I’m excited to be the new writer on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Documentation Team and I’m happy to contribute to this team blog.
When I first arrived I became very interested in the Service Scheduling feature and have written three articles about it for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Resource Center. In the article Configuring a service business in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 I use the example of a sports food service business to illustrate the power of the scheduling engine. The concessions business has some interesting dynamics: staff for food and drink stands, each resource having different skills (cashiers, cooks, counter servers), and some resources needing two skills, like a cashier for a mobile food service truck − who also must be able to drive the truck.
The article answers the question, how do we automatically schedule personnel based upon skill so that we can staff multiple food stands in a sports venue, like an arena or coliseum? The answer is creating resource groups for skilled staff, creating services that require these skills in certain combinations, and then creating service activities in the scheduling calendar. It works! The power of the scheduling engine is amazing. Check it out and let me know what you think. If you have any insights or experiences around services scheduling (inbound or outbound), send them to me. I’d be delighted to hear them.
Kind Regards,