Configurable Copilot Summaries for D365 Field Service

If your organization is using Dynamics 365 Field Service, then you probably have seen the summarization feature for bookings and work orders. This feature is currently in public preview and it uses artificial intelligence to generate a recap for a work order or a booking record in Dynamics 365 Field Service. This summary contains information about the work order and related data, such as work order products, work order tasks, arrival times etc. Of course the user who generates the recap will only see data they have access to as the feature does honor user permissions. When this feature was introduced, we didn’t have any control over which tables, related tables and which columns Copilot uses when generating the summary, but that changes with this new feature (in preview today) which I am writing about in this article!

Enable summary configuration

Like with all preview features, first you will have to enable this preview feature if you want to try this out. You can do this by navigating to the settings area in Dynamics 365 Field Service, and setting the ‘Copilot for work order’ slider to ‘On’. Make sure you save the settings change. Once you’ve completed this step, you should see the ‘Copilot Settings’ section appear on the navigation menu on the left side of the screen, with the ‘Summary Configuration’ item below it. When you click on ‘Summary Configuration’, you should see two rows. One called Bookable Resource Booking and one called Work Order. These rows hold the configuration settings for these tables and this also means that today we can only configure these settings for work orders and for bookings. Let’s open the work order configuration record first. You’ll notice you can enable the configuration summary for the Work Order from here, by changing the ‘Configure Summary’ slider setting from ‘Off’ to ‘On’. If you leave the ‘Configure Summary’ button ‘Off’, the system will use the default configuration to generate the summary.

Configure Work Order Summary

Once the ‘Configure Summary’ button has been set to ‘On’, you’ll notice additional information on the form now becomes visible and we can start selecting the tables and columns that need to be included in the summary. It’s important to understand that we don’t just have access to tables that have (a direct or indirect) 1:N relationship to the work orders or bookings (I.E service account) like we have when we’re creating views. In the summary configuration we can also use tables that have a N:1 relationship with work orders or bookings!! (I.E Notes) This gives us access to A LOT of related data!
To add one or more tables to the configuration, you’ll need to click the ‘Add data’ button below the ‘Table’ section. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see an empty row with the words ‘Select table’ and a search icon on the right of the column. You can click inside the row to enter the name of a table or click on the search icon to select a table. Once you have selected the table you can select one or more table columns that you want Copilot to use when creating the summary. When I was selecting the tables for the summary, I was under the impression that we can only use tables that are directly related to the work order, like work order products, services, tasks, etc. When I started to play around with this, I noticed this is not the case, we can actually go a lot deeper, but there are some considerations. Let me give you two examples: I created a custom table called ‘Sample’ which has a N:1 relationship with the opportunity table.

There is no direct relationship with the work order table (or bookable resource booking table). You would think that this means that I cannot include my custom ‘Sample’ table when I am configuring the summary for work orders (or bookings), but this is not the case and I will explain why.
As you might or might not know, there is a 1:N relationship between the opportunity table and the work order table. And this is why we will be able to use the sample table in the configuration. Even though there is not a direct relationship from the work order table to the custom sample table, there is an indirect relationship between the work order table and the sample table through the opportunity table (see the image above) and this relationship will allow me to include the sample table in my work order summary configuration.
To do this, I will need to select the direct relationship to the work order table first, which is the relationship with the opportunity table. To do this, I need to click inside the ‘select table’ column on the Field Service Summary Configuration screen and search for the opportunity table. Once I find it, I click on the arrow on the right side of the table name (opportunity), as this gives me access to all the tables that are related to the opportunity table.

The list that appears shows me all the tables that are related to the opportunity table and I select the custom sample table from the list (you’ll have to click the table twice). Once a table is selected, you can only choose one column, so I choose the ‘Description’ column on the sample table to be used in the summary. If you want to use additional columns from the same table you can add the table again and select another column.
To make it a bit more complicated, I have another example of a table that can have a direct relationship to the work order or booking table, but also an indirect relationship. This makes it a bit harder because you have to make sure you choose the correct relationship. With the sample table example, there was only one way to get to the sample table, because there was only an indirect relationship between samples and work orders, but in the below example there is a direct and indirect relationship between work orders and a custom table.

Example 2: I have a custom activity type that is called ‘Freight Note’. I mainly use this on sales records like orders and opportunities, but since it’s an activity type, I can associate these Freight Notes to other tables if needed. This means there is a direct relationship between the Freight Note table and the opportunity table, but also between Freight Notes and Work Orders. In order to decide which Freight Notes I want to include in the summary (the ones related to the opportunities or related to work orders or both!), I have to think about the data structure. If I want to include Freight Notes from Opportunities, I will have to go through that relationship, similar as I did for the sample table. I will have to choose the opportunity relationship and then the Freight Note table and select the columns I want to include. If I want to use the Freight Notes on the work order, I will select the Freight Note table without having to link through another table. Or, I can do both!

Testing your configurations

When you scroll down a little, you’ll notice the ability to test the configurations you have created. You can do this by selecting a work order in the ‘Sample data’ field. Unfortunately not all work orders are available here, but it’s nice to test this before committing to the configuration. I have to say I am very impressed with the configuration abilities here, I was under the assumption we would only be able to use tables that had a direct relationship with work orders or bookings, but fortunately this is not the case! I hope you enjoyed this article! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!