Part 2: Execution of Service Agreements

Companies that offer field services to their customers often provide service agreements with regularly scheduled services and at predefine intervals. These services could include routine inspections and preventative maintenance. During Part 1: Sale of Service Agreement, we covered the components and complexities of scoping a service agreement. With the sale of the agreement complete, the execution and management is key to keep your customers happy and to move your traditional break fix service department from a cost center to a profit center.

During the sales process, the following, most likely, would have been determined:

1. Equipment/Customer Assets being serviced
2. Specific details of what tasks on being performed during the servicing
3. When and how often the service will take place
4. How much the service contract cost and how often will the customer be invoiced

These specific details are critical for the execution of the service agreement and should be managed in order to:

1. Forecast your service pipeline
2. Ensure the agreed upon work is completed
3. Avoid scope creep of services and equipment
4. Verify invoices are being sent on time

Dynamics 365 Field Service can provide your company with a solution that assists your field services team with the management of service agreements. Field Service agreements allow you to automatically generate work orders and invoices with predefined details, frequency, and date ranges. This not only allows you to manage different occurrences between when the maintenance is being performed and when the customer is being invoiced, but the system also generates the work orders and invoices for you.

For the work agreed upon, the solution will track equipment being worked on, tasks to be performed, labor type and duration, parts to be used, and expenses / fees to include. It is important these details be passed to the technicians so they understand the terms of the agreement and avoid performing maintenance that is not part of the agreement. Therefore, these details will be added to the work order that will be automatically generated based on your custom frequency and as many days in advance as your team needs. Having work orders generated in advance, provides you better visibility into your service pipeline, which will assist with resource management and maintenance schedules. It also ensures the work is in the pipeline to be dispatched and completed during the planned timeframe.

When it comes to invoicing, the solution will track the items, services, and/or subscriptions to be invoiced at the agreed upon rate. After the reoccurrence is setup, the invoices will be atomically generated which will avoid the risk of forgetting to invoice the customer.

The Dynamics 365 Field Service agreement solution will give you the confidence to manage and execute on service agreements with your customers. The functionality above is only the beginning when it comes to service agreements, and can be customizable and expandability for your company.

Kaylan Brant