Field Service Dynamics 365 Mobile App

On May first this year Microsoft came out with their new Field Service Dynamics 365 mobile app, which is an app that is built on the power platform. The app itself is a model-driven app which is configurable and customizable just like any other Dynamics 365 App. Currently the new mobile app is only available on iOs (Requires iOS 10.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch) and Android (4.4 and later) operating systems. I’m hoping it will become available for windows as well, but haven’t seen anything about that yet. This is the first version of the new Field Service mobile app, so obviously there still a long way to go. If you have worked with the current Field Service mobile app which is built on Resco’s technology, you’ll find that there are a lot of things that we can configure in this app which is not (yet?) available in the new field service app. For example with some very simple configurations I can show which warehouse holds a certain product directly from the product page, without having to go into each warehouse record and searching for the product. I wrote an article on how to do that which you can access here. Other things that are available in Field Service Mobile but not available in the new Field Service D365 app are:

• Push notifications
• Geofencing
• IoT Alerts
• Reporting
• Scan to find asset
• Location sharing and auditing
• Enhanced mobile workflows
• Enhanced offline sync filters
• Remote assist
• Microsoft Intune

It’s important to understand that Microsoft is eventually permanently moving to the new Field Service Dynamics 365 app. The Field Service mobile app will still be supported, but by June 2021 new deployments will be forced to use the Field Service Dynamics 365 app. Support for the Field Service mobile app will end in June of 2022. This gives us a long time to move to the new Field Service Dynamics 365 app and it gives Microsoft a long time to add functionality to the app. This doesn’t mean that you can’t start using the app today. If your organization is using Field Service and your scenarios are not very complicated, maybe you don’t need all the bells and whistles that the current Field Service mobile app offers? It’s definitely not a bad thing to check out the new app to get more familiar with it.

There are a few things you need to know before you can check out the new Field Service Dynamics 365 App:

Your Dynamics 365 Field Service solution needs to be on version v8.8.22+ (here is a link to the versions and when stations get updated) You can find the current version of your environment by logging into the power platform admin page, clicking on the environment and clicking on the ‘Dynamics 365 apps’ icon. Find the Field Service app and click on the ellipse and select ‘details’.

Check the security roles related to the Field Service Dynamics 365 app, and make sure your user has that security role.

To check the security roles related to the app, click on the gear icon and select ‘advanced settings’. Select settings > my apps then click on the three dots on the top right side of the Field Service Dynamics 365 app tile, then select ‘manage roles’. Here you can see which roles have access to the app, and you can add roles from this screen too.

To check the security roles related to the app, click on the gear icon and select ‘advanced settings’. On the top navigation bar select settings > security > users and find your user record in the list. Select your user record and click ‘Manage Roles’ on the command bar. This will open a window showing all the security roles for that user. You can add security roles from here as well.

Make sure you have a resource configured for the user record mentioned above. Schedule a work order to the resource.

After you’re confirmed all the items mentioned above are in order, you can download the new field service dynamics 365 mobile app here for android devices and here for iOs devices.

Once the application is installed, log into the app by providing your username and password.

Field Service Dynamics 365 App Experience

I decided to access the new Field Service Mobile app in Dynamics 365 using the ‘old’ Dynamics 365 mobile app and by using the new Field Service Dynamics 365 mobile app as I was curious to see if there were any differences in the experience. I want to mention that I was having some issues logging into the Field Service D365 app, as it kept redirecting me to a screen that showed the message ‘You’re almost there. Contact your administrator for access to your organization’s mobile apps.’ My fellow MVP and friend Shawn Tabor informed me that you need to refresh from within the app (in iOS that means pulling down the screen, not sure about android), which will then allow you to access the Field Service D365 App. In order to log into a different environment(I.E Sandbox vs Production), users will need to click the hamburger menu on the top left and select ‘Apps’. By clicking on the ‘Apps’ drop down on the next screen and selecting ‘non-production apps’, an app from a sandbox environment can be selected.

I have to say the new field service dynamics 365 app looks very nice. There are a lot of similarities but I feel the new field service dynamics 365 app looks a bit cleaner. Maybe that’s because in the Field Service Dynamics 365 App the buttons are no longer on the top of the page. They are now placed on the bottom of the form and it makes the form look very good. When I open a booking, the ‘save’, ‘save and close’ and ‘new’ buttons are visible, users can access additional buttons by clicking on the ellipse. Here they will see other options like ‘deactivate’, ‘refresh’, ‘assign’ etc. Obviously the buttons that are available will change depending on what the user is viewing.
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