Dynamics 365 for Field Service and Project Services Automation Update 2

We recently released an update in February for Dynamics 365 for Field Service, Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation, Resource Scheduling Optimization solutions. Below are the new capabilities and bug fixes introduced in this update. 

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements – for both Project Service Automation and Field Service

  • Performance improvements for schedule board.  
  • You can now apply resource work template to multiple resources at a time. 
  • Updated sitemap with shorter names 
  • Company address has been renamed to organizational unit in the resource location option set. 
  • There is a new option in the resource start and end location fields on the resource records. The new option is “location agnostic”. Resources that have a start or end location of location agnostic will only return in schedule assistant results if the requirement is location agnostic. Additionally, if start or end location of resource is organizational unit or resource address, those respective records must have a valid latitude and longitude. 
  • Multiple enhancements to map tooltips and pin behavior. 
  • New icons for current location on schedule board map. One for current location and one when the current location has expired. Added option to hide resource current location on map 
  • Selecting resource on schedule board auto selects resource current location, and falls back to start of day location. 
  • Multiple enhancements for selected map pins on schedule board map. 
  • When user selects a record on the schedule board, which should display respective pin on the map, yet the pin cannot show on the map, there is now an error message that gets displayed on the map. For example, if the user selects a booking without any location, error message is displayed. If user selects a requirement from bottom panel yet is excluded from the requirement map view, error message appears. 
  • Schedule Boards can now be shared with specific people. 
    • Each schedule board has three share types. “Just Me”, “Specific People” and “Everyone”.  
    • To have schedule board access at all, user must have read privileges to the schedule board setting entity. 
    • If schedule board share type=”Just Me” then only the owner of the schedule board will see this board. If the board is owned by a team, then no one will see this board. 
    • Schedule board share type of “Everyone” works the same way public schedule boards worked in previous releases. If schedule board share type = “Everyone”, then every user will have access to this board if they have read rights to the schedule board settings entity.  
    • If schedule board share type = “Specific People”, then users who have rights to that schedule board settings record will be able to see this schedule board. This means customers can share schedule boards with specific users or teams instead of needing to share boards with the entire organization. 
  • When searching for availability on the schedule board, resource that are not available in the search can either be dimmed, or removed from the board. For personas who are viewing a specific set of resources and do not want resources removed from the board if they are not a match can choose to dim unavailable resources, while personas without this requirement can have unavailable resources completely removed from the board. This setting can be changed in the schedule board tab settings. 
  • Users can now reorder their schedule boards by dragging the tab names on the top right of the board in the order they prefer. This can also be accomplished by changing the order number on the record itself. Users can only reorder within each share type. All boards that are share type “Everyone” will appear first. Then share type of “specific people”, followed by “Just me”. 
  • Each type of requirement can now have a separate requirement details view, which controls what shows in the details panel on the schedule board when the user selects a requirement in the requirements panel on the bottom panel of the schedule board. 
  • Map toolbar has been reformatted to make better use of space. 
  • When launching new schedule assistant, the default search duration is based on the requirement remaining duration. 
  • When filtering by a specific column in the requirements panel on the schedule board, when interacting with date fields, you can now filter by days, minutes, and hours. 
  • While using new schedule assistant, when user changes the “search for” option in the filter control from search within to search all, existing filters are immediately cleared. 

Resource Scheduling Optimization Enhancements  

  • One resource got multiple bookings at the same time, which is not expected. This overlapping booking issue has been fixed. 
  • Multiple fixes for Right to Left language support for Hebrew and Arabic  
  • Changed the fall back logic: If Bing maps is not able to find a valid route for start/end location, the entire call with multiple bookings will fall back to manual calculation. Now, only that specific booking will fall back to manual calculation instead of entire service call. 
  • In the Scope, when the user configured a time rage in the past, we used to create bookings in the past. This has been fixed.  
  • If one resource has defined multiple breaks in their calendar, this caused an issue with Resource Scheduling Optimization and it could not optimize bookings for this type of resource. This has been fixed.  

 Project Service Automation Enhancements  

  • Performance improvements in Resource booking and fulfilment experiences, WBS and task scheduling 
  • Credit notes: We now support the ability to credit or correct a Project Service invoice that was sent to the customer. Quantity of billable hours, bill rates and other charges can now be corrected or reversed. 
  • Time Entry/Expense: User was not able to see reject comment after time entry /expense got rejected. Now a user can see this. 
  • Expense localization fix: Currency entered is not shown correctly in Expense when the currency is any other than USD. This have been fixed. 

For more information see, Scheduling anything in Dynamics 365 with Universal Resource Scheduling, Dynamics 365 for Field Service – User’s Guide, Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation – User’s Guide