Plan and prepare for Dynamics 365 Field Service in 2021 release wave 2
Important
This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, go to New and upcoming features in Field Service. For the latest release plans, go to Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.
Important
The 2021 release wave 2 plan covers all new functionalities planned to be delivered to market from October 2021 to March 2022. In this article, you'll find the product overview and what's new and planned for Dynamics 365 Field Service.
Overview
Dynamics 365 Field Service is an industry-leading field service management application that allows companies to transform their service operations by connecting people, places, and things to deliver customer-centric experiences. It includes capabilities such as work order management, resource scheduling, and asset management. Dynamics 365 Field Service allows organizations to move from paper-based reactive service to deliver proactive and predictive world-class service, empowering digital transformation and allowing innovative business models such as outcome-based service.
For 2021 release wave 2, we'll deliver rich scenarios in several areas, including:
- Streamlined onboarding experience for faster time-to-value and production deployment.
- Enhanced frontline worker experience with new capabilities and improvements on the Field Service mobile experience.
- Enhanced new schedule board experience with essential features carried over from old experience and additional usability improvements.
For official product documentation and training, see:
- Dynamics 365 Field Service product page.
- Dynamics 365 Field Service training on Microsoft training.
Updates to Dynamics 365 Field Service 2021 release wave 2
Tip
Download the release overview guide and share with your team as you plan to onboard the new capabilities included in this release wave.
* Overview guide available in English version only.
Investment areas
Empower frontline workers
Service technicians and frontline workers are the essence of any field service organization. They’re at the vanguard of providing excellent customer service by fixing their issues. It's critical that frontline workers have the best digital tools, enabling them to engage with their peers, with the back office, and with customers while staying on top of their field duties.
Empowering technicians and frontline workers to perform better service and achieve high first-time fix rates is a core objective of Field Service. The following section includes 2021 release wave 2 features to help service technicians be better at their jobs.
Engage end-customers
Frontline workers' engagement with their customers has never been more important. These touchpoints are opportunities for the service organization to build trust and long-lasting relationships with their customers.
The following section includes 2021 release wave 2 features to empower customers to be in closer contact with their technicians and the field service company. Customers can schedule and track their service visits from a single online destination without waiting to connect with the contact center.
Optimize service operations
Optimizing field service operations starts with empowering field service admins to quickly deploy Dynamics 365 Field Service. Simplified workflows mean service managers can more easily manage service work orders, and make sure frontline workers successfully meet customer requirements on time.
The following section includes 2021 release wave 2 features that include a new simplified trial experience, next wave of deployment updates where key features are on by default to decrease admin effort and time to deploy, and work order form usability improvements to increase service manager productivity.
Resource scheduling
Resource management and scheduling optimization are at the heart of field service management. Resource scheduling is a powerful tool for service organizations to triage the unscheduled work orders and cases and schedule the nearest eligible technicians to deliver service to their customers. The schedule board offers scheduling capabilities for dispatchers, project managers, and resource managers in different views of the board (hours, days, weeks, months, maps, list, and more), as well as extensibility capabilities for partners to tailor functionality to meet their needs.
To learn more about the entire set of capabilities being delivered during this release wave, check out the release plan for Dynamics 365 Field Service below:
For application administrators
User-impacting features to the user experience enabled automatically
User-impacting features should be reviewed by application administrators. This facilitates release change management and enables successful onboarding of new capabilities released to market. For the complete list, look for all features tagged "Users, automatically" in the release plan.
Features that must be enabled by application administrators
This release wave contains features that must be enabled or configured by administrators, makers, or business analysts to be available for their users. For the complete list, look for all features tagged "Users by admins, makers, or analysts" in the release plan.
Get the most out of Field Service
| Helpful links | Description |
|---|---|
| Release plan | View all capabilities included in the release. |
| Product updates | Stay up to date on latest product updates. |
| Release calendar | Know important release milestones. |
| Licensing | Improve your understanding of how to license Field Service. |
| Product documentation | Find documentation for Field Service. |
| User community | Engage with Field Service experts and peers in the community. |
| Upcoming events | Find and register for in-person and online events. |
| Product trials | Get started with Field Service. |