Extension and configuration possibilities with SAP Field Service Management
While fit to standard approach may fit many companies, the majority of field service organizations require some degree of configuration and extensibility within their environment. SAP Field Service Management makes configuring and extending the solution easy, so businesses can configure and extend their solution to meet their specific needs. SAP Field Service Management can be configured and customized to meet the specific needs of industries, service teams of different sizes, and service organizations at different stages of the maturity curve. This blog will focus on two key sections (a) general configuration and (b) extensibility. Before diving into these topics, I encourage you to watch the demo video below, showcasing extension and configuration possibilities.
Configuration:
Configuration in SAP Field Service Management empowers organizations of all sizes and industries to align with their unique business needs and requirements. Below are some of the most common ways that our customers configure their SAP Field Service Management solution:
Screen Configurations
Screen configurations refer to the customization options available for designing and modifying the user interface (UI) screens within the application. These configurations allow organizations to tailor the UI to their specific business needs, improving usability, efficiency, and user satisfaction. Some of the specific screen configuration options include the ability to hide or display fields; conditionally hide/display; move fields on screen; define default values; make fields editable or read-only; make fields mandatory or optional, rename standard fields; and the ability to add new custom fields (user defined fields). In the image below, I have repositioned certain fields to improve useability; and also added my own user defined fields such as Work Centre, Project, and Chargeable, while making some of these fields mandatory (denoted by a red asterisk). Screen configurations are also supported on the SAP Field Service Management, mobile app.
Smartforms
Smartforms are one of the easiest tools to configure in SAP Field Service Management to allow organizations to tailor these digital forms to their unique business processes. With a user-friendly interface and intuitive drag-and-drop tools, users can effortlessly customize forms to meet specific requirements, even without technical expertise. This flexibility allows for efficient data capture, implementation of validation rules, and optimization of layouts, streamlining operations and agility in service delivery.
Business Rules
Business rules play a part in almost every SAP Field Service Management implementation, and vary greatly in degree of implementation effort. There are standard business rules that can be activated, for example to send a push notification to a technician when an activity is received, or custom business rules that can be created, for example to assign a custom workflow depending on the Service Call Type. Generally speaking business rules are very robust and can be configured to help automate and simplify business processes for all organizations. For more information on business rules, see here.
Auto scheduling Policies
The Policy Designer allows customers to view, modify and create new policies for assisted or fully-automated scheduling in a no-code designer to define company-specific requirements. With this intuitive and user-friendly tool, companies can easily create and manage their own custom policies, with little to no technical background. Such policies allow organizations to fully-tailor scheduling policies specific to their business needs to achieve desired outcomes for scheduling optimization. The policies created by the customer can be used in assisted planning scenarios i.e., via the best matching technician, or in fully-automated scheduling scenarios alike. Furthermore, the policies can be used in business rules, the planning widget, appointment booking API, and so on.
Workflows
Most customer implementations involve some degree of configured guided workflows. Such workflows refer to a structured and step-by-step process that technicians or service personnel follow while performing service operations. It simplifies operations by providing a clear and intuitive framework for technicians to execute their tasks efficiently. The configurable workflows standardize processes, enhance productivity and help ensure compliance, ultimately leading to more efficient and effective service delivery. This means customers can tailor workflows that are unique to their maintenance/service processes, and have their field technicians carry them out in the field. As an example, imagine a workflow for operating a piece of heavy machinery requires a technician to fill out a digital safety checklist, and include photos, a signature and timestamp before operating the equipment – such a scenario could include a “Safety Check” workflow step which automatically directs the technician to complete the digital form prior to commencing the job.
Extensions
To enable more complex requirements that are not solved by standard functionality and configuration, SAP Field Service Management supports extensions. An extension application is an independently developed application designed to extend any of the service processes that are not fully supported in standard functionality, allowing businesses to fulfil their unique requirements. While the SAP Extension Directory already has many pre-built extensions supporting a wide array of extended business processes, customers and partners also have the ability to build their own extension applications for SAP Field Service Management. In this section of the blog, we will touch on both (a) available extensions and (b) developing your own extensions.
Extension directory
The extension directory offers access to many pre-built extensions built to extend business processes. Such extensions are developed by SAP Partners who are part of our SAP Ecosystem Build program, and go through a full product readiness check from SAP before being added to the official Extension Directory, where it can be installed by customers. Some examples of extension capabilities include the ability to support augmented reality and remote assist scenarios, integration with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams, as well as the ability to predict root causes and required spare parts before a technician arrives on site. For more information on available extensions, please see here.
Developing your own extensions using SAP BTP Cloud Foundry
Customers and partners also can develop an extension using SAP BTP Cloud Foundry. For these scenarios, you have options to use both SAPU15 and SAP Build Apps, or the technology of your choice with the advantage of hosting the extension on BTP. For users wishing to get started, we also provide multiple instructional videos that help you in developing your own extension. For more information, How to Code Extensions. For creating such extensions, an SAP Business Technology Platform account is required, and requires general developer knowledge for supporting technology, for a full list of prerequisites, see here. Once the application is deployed, users can install the extension in SAP Field Service Management, and select the outlet position of the app i.e. on the Service Call, Side-bar, equipment screen, etc. For more details, see here. While we support SAP BTP for extensions, we are an open ecosystem and as a developer you can decide on the programming language and tools to develop the app and you can choose where to host the application. More info here.
Developing and Deploying an Extension with SAP BTP
Launch an external application from mobile
For extensibility for the SAP Field Service Management, mobile app, we provide the ability to launch an external app, as well as place web-containers. An external app allows users to launch an application installed on their device directly from within the SAP Field Service Management mobile app. This capability makes it easy to streamline work processes when there is a need to interact with multiple applications. External apps can also be linked to respective workflow steps, launching dedicated apps automatically when beginning a corresponding workflow step. This functionality also makes it simpler to interact with every day apps, such as Microsoft Teams for field service collaboration.
Web Containers
Web-containers are also used to extend mobile processes which are fundamentally containers stored in the mobile application (iOS and Android) that can be configured to read and display data from an external source and allow the user to access an external website within the application. For those customers who commonly interact with separate websites to execute field service processes, web containers are a way to simplify the business process while allowing the technician to continue working in a single app. An example here could be technicians who have help documents and knowledge bases stored elsewhere (such as SharePoint) and need a way to easily access without navigating between several apps. Alternatively this could be accessing a standard Fiori app (as shown in the demo video below) or a custom app. For more information on web containers, see here.
Thoughts or questions? Feel free to share any feedback in a comment. For related posts and more information, please join our SAP Field Service Management Community page and explore our SAP Field Service Management Website. I encourage you to register for our upcoming webinars for the most up to date information by registering here.
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