Overview of Service Scheduling

Avoid disruptions in service by making sure that your resources are scheduled optimally and efficiently. Using Scheduling in Customer Service Hub, you can plan and schedule service activities for your customers by bringing together all your resources.

Understand the scheduling experience

Scheduling, which is built on top of Universal Resource Scheduling (URS), provides an efficient way to schedule resources for service activity. It considers the availability of employees, facilities, and equipment to plan schedules accordingly. It also helps customer service organizations with improved service quality by preventing over-scheduling.

Scheduling scenario

The following scenario helps to understand how the scheduling capability lets you manage your service activities seamlessly:

Contoso bike repair schedules repair services for their customers. To facilitate this process, Contoso needs to bring together the following information:

  • Geographical locations where they need to offer their services.
  • The personnel and equipment they need to perform those services.
  • The types of bike repair services they offer.
  • Work hours during which they perform their services.
  • Capacity and expert level for all personnel.

Contoso can benefit from the scheduling feature by quickly catering to their customers with their repair services. With the various scheduling entities, they can plan service activities for their customers by considering the availability of resources, facilities, and equipment.

Let's see how Contoso accomplishes the task:

Step 1: Create organizational units
Organizational units are the locations where Contoso provides service to their customers. More information: Create and manage organizational units

organizational units.

Step 2: Create resources
Contoso lists the resources required to perform the services.

Note

You can create all resource types using the Resource entity.

In this example, two resources (contacts) Bert Hair and Gilda Moss are created. Similarly, two more resources (facility/equipment) are created as Bike repair workbench - 1 and Bike repair workbench - 2, which are required to perform the service. More information: Create and set up bookable resources

resouces-csh.

Step 3: Set work hours for the resource, resource group or facility/equipment
The availability of the resources is defined in the work hours section. More information: Set work hours for the resources

set-work-hours.

Step 4: Create resource groups
The resources are aligned in resource groups or resource categories.

In the example, Bert Hair and Gilda Moss are grouped as Technicians and Bike repair workbench - 1 and Bike repair workbench - 2 are grouped as Workbenches.

More information: Create and manage resource categories

resource group.

Step 5: Create a service record
Contoso now collates all the above inputs to create a bike repair service record for the customer. They also specify the resources/resource groups they will need for the service. More information: Create or edit a service in Service Scheduling

service record in Customer Service Hub.

Step 6: Create a service activity
A service activity is defined to look for the next available time slot to schedule the service and align resources as per requirement. More information: Schedule a service activity

service-activity.

Step 7: Book the service in the schedule board

The schedule board displays all the service configurations at one place to quickly schedule a service. More information: Use the schedule board to configure service activity

schedule-board.

Set up the Service Scheduling experience

The set up experience is different based on the following scenarios:

Prerequisites

  • Make sure that you have the required security role or equivalent permissions. More information: Manage security roles in service scheduling

  • Ensure your organization has Universal Resource Scheduling 3.2.0.405 or a later version. If your organization has a version prior to 3.2.0.405, then Universal Resource Scheduling installation fails. To check the Unified Resource Scheduling version on your instance, go to Settings > Solutions.

    More information: Schedule anything with Universal Resource Scheduling (Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation).

    Note

    • If your organization doesn't have Universal Resource Scheduling, the Core Service Scheduling solution installs the latest version of Universal Resource Scheduling.
    • If Field Service or Project Service is already installed on your organization with Universal Resource Scheduling 3.2.0.405 or later version, then Universal Resource Scheduling will also be upgraded to the latest version. Otherwise, the installation fails.
    • The latest version of Universal Resource Scheduling might not be compatible with the older versions of Field Service or Project Service.
  • Ensure your organization has Customer Service Hub application.

Install the Scheduling solutions

  1. Go to Microsoft 365 Admin center.

  2. Select ... Show all > Admin centers > Dynamics 365. Dynamics 365 opens in a new tab.

    Go to Dynamics 365 in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

  3. In the Dynamics 365 Administration Center, under the Instances tab, select an instance type from the drop-down.

  4. select the edit icon next to solutions. Manage your solutions page appears.

    Edit the solutions.

  5. In the Manage your solutions page, select Core Service Scheduling. The status column shows Not installed.

  6. Select the install icon next on the Core Service Scheduling card. The Terms of service page appears.

    Install the solutions.

  7. In the Terms of service page, read the terms and conditions and then select install. The installation may take few minutes.

After successful installation, you can access scheduling in the Customer Service Hub sitemap.

Access scheduling in the Customer Service Hub

With the latest release of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Scheduling is powered by Universal Resource Scheduling, and is available from the Customer Service Hub sitemap.

  • Select change area. to go to Scheduling and access the entity record types.

    access-service-scheduling.

Access scheduling in Customer Service workspace

You can also access Scheduling in the Customer Service workspace app.

  • Select the + icon to expand the menu to view a list of forms, views, and activities, and then select either Service Activities or Scheduling to open the feature in a new tab.

    Access Scheduling from Customer Service workspace.

    • Service Activities

      View service activities in Customer Service workspace.

    • Scheduling

      View the schedule board in Customer Service workspace.

Configure entity records in the new scheduling experience

Configure all your entity records in the new experience manually from the user interface.

Make sure that you have the correct security role or equivalent permissions. Know more about security roles: Manage security roles in service scheduling.

Important

The admin must follow the order as given in the Scheduling scenario while configuring entity records in the new scheduling experience.

Note

All entity records can be configured from the user interface except Service Activity.

Understand scheduling entities

Scheduling entities are grouped under the following logical groups:

Scheduling

  • Resources
    Anything that needs to be scheduled can be termed as Resources. This can be personnel, crews, service centers, company assets (equipment), accounts, or contacts.

    More information: Create and set up bookable resources

  • Facilities/Equipment
    Facilities and equipment are resources you'd use to perform services for your customers. Facilities can be physical spaces like service bays or conference rooms and equipment could be tools or other assets.

    More information: Add facilities and equipment to schedule service

  • Resource Categories
    With Resource categories, you can group your bookable resources by type. For example, you can create categories like technician, supervisor, subcontractor, vehicle, or equipment.

    More information: Create and manage resource categories

  • Services
    To make scheduling services quick and easy, it's helpful to predefine the specifics of the services you'd provide to customers.

    More information: Create or edit a service

  • Service Activities
    Create a service activity by finding the next time resources are available for a service.

    More information: Schedule a service activity

  • Fulfillment Preferences
    Choose and customize how to display schedule assistant results, like with neat hourly appointments or morning and afternoon time windows.

    More information: Fulfillment preferences

Tools

Settings

  • Organizational Units
    Your company organizes its business by geography, function, or other areas. You can create organizational units that reflect your business.

    More information: Create and manage organizational units

  • Business Closure
    Prevent scheduling resources on holidays and other non-working days by defining business closures.

    More information: Set when your business is closed

See also

Service Scheduling FAQ