New Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Field Service Integration

Field service organizations understand the importance of teamwork. Cooperation and collaboration between and among frontline managers and technicians is essential. In today’s competitive environment, the ability to connect service teams instantly, share vital information, and make data-driven decisions can be the difference between success and missed opportunities.

If you’re a frontline field service manager, the new and improved integration between Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Field Service should be on your radar. And if you’re a marketing manager or executive within a field service organization, understanding this integration’s value could redefine your organization’s service delivery, customer satisfaction, and even brand reputation. Here we look into two ways Microsoft is incorporating the power of Teams into Dynamics 365 Field Service.

Work Order Management Within Teams

Chances are your organization is already using Microsoft Teams as its primary collaboration and communications tool. Many of us keep Teams open on our desktops throughout the day. Microsoft’s appealing to these kinds of users with its recently announced Teams integration for Dynamics 365 Field Service (still in Preview mode). The new integration allows your frontline workers and managers to interact with work orders directly within Teams—without disrupting their workflow by switching between applications.

Managers can create, view, and edit work orders directly in Teams. In addition, as your technicians start their day, they see upcoming work orders in their home experience in Teams—on their computers or mobile devices.

Dynamics 365 Field Service for Teams uses Microsoft Viva Connection dashboard cards to enable frontline managers to manage work orders without disrupting their workflow. Unfamiliar with Viva Connections? Viva Connections is a customizable app in Microsoft Teams that gives your organization’s different audiences (like frontline managers and frontline workers) a personalized experience. For example, it provides easy access to the resources, tools, and popular destinations they use most.

Teams Chat in Field Service

If your organization already uses Microsoft Teams, you’re undoubtedly using its ubiquitous Chat feature. In fact, you’re likely already using it to communicate about work orders. Until recently, though, there wasn’t a way to marry the two because there wasn’t a direct integration between Teams and Dynamics 365 Field Service.

With the recently announced integration, your frontline managers and workers (plus any other authorized stakeholders) can use the Microsoft Teams chat feature to communicate with team members in the context of work orders.

You’ll simply click on the Teams channel button from the work order form in Field Service to see all your Teams chat activity. Conversations related to the highlighted work order are right up top. You can chat with colleagues from within the work order form, even if the discussion is unrelated to the work order, saving you from switching to the Microsoft Teams app whenever you need to chat.

Initiating a new linked chat associated with a work order is also simple. When you do so, you’re creating a brand-new chat, which means any previous conversations you had with the chat participants are not brought into the new discussion, keeping the context of the chat all about the work order.

As new people engage to help complete the work order, you can easily add them to the conversation. To bring them up to speed quickly, you can elect to send an automatically produced introductory message with high-level work order details linking to the full work order record. These new chat members will then have access to all the communications surrounding the work order so that they won’t miss any important details.

Here’s a quick list of the new functionality of the Teams chat in Field Service function:

• Initiate a new chat from the work order screen
• Link (or unlink) a chat to an individual work order
• Manage multiple conversations for a single work order
• Invite (or remove) new members at any time
• Send quick introductory summaries to new colleagues
• View the conversations from the work order screen
• See and access other exchanges without leaving Field Service
• Works across web and mobile

Benefits of an Integrated Team

We’ve given you an overview of the features of the Teams integration with Dynamics 365 Field Service, but what matters more than features are the potential game-changing benefits.

• Share the Knowledge: With access to your shared knowledge base, your team can access troubleshooting guides, share insights, and even contribute to a growing repository of solutions. This not only elevates individual technicians’ capabilities but also enhances the team’s collective expertise.
• Enhance Customer Experiences
  With transparent and instant communication channels, customers feel valued and informed. Happy customers can dramatically increase your customer satisfaction (or Net Promoter) scores and overall loyalty, and loyalty leaders outperform their competitors by a two-to-one margin.
• Streamline Communication: Field technicians can directly communicate with their colleagues using Microsoft Teams directly from the Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile app. This can be especially helpful for troubleshooting or getting expert advice without leaving the job site.
• Collaborate on Work Orders: Team members can collaborate on work orders with real-time conversations and share notes, images, and project updates. This helps ensure everyone has the most current job status information.
• Remote Assistance: With the help of Microsoft Teams, field technicians can initiate video calls to get real-time support. Using mixed-reality tools like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, experts can guide technicians by overlaying annotations on the technician’s view, which can be particularly beneficial for complex or unfamiliar tasks.
• Incorporate Meetings and Training:  Your organization can use Teams to schedule regular meetings, training sessions, and more. The integration ensures that field service personnel are continually updated on the latest procedures, safety protocols, and other critical information.
• Boost Customer Engagement: You can keep customers in the loop by facilitating communication through the Teams chat function. This can be useful for providing updates, setting expectations, and even handling complaints or concerns in real time.
• Enhance Productivity: The combined capabilities of Dynamics 365 Field Service and Microsoft Teams help reduce the time to resolve issues, as technicians can quickly get the information and support, they need. This results in faster job completion time and more accurate fixes.

Why This Matters

Field service is evolving, and the organizations that harness the power of collaboration and communication will lead the way. A McKinsey study found that improving communication can increase worker productivity by up to 25%. In the field service world, this means fewer missed appointments, faster problem resolutions, and heightened customer trust.

With the two additions highlighted here, you can access Dynamics 365 Field Service from Teams—and Teams from Field Service. The integration is more than just a technological update—it’s a strategic move to position your organization at the forefront of service excellence. Velosio specializes in helping field services organizations optimize their operations. Contact us to start the conversation.