Monday, February 25, 2019

Dynamics CRM Field Service Journey 3 – Get Records Counts using List Records action in Flow

When field service IoT Alert automation we create work order automatically using MS Flow without coding. In that record creation implement mechanism to set work order number (number should be unique) by Flow. We retrieve existing work orders list based on filter criteria and generate work order number based on the number of records retrieved by list action.

Follow following steps to get count of records using List records control



Note: User can change filter condition to meet requirement otherwise flow will become less performance if retrieve all the work order records

Use Length function on lookup records body values then add 1 to get next number


add(length(body('Get_Last_Work_Order_Number')?['value']),1)



How to automate IoT Alert to work order will be posted in next blog post

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Dynamics CRM Field Service Journey 2 – Fix “lack of permission, In order to use an Azure subscription” issue

When we start configuring connected field service it needs Azure subscription to retrieve messages from IoT devices and after run the logic app it will create appropriate work orders to continue work in CRM.

There is descriptive installation steps for connected field service in following link.

Beginning of the connected field service: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/get-started-with-connected-field-service/1-connected-field-service-overview

Setting up azure subscription: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/get-started-with-connected-field-service/3-install-connected-field-service


There are two different options in the Azure subscription setup window,

       1. Configure existing Azure subscription: In this configuration you can use your existing Azure subscription for connected field service

       Tip: when adding existing subscription: use account in “onmicrosoft” tenant otherwise it will give you error message your account is not in onmicrosoft tenant.


        2. Create Azure subscription using onmicrosoft account and use it for connected field service
Most of trial users use this method to create azure subscription and use it for connected field service.

         In this method you have to create azure subscription using onmicrosoft account which used for Dynamic CRM.

When you setting up the azure subscription you may end up with following error message

“Lack of permissions. In order to use an Azure subscription to deploy Connected Filed Service solution you need to have Owner access level”




How to setup Azure subscription to use for connected field service. There are several ways to add ownership to the Azure subscription. You can follow following steps to configure ownership before configuring connected field service

Step 1: Go to Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com/) and create free account using your onmicrosoft account


Step 2: Start trial – go the Azure portal and then Security Center (left menu) then go the “Getting started” and click on “Start trial” button




Step 3: Install Agents – After you start trail you can see there is another tab enable getting started called “Install Agents” (if you cant see the tab refresh and navigate back). Select your subscription and click on “Install agents” button.



Step 4: Go to Identity & Access – After install agents refresh the page and go to "Security Center" then "Identity & Access (preview)"




Step 5: Click on “Designated more than one owner on your subscription” then click on “Free Trial





Step 6: Then click on “Role assignments” tab and click on “Add” button. Then select “Owner” as role and select your account as member then “Save”.



Step 7: Then go back to connected field service wizard and select your CRM organization, then select Azure subscription after that select “Resource group location” and give “Resource group name” and complete the setup.








You can complete device registration after following Microsoft tutorial in below link.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/get-started-with-connected-field-service/1-connected-field-service-overview

Monday, February 4, 2019

Dynamics CRM Field Service Journey 1 – Change Field Service Mobile Filters

Dynamic CRM field service has rich mobile component which helps users who need mobility like maintenance service employees. They can install Dynamic CRM Field Service mobile app on their mobile and perform most of the field service related tasks using mobile device such as complete work orders, get customer signatures, create follow-up tasks/work orders etc. Field service mobile app facilitate users to use it in both online and offline. After user add relevant credentials and sync with Dynamic CRM it load relevant data in to the mobile local storage. Then users can perform their actions in offline mode as well. That helps users who travel and working on-site.


Field service mobile app completely based on the Resco Mobile CRM and they use woodford project to store mobile customizations. For more details about woodford projects and Resco Mobile CRM visit following reference (Resco Mobile CRM: https://www.resco.net/mobilecrm/ , Woodford: https://www.resco.net/support/guides/woodford/)


Standard Field Service mobile app is pre-customized woodford project which runs on Resco Mobile CRM platform. Standard Field Service mobile app used lots of filters to reduce the data which synced from CRM to mobile device. Sometime it may not show relevant work orders due to those filters. In such cases we have to change sync filters in woodford project. According to the latest Field Service woodford project it use following conditions filter work orders.



  1. Status = Active
  2. Word order status = Open-Unscheduled,  Open-Completed, Open-In Progress, Open-Scheduled
  3. Bookable resource booking should be in Active status
  4. Resource of the bookable resource booking should be current user (who logged in to the Field Service Mobile App)
  5. Booking status = In Progress, On Break, Scheduled, Traveling
  6. Start time should be on Today or within next 7 days
  7. End time should be on Today or within next 7 days



Example: Users need to sync work orders based on sub status and sync work orders today or within current month (30 days). Then we have to modify the sync filters to achieve that requirement.

How to modify the sync filters


Step 1: Open woodford project using woodford. Resco introduce new html 5 based woodford editor and they keep their old siverlight based woodford editor as well. You can navigate to the woodford in following way.


 Navigate to the CRM Settings and navigate to the Mobile CRM section then woodford










I used legacy woodford editor in rest of the configurations users can use one of these editors for project editing.





Step 2: Navigate to work order entity and open Sync Filter








Step 3: Using Add condition you can add the condition (Tip: before you click on add condition select existing condition then it will place to the correct place). You can perform delete unwanted conditions, group conditions, change existing conditions and may more actions. After you complete the changes you have to save the filter














Step 4: Publish the project. You have to instruct the users re sync again after you did the modifications to the project otherwise it will not affect (if there are any sync errors you have to delete data and sync again)


Tip: If you have any other filtering issues you can follow same steps to change those filters as well