Booking setups
After you've set up the initial information about the agreement, you can start creating booking setups. Booking setups define the specifics of how and when work orders are generated. In the landscaping example, you would need to create three booking setups:
A lawn care booking that generates work orders weekly.
A landscaping booking that generates work orders monthly.
A lawn treatment booking that generates work orders every three months.
To define booking setups, select New Agreement Booking Setup on the Booking Setup subgrid on the agreement form.
In the Summary section of the booking setup, provide the following information:
Name - The name that will be populated as the work order name for any work orders.
Agreement - This number is generated automatically.
Description - Where you can enter specific information about this booking setup.
Work order settings
One main reason that organizations use agreements is to autogenerate work orders. In the Work Order Settings section, you can define specifics about the work orders that will be created. These settings are important because they include key elements about the work order, such as the work order type.
In the Work Order Settings section, you can specify the following information:
Auto Generate Work Order - Specify whether the booking setup should automatically generate a work order.
Work Order Type - Define the type of work order that will be generated.
Generate Work Order Days In Advance - Specify how many days in advance to generate the work order. For example, if the work order is needed on the first day of the month, you might want to generate the work order three days in advance to ensure that a dispatcher can get it on the schedule.
Priority - Defines the priority of work orders that are generated from the agreement booking setup.
Work Order Summary - Provides a brief summary of the work order.
Booking settings
Booking records in Dynamics 365 Field Service define when the work on a work order will be carried out. They include information such as the technician who will be performing the work, arrival times, completion details, and more. When the agreement generates the work order, you can also have it create a booking record for the work order at the same time. Some organizations might choose not to generate the booking and have a dispatcher, or an automated scheduling solution, create the booking later. Other organizations might elect to have the system create the booking automatically.
The Booking Settings section allows you to specify details that are related to scheduling the booking, such as if bookings should be automatically generated, or if flexibility is allowed when the booking is scheduled or if it needs to happen on the day that it's scheduled for.
Booking settings include:
Auto Generate Booking - Specifies whether you want the setup to automatically create and schedule a booking for a work order.
Estimated Duration - Defines how long the booking is expected to take.
Pre and Post Booking Flexibility - Allows you to define how many days before or after the target date is acceptable.
Preferences
The Preferences section is where you can be more specific as it relates to booking preferences that a customer might have, such as defining a preferred resource or preferred start time.
The available settings in the Preferences section include:
Preferred Resource - Specifies the resource that should be scheduled for this booking. This setting is required if you choose to autogenerate the booking.
Preferred Start Time - Specifies the preferred time that this item should be scheduled for. This setting is required if you choose to autogenerate the booking.
Time Window Start and End - Allows you to specify a time window that it should be targeted for on the day that it's scheduled.
Automatically generating bookings works well when a customer would prefer a specific resource at relatively the same time. For that reason, if you choose to auto create the booking, you'll need to specify a preferred resource and start time. The system will create a booking for that resource as close to the preferred start time as possible. If you won't be scheduling the same resource for each item, you should select not to auto generate the booking; instead, you should have a dispatcher schedule it manually or use a resource scheduling optimization.
