Configure if Booking Status completes a work order

If your organization is using Dynamics 365 Field Service, then you might have come across a scenario where a field technician doesn’t need to fully complete a work order, but instead they need to partially complete a work order. There could be multiple reasons for this need, for example a technician doesn’t have all the required parts on hand to fix the issue, and they might need to order the required parts first before they can come back to fully complete the job. In the past, Dynamics 365 Field Service didn’t really have a great built-in way to handle these half-done jobs. Technicians would mark the work order as completed, with a sub status to follow-up, while they were waiting for those parts to come in. This workaround might fit the bill for some, but not for everyone. With this new feature in Dynamics 365 Field Service, we now have more flexibility to handle these types of situations without the need for complicated configuration and customizations.

Functionality

Let me first explain how this works. There is a new setting on the booking statuses in Dynamics 365 Field Service, which allows administrators to configure whether or not a booking status (that has been selected on a bookable resource booking) will fully complete the related work order (This statement is true under the assumption that this is the last or only booking that is being completed for a work order; if there are multiple bookings for a work order, the work order status will be set to ‘Completed’ when both booking statuses are set to ‘Completed’). Admins can use this new setting to configure existing booking statuses or they can create a new booking status for this purpose.

For this example I created a new booking status called ‘Completed – Partial‘ and I configured it (as the name suggests) to NOT fully complete the related work order. The way this works is that when a resource selects the ‘Completed – Partial’ booking status on the (bookable resource) booking, the booking will be completed (there is no more work to be done at this time) but the related work order is not fully completed. This means that we can schedule additional bookings for this (partially completed) work order at a later time. If you open the work order that is related to my (one, not multiple) booking with the ‘Completed – Partial’ booking status, you’ll notice the ‘System Status’ column of the work order is not set to ‘Completed’, but to ‘Open – Unscheduled’ instead! Please keep in mind that if you configure an existing booking status, existing bookings will not be affected by this change, only new bookings will be affected.

Configuration

Now let’s talk about where and how you can configure this. When you open a booking status in Dynamics 365 Field Service (which you can do by navigating to the ‘Resources’ area and selecting booking statuses below the Booking Settings section on the sitemap) and select the ‘Field Service’ tab on the booking status, you’ll notice a new column that is called ‘Status Completes Work Order’. If this column is set to ‘Off’, it means that when this booking status is selected, the associated work order will not be fully completed or closed.

This also results in the ‘Completed On’ column on the work order not getting populated and the work order ‘System Status’ will not be set to ‘Completed’. Instead, it will be set to ‘Unscheduled’. In other words, by using this booking status, a resource can ‘partially’ complete a work order and that same work order can be scheduled at a later time for full completion.
When the ‘setting ‘Status Completes Work Order’ column is set to ‘On’, this means that if this status is selected on a booking, the related work order will be fully closed and the system status of the work order (Field Service Status) will be set to ‘Completed’ (unless you renamed the Field Service Status to something else). The ‘Completed On’ column on the work order will also be populated. Please note: These statements are true under the assumption that this is the last or only booking related to a work order; if there are multiple bookings for a work order, the work order status will be set to ‘Completed’ when both booking statuses are set to ‘Completed’). To learn more about booking statuses and work order statuses please visit this Microsoft article.
I believe that providing customers with the flexibility to configure whether a booking status will fully complete a work order represents a significant optimization for Field Service organizations. By allowing them to tailor this aspect of their workflow, it not only streamlines processes, but it also enhances their overall understanding of the specific requirements needed for work order completion.

Complete Bookings While Preserving End-Time

As a small bonus, I also wanted to tell you about another feature that is new to Dynamics 365 Field Service. This is more an update than a feature, but nonetheless, I still wanted to make you aware of it. Previously, if anyone changed the booking status on a booking to ‘Completed’, the end time would change to the date/time the booking status change was made. This update will change this behavior. Here is an example/scenario of how this works and why this is beneficial for Field Service organizations: A dispatcher schedules a technician for a job from 10 AM to 12 PM. The technician completes the work order at the estimated time of 12 PM, but he or she forgets to mark the booking as completed. When another user (who is not the assigned resource) changes the booking status to ‘Complete’, the original end time of 12 PM on the booking is kept, preserving the end time on the booking. I’ve heard a lot of organizations asking for this feature, and I am glad it’s finally here! 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!