D365 Field Service: Inspections(Preview)

Microsoft has added another preview feature to Dynamics 365 Field Service which is now widely available for public preview. Inspection functionality has been available as an add-on from a third party (I.E Resco Inspections), but not as a core Dynamics 365 Field Service feature. Well, get ready because that is going to change. I am very excited about inspections because I work with a lot of prospects that have a requirement to use inspections with Dynamics 365 Field Service. In order to add the preview feature to your environment (please use a sandbox), you will have to use PowerShell and follow these instructions. I used a laptop that has windows 10 as the operating system. It seems that windows 10 didn’t allow my laptop to run scripts using PowerShell, so I had to change the execution policy to allow this. Keep in mind that when you install the preview package, not only inspections will be installed, but also the a Work Order PowerBI report. I have mentioned it before, but I will mention it again; keep in mind that preview features are not ready for production. This is not a finished product and Microsoft may make changes to the product before it will be rolling out the general public .

Now lets talk about what we can actually do with inspections. Users with the appropriate security roles (Field Service Administrator) have the ability to create inspections. When we create Inspections in Dynamics 365 Field Service, they are used as templates that can be re-used over and over again. Inspections have one or more questions related to them. (A good example is an HVAC inspection, where a technician might have a check list of items that need to be completed, but any situation where the same questions need to be answered each time a field worker goes onsite, can take advantage of this functionality.)
Inspections can be attached to a Service Task Type, which can be related to Work Order Service Tasks, which in turn are related to Work Orders. Work Order Service Tasks can be manually added to a Work Order or automatically by adding an Incident Type that has one or more Incident Service Tasks related to it. If an Incident Service Task is related to a Service Task that has an inspection associated to it, this Service Task will be ‘copied’ over to the work order as a Work Order Service Task.

In order to create an inspection, navigate to Settings > Inspections (under the Work Orders section). Click the +New button on the command bar. The different question types are visible on the right side of the Inspection form. The question types that are available with this preview are:

• Text box – Allowing users to type in a response
• Checkbox – Users can select one or more checkboxes
• Radiogroup – Allowing users to select one value
• Dropdown – Allowing users to select one value from a drop down list
• Date – Users can select a date
• File – Allows users to upload a file

Once the Inspection form loads, you first need to drag and drop a question on the screen, after that you will be able to type in a name for the inspection and save the record. On the question area, there are a few buttons you can use to configure the question. You can make the question mandatory by setting the ‘Required’ slider to yes. You can duplicate questions by clicking the copy button. The gear icon shows advanced options for the question such as a name and description field, and the trash can button deletes the question from the inspection. Once you have added all questions to the inspection, you can preview the user experience by selecting the ‘preview’ tab. When you are finished with the inspection you need to publish the inspection. Keep in mind that once you publish, you can not edit the inspection anymore. There is currently not a way to ‘un-publish’ an inspection. You can also no longer fill out the questions in the ‘preview’ version once the inspection has been published.

After publishing, the inspection can be attached to a service task. Keep in mind that you can only have one inspection related to a Service Task. Service tasks are also in the ‘Settings’ area, above inspections. I noticed that the system didn’t allow me to add an inspection to an existing service task that has other records related to it, so I created a new service task record. In order to attach the inspection to the service task, you need to set the ‘Inspection’ field to ‘Yes’, this will reveal a new lookup field on the form called ‘Inspection Form’, where you will populate the inspection. You will notice all the questions related to the inspection will appear on the form. I like the idea of tying the inspections to the service tasks. This means that we can have multiple inspections tied to one work order!

In order to have the system automatically add the questionnaire to a work order we only have to add the service task type to an incident type. (NOTE: Incident types are like work order templates. When an incident type is added to a work order, the incident types’ related characteristics, products, tasks and services are ‘copied’ over to the work order.)

Incident types are also in the settings area, above Service Task Types. Click on Incident types and open an existing Incident Type. Add an Incident Type Service Task, and select the Task Type that has the Inspection associated with it. When open the newly created Incident Type Service Task you’ll see the ‘Has Inspection’ is set to ‘Yes’ and the ‘Inspection lookup field has been populated. (Currently you cannot update existing Incident Type Service Tasks as the ‘Has Inspection’ and ‘Inspection’ lookup field are locked)

Lastly I’m going to take a look at the user experience from the field technician’s perspective. First I need to schedule the work order to myself and then I’m going to use the Dynamics 365 App (not the Field Service Mobile App) on my phone to open the Field Service App to access my booking. I need to open the Work Order Service Task to access the Inspection. The user can fill in the answers to the questions when they scroll down. There is also a ‘Result’ option set field with the values Pass, Fail, Partial Success and NA. This represents the outcome of the inspection. NOTE: Since we’re not using the Field Service Mobile app built on Resco, you’ll notice that the experience is almost identical to what you see in the Service Task screenshot above.) There is a ‘Clear Responses’ button on the command bar that allows users to clear all answers and start over. Note that when this happens, the responses are all deleted and the new values will be saved.

Overall I think this is a great start! Yes there are some things missing, like branching logic for questions, but this is something that is on the road map. I believe being able to create inspection templates with different questions without creating different entities and fields definitely makes this a very powerful tool! I can’t wait to see what Microsoft will add to inspections in the next wave! If you want to see a short demo of inspections, check out the video below!

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