2021 Release Wave 1: D365 Field Service Inspections

Previously I wrote a series of articles on the new features in 2021 Release Wave 1. The first article I wrote was about the updates and new features in Dynamics 365 Sales, part 2 was about what’s new in Dynamics 365 Customer Service and part 3 of the series was about Dynamics 365 Field Service. I also wrote a separate article on the new Technician Locator in Dynamics 365 Field Service which is now in public preview. If you haven’t read any of these articles I would recommend you take a look at them. In this article I will be talking about all the new features for Dynamics 365 Field Service Inspections that are planned to come out in April under 2021 Release Wave 1. Since there are a lot of them I decided to write a separate article about it.


Inspections renamed to Inspection Templates

Prior to this release the ‘msdyn_inspection’ table (display name ‘Inspection) was located on the sitemap. In this release you’ll find that the display name of this table has changed to ‘Inspection templates’. This is still the same table, meaning when you log into Dynamics 365 Field Service and see this name, it’s just a different name for the same thing. This is not something else, these are still the inspections that we all know and love. If we look under the hood we see that a new table has been added ‘msdyn_inspectioninstance’. This table was added to that we could add inspections to a customer asset without the need to use a work order, more details below.

Adding inspections to customer assets without work orders

What if you have the need to do an inspection for a customer asset without creating a work order? This could be handy if a technician doesn’t know how many inspections they need to do during one visit. The work order would have already been created, but the work order service task only has 1 inspection associated. Yes you could create additional service tasks with an inspection and add them to the work order but what if you rather just create an inspection for the customer asset instead? Well, this is another feature that will be released in this wave! A 1:N relationship has been added between Customer Assets (primary entity) and the new table I mentioned above called ‘msdyn_inspectioninstance’ which has the display name ‘Inspections’ (related entity). The display option has been set to ‘Do not display’ which means this relationship will not show up under the ‘related items’ for Customer Assets.

In order to enable this functionality you need to change this setting:
Open the default solution by navigating to Advanced Settings > Settings > Customization > Customize the System. Once the default solution opens expand the entities on the left hand side and locate the Inspection table/entity. (The system name for this table is ‘msdyn_inspectioninstance’. Navigate to the N:1 Relationships area and look for the relationship with the system name ‘msdyn_msdyn_customerasset_msdyn_inspectioninstance_customerassetid’ (image above). The display name is ‘Customer Asset’ and as mentioned before, the related entity is ‘Inspection’. Under ‘Navigate Pane Item for Primary Entity’ you’ll notice the display option is set to ‘Do not display’. Change this setting to ‘Use Plural Name’ or ‘Use Custom Label’. Changing this option will make the inspections visible in the related tab on the customer asset form and will allow users to create inspections directly associated to the customer asset without needing a work order. If you prefer to add a subgrid showing inspections on the customer asset instead you don’t have to enable anything, you can just add the subgrid on the form and associate new inspections from the asset. Keep in mind that you can’t edit or create new views for the ‘msdyn_inspectioninstance’ table.

Export Inspections Responses to PDF

This is a feature we’ve been waiting for! Previously we were able to navigate to an inspection and just export the questions to a PDF file, but in this release we will now be able to export the questions and the responses of an inspection to a PDF file directly from the work order service task! This feature is available from the browser and also from the mobile app. Users will see the a button called ‘export responses’ on the command bar of the work order service task the inspection is related to. Keep in mind that this feature doesn’t support custom dates or number formats using the personalization settings. It also doesn’t support right to left languages nor does it support Asian languages at this time.

Import and export inspection templates

If you are a Dynamics 365 Field Service user you probably have created inspections in a dev environment so that you could test the functionality and make sure it was working as expected. Once the testing was completed, you would have had the need to move an inspection from the dev environment to production, which before this update wasn’t possible. System admins would have to re-create the inspection in the production environment and re-test the functionality. Well, no more of this! Admins can now move inspections from one environment to another. They will see the ‘Export’ button on the top of the command bar on an inspection record. When the button is clicked there are two different buttons to choose from: ‘export to PDF’ and ‘export to json’. The admin needs to click the ‘export to json’ button in order to export the inspection. When importing the inspection into an environment they will need to navigate to the ‘settings’ area in the field service app, then select ‘Inspections’. On the top of the command bar they will see the ‘Import from json’ button which can be used to import the inspection.

Translations

If you have additional language packs installed in your environment, you can now add translations from multiple languages to your inspections templates. NOTE: In order to install a language pack you have to open advanced settings (gear icon on the top right side) and go to the administration area. From here you’ll notice ‘Language Settings’ on the right side of the page. When you click on ‘Language Settings’ a window will open from where you can choose which language packs you want to install.
In order to add a translation to an inspection template, open the inspection template you want to add the translation to. Click the ‘Translation’ tab to access the translation settings. You can select one or more languages from the dropdown which will allow you to translate each item/question on the inspection template. Unfortunately the translation doesn’t happen automatically, you’ll need to enter the correct words in the boxes under language you want to translate it to. Don’t forget to save and re-publish the inspection! Keep in mind the translations will not be available for any work order service tasks with inspections that were created prior to adding the translations. All new service tasks with inspections will have access to the translation(s).

Inspection Form Layout

There are some very nice updates to the way the inspection form renders to end-users. By default the fields to enter the data in are shown under the question. Admins can change the layout of the inspection form to show the ‘answer’ fields on the right side of the question. This can be done by opening an inspection and clicking on the ‘Advanced’ tab on the right hand side (next to toolbox). This area shows a field called ‘Layout’ density which by default is set to ‘Comfortable’. This layout is the one we’re familiar with where the ‘answer’ fields are below the questions. In order to switch to a more compact layout the ‘Compact’ option can be set from the dropdown field. Admins also have the option to hide the inspection title, description and question numbers on the form.

Publish inspection template and generate new service task type

If you open an inspection that is unpublished, you’ll notice a new button on the command bar that reads: ‘Publish and generate new service task type’. (screenshot above) When you click this button a small pop-up will appear with the text: ‘Published inspection template would take effect immediately. Once published, inspection template cannot be deleted though you may revise and re-publish. Do you want to publish and generate a new service task type with this inspection template?’ Two buttons on the window allow you to publish or cancel the command. If you select ‘Publish’, the system will automatically publish the inspection, and create a new service task type that has the same name as the inspection (The name can be edited). The ‘Has Inspection’ field in the new service task type will be automatically set to ‘Yes’ and the inspection template lookup field will be auto-populated with the inspection that was published. Handy! This will save me some clicks, I like it!

Set default values for inspection questions

This feature was not available in early access but is scheduled to become generally available when the new release comes out. With this feature inspection creators will have the ability to set default values for certain fields. This option will be accessible from the advanced section for a field. Support for default values will be enabled for text, checkbox, radio buttons and choice type of questions. Below are a few screenshots I received from Neha Jain at Microsoft showing what the experience will look like. Thanks Neha!

Well, that’s all folks! I don’t know about you but I am pretty excited about these updates and functionality that will be added to inspections in Dynamics 365 Field Service! I hope you enjoyed this post! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post! Also be sure to take a look at the video below where I will be demonstrating the new features mentioned in the article!