creates a strong business base for future ventures.
V2Solutions and Field Service Lightning
The benefits of Field Service Lightning grow beyond the list; it depends on how well we leverage it. You need a trusted technology partner who aligns with your needs and the features of Field Service Lightning and provides the right configuration. V2Solutions has provided Salesforce services and specifically implemented Field Lightning Services for clients across industries for over a decade. We take the privilege of partnering with our clients through their path to achieving business objectives.
Connect with us to give your customers the best support services and build your customer loyalty numbers with Field Lightning services. Visit our website, www.v2force.com, to learn more about us.
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