Copilot in the enhanced mobile experience for D365 Field Service(preview)

Having a well-designed mobile app for frontline workers is crucial for many reasons, as it directly contributes to streamlined operations, improved communication, enhanced efficiency, and ultimately, a more empowered and productive workforce. Last week I wrote an article about the exciting features that are part of the new enhanced mobile experience for Dynamics 365 Field Service, which is currently in preview. (If you haven’t had a chance to read the article, you can do so here.) This week I am going to explore the copilot feature, a significant component of the upgraded mobile experience in Field Service!
Please be aware that since the copilot enhancements are currently in preview, an administrator must enable them before they become accessible for use. Since these copilot features are part of the new enhanced mobile experience, you’ll need to enable that preview as well. There are a few requirements for the preview. You must have a paid Dynamics 365 Field Service environment that has to be either in the U.S or in the U.K. Copilot isn’t available in the trial Dynamics 365 Field Service environments. The minimum Dynamics 365 Field Service version required for these preview features is 8.8.95.25 and the minimum Field Service mobile app version is 13.23072.18 for iOS and 3.23072.18 for Android.

Enable the Copilot Preview

Enabling copilot for the enhanced mobile experience can be done by administrators within the Field Service Mobile app. As I mentioned in my previous article, I was surprised when I found that these settings are only available from within the ‘Field Service mobile’ app, and not in the settings of the ‘Field Service’ app. When you log into Field Service mobile, you’ll need to access the ‘Settings’ area. On this page, you’ll find the ‘preview features,’ section showing the preview features. As I mentioned before, the copilot feature is part of the new mobile experience, so you will have to enable new mobile experience as well. The button to enable copilot for the new mobile experience will be read only if the new mobile experience is not enabled. After you enable the new mobile experience, you might need to refresh the page, after which the ‘Copilot for New Mobile Experience’ column becomes editable.

Set the slider to ‘on’ to enable the preview feature and make sure you save the settings.

Copilot Features

There are two main features that are part of the copilot functionality. The first one is the ‘summarize’ feature. This gives the technician a summary of the booking they are working on, without having to read through all the details of the booking and/or work order. I’m sure you’ll see the value here and how this feature helps save time! The second feature is the ‘update’ feature, and as the name already explains, this allows field techs to update the booking by just talking to copilot. Let’s dive a little deeper into each of these features.

Summarize

Copilot can be accessed from the new booking form in the Field Service mobile app. When a booking is opened, you’ll notice the copilot icon on the top right of the screen. The first time you access copilot you’ll see the ‘Introduction screen’ for copilot. The screen explains that copilot can be used to work smarter within the app and it also mentions that mistakes can be made, so to be sure to verify the information in the app. Once the technician clicks on the ‘Try Copilot’ button, the copilot screen loads. You will see two options to choose from: summarize and update. Click ‘Summarize’ to get a summarization of the booking.

Now let’s talk about how copilot finds the relevant information to create the summary. There are several columns and tables that copilot uses to get the information. It’s important to understand that copilot uses data from the ‘booking information‘ column, and the ‘customer asset‘ column but that’s not all! It also uses information from the work order service tasks, work order services and work order products! On top of that if there are skills/characteristics associated to the work order, you’ll see that information in the summary as well! Work order history is also included. In my test case I had a work order for an HVAC unit asset, which had historical work orders associated to it. When I asked copilot for a summarization of the booking, it mentioned the previous service history as well! Lastly, activity details and notes are also included. These notes can be at the work order or booking level.
NOTE: If you want to try the summarization feature in the legacy field service mobile app you can do this by changing the value of the ‘Copilot recap for mobile’ column to on. Lastly, this functionality is also available in the field service app for back-office workers.

Update

The update functionality that is part of copilot for Field Service mobile allows technicians to update data in the mobile app. Technicians will no longer have to navigate through different screens to update the booking information. When you click on the ‘update’ option in copilot, you’ll notice a screen that asks to ‘describe your work’. This is where the field technician can tell copilot what needs to be updated. The great thing with all of these copilots is that technicians can use common phrases as copilot will understand the natural language input. Techs can either type the information into copilot, or they can use speech-to-text if their device allows this. Techs can tell copilot to update records by using phrases like ‘I completed all tasks’, ‘I’ve used <name of work order product>‘ or ‘I finished this booking at 5PM’.

When the description is sent to copilot, it will show a list of items to update. Techs can pick and choose which updates they want copilot to make on their behalf. There are some limitations to the updates that copilot can do during this preview. The available updates that copilot can do are:

• Updating of booking status and times 
• Updating work order task statuses to ‘completed’
• Completing work order services 
• Updating work order service durations
• Updating work order product line statuses to ‘used’
• Updating work order product quantities

Unfortunately, copilot is not able to add a note to the booking or work order at this time. I’m hoping that this is something that will be added in the future. All things considered I am loving these new AI features in Field Service! Organizations that want to stay ahead of the curve will definitely be interested in this type of functionality! I hope you enjoyed reading this article! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!