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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Set up the Service Scheduling experience
The set up experience is different based on the following scenarios:
For a new Power Platform environment, by default, the Core Service Scheduling solutions is installed. You can access scheduling from Customer service hub app site map. To learn more, see Access scheduling in the Customer Service Hub.
For an existing Dynamics 365 Customer Service organization, you must install the service scheduling solutions from the Microsoft 365 admin center. To learn more, see Install the Scheduling solutions.
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
Go to Microsoft 365 Admin center.
Select ... Show all > Admin centers > Dynamics 365. Dynamics 365 opens in a new tab.
In the Dynamics 365 Administration Center, under the Instances tab, select an instance type from the drop-down.
select the edit icon next to solutions. Manage your solutions page appears.
In the Manage your solutions page, select Core Service Scheduling. The status column shows Not installed.
Select the install icon next on the Core Service Scheduling card. The Terms of service page appears.
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
to go to Scheduling and access the entity record types.
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.
Service Activities
Scheduling
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
Schedule Board The Dynamics 365 Customer Service schedule board provides an overview of resource availability and bookings you can make.
More information: Use the schedule board to configure service activity
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
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