• "Book - COURSE 8913: APPLICATIONS IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS - CRM 4.0 - pages 21-1 (=430) ..."
  Published by Microsft on December 2007
  http://de.scribd.com/doc/60936658/8913-En-Applications-in-CRM-Student-Manual

This article provides an overview of the service scheduling features of Microsoft Dynamics®  CRM. Service scheduling is designed for organizations providing services that require complex combinations of resources. Service scheduling considers the availability of employees, facilities, and equipment to ensure that resources are available to deliver service activities for customers.

Some of the benefits of Service Scheduling include the following:

• Scheduling tighter appointments while improving service quality

• Preventing over-scheduling with predictable workloads for employees

• Ensuring reliable time estimates for your customers and clients

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM service scheduling feature uses the following concepts:

• Resources: This includes people (Microsoft Dynamics CRM users), equipment, and facilities.

• Resource Group: These are groups of resources with similar skill sets or capabilities.

• Site: These are typically the physical locations an organization's resources are associated with.

• Services: This is a type of work provided to a customer, and provided by combinations of resources.

• Resource Selection Rules: These are defined for services, and specify which combinations of resources are required to provide a service.

• Service Activities: These are scheduled instances of services.

Resources are users, facilities, or equipment that either perform the service or are required to perform a service. Individual resources have work schedules that define when they are available to work.

When the service is scheduled, resources can be selected to deliver the service. Which resources are required to perform a service is defined in the service's selection rules.

To schedule a service activity, users first select the service and then search for an available time. Microsoft Dynamics CRM uses the service's selection rules and the resource's work schedule to present users with a list of available times. The users select a time for the service to be scheduled and the service activity is then added to the schedule.

Resources, Resource Groups and Sites

• Resources are people, facilities (such as a room or a hall, where a service activity can be performed), and equipment. Individual resources have work schedules that define when they are available to work. These are referred to as Work Hours. Specifically, there are two types of resources:

   O Users: The people using Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

   O Facility/Equipment: This is a record type available by default in the Business Management page  and can be used to track an organization's facilities and equipment.

• A Resource Group is a pool of similar resources, from which individuals can be chosen for a service activity. These resources can generally be thought of as being interchangeable. Perhaps the members of one resource group have the same skill set (or at least a skill set appropriate for a certain service activity). Resource groups are not required, but provide a convenient way to group resources with similar skills.

• A Site is typically a physical location of an organization, such as headquarters or branch offices, stores, distribution centers, and so on. Resources (users, equipment, facilities) can be associated with sites, to account for possible scheduling requirements that specific resources may only be able to deliver a service at a specific site.

Service

A Service is a type of work provided to a customer and performed by one or more resources. For example, bike repair or tax consultations are services. To define a service, enter general information about the service, identify the resources needed to provide the service, and then describe these requirements by creating a selection rule for required resources.

Selection Rule

A Selection Rule specifies how users, facilities, or equipment should be combined to perform a service. Selection rules can take into account a combination of many different factors, including:

• Which resources can deliver a service: For example a Bike Repair service many require a single technician combined with a repair bay. A Bike Repair Certification Seminar may require a combination of an instructor, a registrar, and a suitable training location.

• The schedule of required resources: Resources can be scheduled on a least busy, most busy or random basis. A least busy scheduling requirement will cause the resources with the most availability to be suggested first. A random scheduling requirement will cause a resource's current schedule to have no impact on whether it is suggested for a service delivery.

• Whether the resources are from the same site or business location: For example, a selection rule could specify that a bike repair technician located at Facility A can only be scheduled for services delivered at that location.

Service Activity

A Service Activity is a scheduled instance of a service. A service activity is based on a service, and is scheduled for a specific time. It can be scheduled for a specific site. It can be associated with one or more customers (accounts or contacts), and it can be delivered by one or more resources (users, facilities, equipment, and so on).

When a service activity is scheduled, a feature of service scheduling referred to as the "scheduling engine" will suggest the best resources to deliver the service activity. The scheduling engine considers the following primary factors:

• The selection rule defined for the service

• The current schedules of the required resources

Conceptually, scheduling a service activity is a three-step process:

1.   Select the service to be scheduled.

2.   Invoke the scheduling engine.

3.   Select the preferred combination of resources and times and schedule the service activity.