Field Service Mobile App for Windows

I am super excited to write about this preview feature for Dynamics 365 Field Service! I knew this was in the works, but I was waiting anxiously for this item to go to public preview so we can start using it and see what it’s all about! You already know what I’m talking about if you read the title of this article: the field service mobile app for windows is here! As I mentioned it’s still in preview but this is a great time for all Dynamics 365 Field Service customers that have resources who use hardware with windows operating systems to try out the app! Keep in mind that you need to be running Windows 10 or higher and the device needs to have a minimum of 64 GB of storage and you’ll need 3 GB of RAM. You can download the app from the Microsoft store. Once you install the app from the Microsoft store you need to enter your credentials to log in. (Make sure you have the right security roles setup in Dynamics 365 Field Service.) The app looks a lot like the version you see when you use a browser to open the Field Service Mobile model driven app, but there are some things that this app has which are not available in the browser version.

The first thing I want to mention is that when you navigate to bookings, you won’t have to change the setting to show the view as a calendar, using the booking calendar control. This is something you need to do when you’re using a browser to access the Field Service Mobile model driven app. Unfortunately booking maps (the ability to show your bookings on a map) are not yet available in the app, but I am hoping Microsoft will add that later. There are some other things that are not yet available which I will discuss a little later in this article. Like any app, you can grant access to the device’s camera, allowing you to take pictures and store them in Dynamics 365. This is also not something that you can do when using a browser to access the model driven app.
When I opened an inspection in the app I noticed I have the ability to either choose a file and attach that to my ‘image question’ in the survey, or I can take a picture using my device’s camera and attach it immediately. When I look at the same inspection in the browser version I noticed that only the option to upload a file is available. The ‘Photo’ button is not visible at all.

Another feature that I really appreciate in the app is the ability to toggle between relevance search and categorized search. The reason why this is exciting is because prior to 2021 Release Wave 2, you don’t have the ability to use this toggle in the Field Service Mobile app on iOS or Android. Unless you turned off relevance search in data verse, but that would be a great loss! And guess what?? If you can’t access categorized search then you can’t use the barcode scanner to do a global search for items, which makes this such an important feature for me.
Just like the iOS and Android apps, you have the ability to use the offline capabilities in the windows version of the app. The offline data will automatically be downloaded to the app after a user signs in, but you can also force this manually.

If you want to use the Field Service Mobile windows app to switch between environments (sandbox and production) you can do this by clicking on the user icon on the top right corner of the app. This will take you to the list of Field Service Mobile model driven apps in the tenant. In order to show all the apps, you will need to click on the ellipse in the top right corner and click on ‘settings’. This will then take you to a window where you can turn on the option to show non-production apps as well as production apps.

Now let’s talk about capabilities that are not yet available in the windows app. Keep in mind these features might not be there today, but they will be added to the app at a later date.
Push notifications | We can create push notifications using Power Automate flows. If you’re not familiar with push notifications take a look at this article that I wrote on the topic. Today push notifications are available for the the Android and iOS versions of the app, but unfortunately not in the preview version of the windows app
Personal Options | I also noticed a lot of the personal options you can set in the iOS or Android app are not available in the windows version. When you click in the gear icon in the iOS app, you have the ability to access a lot of settings, like location tracking, access to your photo library, longer toast notifications, etc. When I accesses personalization setting in the windows app, I only had the ability to set the time zone, calendar default and the number of records that are shown in a view. When I navigated to ‘Reconfigure’ in the windows app, and click the ellipse on the right top side of the screen, selecting settings, this only gives me the option to show non-production apps. I think it’s safe to say these other settings that we know from the iOS or Android apps are not yet available in the Windows app, meaning that location tracking and large image and file support is also not (yet) available.

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!