How to Pass Salesforce Field Service Consultant Certification Exam

After dreading and delaying a couple of times, I finally mustered the courage to appear for the Field Service Consultant certification exam today. And I managed to pass it on my second attempt. So, follow along on the ‘Yellow Brick Road’! The first time I appeared for this exam was on 21st March 2020.

Thanks to Salesforce for offering free instructor-led training to Salesforce MVPs. It Immesnaly helped me to prepare for the certification exam.

I’ve approximately 1.6 years of experience in implementing or managing field service lightning. The experience, without a doubt, helped me to pass this exam easily. But, what if, you wonder, one does not have an opportunity to gain experience on the Field Service Lightning? So, let us take a minute’s pause and think about how someone – who did not get an opportunity to work on the Field Service Lightning Implementation – can appear and pass the exam? If you fall in this category, welcome to the right blog at the right time! For by reading from the beginning to the end of this article, you will have a clear understanding of – and will be able to devise a plan and a strategy for – how to pass the Field Service Consultant Certification exam.

So, Who is an Ideal Candidate for the exam?

The Salesforce Field Service Lightning Consultant exam is intended for consultants with the required experience in implementing Salesforce Service Cloud and Field Service Lightning. Additionally, as a Consultant, you will be required to design and deploys solutions that support customer business processes and requirements using the Field Service Lightning product. Also, it will be your responsibility to manage packages and the Field Service Lightning Mobile application. Furthermore, as a Feild Service Lightning consultant, you should have field service industry experience, mobile solution expertise, and a solid understanding of the Salesforce core object model.

The Salesforce Certified Field Service Consultant has the following experience:

1-2 years as a business analyst
1+ years in the field services industry
2+ years of services and support experience

A Field Service Consultant Certification would boost your career by several folds – because it will demonstrate your Field Service Lightning Implementation knowledge along with your Salesforce experience!

Yellow Brick Road – Set a Strict Exam Preparation Timeline!

After deciding to appear for the exam, it is time to gather information about the exam and think about what steps you will put in place to ace it. Once you have a concrete timeline, begin to think about how you will integrate a sound study plan around the rest of your responsibilities – work/home balance, etc. Having a concrete date to study towards will help you stay motivated.

Below are some details about the exam and study materials:

65 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions – 105 mins
63% is the passing score
The exam Fee is $200 plus applicable taxes
The Salesforce Certified Administrator and Salesforce Service Cloud Consultant certifications are prerequisites for this exam.

The following list is not exhaustive; so check it out and use it as a starting point:

Salesforce Certified Field Service Consultant Exam Guide
Trailhead Trailmix: Prepare for your Salesforce Field Service Consultant Credential
All About Field Service Lightning – Apex Hours
FSL Deployment Worksheet
Partner Office Hours Recording
Trail – Get on the Road with Field Service
Trail – Supercharge Field Service
Complete Guide to Field Service Book by Salesforce
Field Service Developer Guide
Implement Salesforce Field Service (FSL201) – Instructor Lead training by Trailhead Academy

What you Need to Know to Smoothen your Journey

On a very high level, you have to understand the following topics to clear the exam. All credit goes to the Salesforce Trailhead team and their respective owners.

Use this link to signup for a free developer edition org. Then follow the steps mentioned here to start using Field Service Lightning features.
Familiarize yourself with Field Service Lightning Keywords
1. Extended Match Rule
  1. This Work Rule Type allows matching a Lookup field on the Service Appointment to a list of values (Related List) on the Service Resource.
  2. It provides a versatile and efficient way to meet business requirements and limit the number of candidates.
2. Scheduling Count Rule
  1. Specify the maximum daily workload that can be assigned to a resource.
  2. A scheduling work rule considers a resource capacity modeled via a numeric field on the Service Resource object.
3. Shift Based Availability
  1. Create and assign Shifts to prepare for holidays, off-hours, and weekend coverage, or schedule Resources working non-standard hours. Shifts are assigned to Service Resources and can be linked to Service Territories when relevant.
  2. Typical Shift Management Process
    1. Create
    2. Assign
    3. Share
    4. Monitor Update
  3. Shift inherits the Time Zone of the Territory it’s applied to
4. Designated Shifts
  1. Time slots that define availability based on specific criteria
    1. On-call hours where you can only dispatch emergency work
    2. Reserving capacity for high-income work like new installs
  2. It helps to define which Work Type can be assigned during specific shifts
  3. Create Designated Time Work Rule and add it to the Scheduling Policy
  4. If both Designated Shifts and Operating Hours are used (overlapped), Shifts will take precedence over Operating Hours
5. Operation Hours
  1. Operating hours indicate when your team can perform field service work. They can be assigned to accounts, service territories, and service territory members. To add detail to operating hours, create time slots, which represent the hours of operation in a particular day.
6. Dispatcher Console
  1. The Field Service dispatcher console is the main working space for dispatchers. It features a dynamic map and a highly customizable Gantt chart showing upcoming appointments, active team members, and more.
7. Schedule Over Lower Priority
  1. Schedule critical service appointments over less urgent visits. When a scheduling action can’t find an available time slot, it overlaps lower priority appointments with services you specify as high priority.
8. Resource Availability
  1. The Service Resource Availability work rule type ensures that a service resource is available to perform a service appointment. You can schedule breaks automatically, account for travel time, or set up short breaks between service appointments. Every scheduling policy needs a work rule of this type, or resource absences aren’t respected during scheduling.
9. Resource Absence
  1. Create resource absences to indicate when a service resource is unavailable to work. During schedule optimization, service resources aren’t assigned to appointments that conflict with their absences.
10. Capacity Based Availability
  1. Typically, contractors in field service can work a specified amount in a given period. Define a service resource’s capacity, so they aren’t overbooked during schedule optimization.
11. Designated Work
  1. Often, field service businesses reserve parts of the day for specific types of work. The TimeSlot Designated Work work rule type ensures that if a time slot is reserved for a specific type of work, only appointments of that type are scheduled in the time slot.
12. Polygons
  1. Polygons make it easy to mass-update all appointments within a specific geographic area.
13. Resource Preferences
  1. Designate certain service resources as preferred, required, or excluded on accounts, assets, locations, work orders, and work order line items. Ensure great customer service by matching the best worker to the job.
14. Resource Efficiency
  1. People work at different paces depending on their skills and level of experience. Assign an efficiency score to service resources to facilitate scheduling. The scores are considered during scheduling and can affect an appointment’s scheduled end time.
15. Work Orders
  1. Work orders represent work to be completed for your customers and are central to field service operations in Salesforce. To divide the work further for billing purposes or to track subtasks, add work order line items, which are child records of work orders.
  2. Work orders offer a great deal of flexibility. They can be associated with many types of records, including:
    1. Assets, to track work performed on a specific asset
    2. Cases, to indicate that the work is being performed as part of a customer case
    3. Accounts and contacts representing the customer
    4. Entitlements and service contracts to indicate that the work is being done to fulfill a service-level agreement

Managing Resources: 16%

Familiarize yourself with how to set up and manage crews.
1. A service crew is a group of service resources whose combined skills and experience make them a good fit to work together on appointments. For example, a wellhead repair crew might include a hydrologist, a mechanical engineer, and an electrician.
2. Permissions are required to create service crews using the crew management tool
  1. Create on service crews
  2. Create on service resources
  3. Edit on service territories
3. Permission sets required to access crew management tool
  1. FSL Admin Permissions
  2. FSL Dispatcher Permissions
4. Understand how to Limit Access to Field Service Records
Understand how and when to set up different resource types.
1. 1. Service resources are individual users or groups of users—known as service crews—who can perform field service work. Create service resources so you can assign service appointments to them.
    Field Service Core Data Model
  2. Skills are areas of expertise, certifications, or qualifications.
  3. Resources possess skills at different proficiencies
  4. Work may require skills

Name and define the roles in a field service organization.

Role	Description
Administrator	Sets up field service features according to their unique business needs. Set up includes installing the Field Service managed package and Field Service mobile app.
Agent	Takes customer service calls and requests field service appointments via work orders, which list the skills and parts that are needed.
Dispatcher	Assigns and manages the service appointments. The dispatcher console included in the managed package helps dispatchers schedule, optimize, and dispatch service appointments from one screen.
Mobile Worker or Technician	Manages their service appointments. Their tasks include closing work orders, tracking used parts, and providing service reports.

Core features of Field Service Lightning

Feature	Description
Service Territories	Regions where field service work is performed
Operating Hours	Times when field service work can be performed for service territories, service resources, and customer accounts. Operating hours are made up of time slots: a time period within a day when field service work can be completed.
Service Resources	Mobile employees who can perform field service work
Service Crews	Teams of service resources that are assigned to service appointments as a unit.
Skills	Skills required to perform field service tasks
Time Sheets	Tools to track the time your field service employees are spending on tasks
Work Types	Templates for common field service work, such as cable installations or furnace repairs
Work Orders	Requests for field service work
Service Appointments	Appointments for field service work
Maintenance Plans	Plans that help you track preventive maintenance work using auto-generated work orders
Product Items	Parts for services that can be requested, required, transferred, and consumed in field service work
Product Requests	Requests for a part or parts
Product Transfers	Transfers of inventory between locations.
Return Orders	Records of inventory returns or repairs.
Service Report Templates	Templates for customer-facing reports summarizing the status of service appointments and work orders

Field Service has three main parts that work together to give you a complete field service management solution.
1. 1. Core Field Service features include Service and Dispatcher Consoles
  2. Scheduling and optimization from a managed package
  3. A mobile app for your mobile workforce

The below table breaks down who can do what with the three parts of Field Service.

Core Field Service	Field Service Managed Package	Field Service Mobile App
When you enable Field Service in your organization, admins and agents can: Set operating hours, skill sets, and standard appointment requirements unique to your organization Enable the Salesforce app to provide mobile access to your mobile workforce Track inventory and van stock so your mobile workforce has what they need when they’re at a customer site Report and analyze field service data Plan, perform, and track all your field service work, from installations to repairs and maintenance	When the managed package is installed, dispatchers can: Optimize the schedule according to your organization’s scheduling policies Get a bird’s-eye view of appointment lists, scheduling actions, a resource availability chart, and an interactive map in the dispatcher console Integrate and maintain scheduling policies, global actions, sharing tools, and optimization rules with the administration app	The Field Service mobile app is available for free on the App Store and Google Play. Mobile workers using the app can: View their appointment schedule Use Salesforce data to check on work orders, reach contacts, and verify addresses Create and edit records to log work and create follow-up appointments Use Chatter to collaborate with other mobile workers, managers, and dispatchers Track updates with push notifications View Knowledge articles to complete tricky tasks Track van stock and inventory consumed to complete jobs

Understand the field service lightning permission set and its purpose.

USER ROLE	PERMISSION SETS CREATED	PURPOSE
Field Service Admin	FSL Admin Permissions AND Field Service Admin License*	Let users access and manage all Field Service objects, including the Field Service Visualforce pages and logic services. FSL Admin Permissions contain the permissions included in the FSL Dispatcher Permissions permission set, along with additional configuration permissions. *The Field Service Admin License isn’t created in newer Salesforce orgs.
Field Service Agent	FSL Agent Permissions AND Field Service Agent License*	FSL Agent Permissions provides the minimum permissions needed to use the Field Service global actions, such as Book Appointment, Get Candidates, and Emergency actions. *The Field Service Agent License isn’t created in newer Salesforce orgs.
Field Service Resource	Field Service Mobile License AND Field Service Scheduling License AND FSL Resource Permissions	Field Service Mobile License provides the permission set license needed for users to log into the Field Service mobile app. Field Service Scheduling License provides the permission set license needed for the user to appear on the Gantt and to be scheduled by the scheduling engine and optimizer. FSL Resource Permissions provides the minimum permissions needed for users to update appointment status and update their last known location.
Field Service Dispatcher	Field Service Dispatcher License AND FSL Dispatcher Permissions	Field Service Dispatcher License gives users the permission set license needed to load the dispatcher console. FSL Dispatcher Permissions contain the permissions included in FSL Agent Permissions and FSL Resource Permissions along with permissions to operate the dispatcher console and run optimization.
Field Service Community Dispatcher	Field Service Community Dispatcher License AND FSL Community Dispatcher Permissions	Users can view and use the dispatcher console, view global actions and their related objects, and schedule, optimize, and dispatch service appointments.
Field Service Self Service	Field Service Self Service License AND FSL Self Service Permissions	Experience Builder site users can view all global actions and their related objects to create, book, and schedule their appointments.
Field Service Integration	Field Service Integration	Users can access data needed for optimization, automatic scheduling, and service appointment bundling.
Field Service Bundle for Dispatcher	Field Service Bundle for Dispatcher License AND FSL Bundle for Dispatcher Permissions	Users can schedule and manage bundled service appointments.

Important parts of the field service app
1. 1. The Field Service Admin app lets admins customize the managed package, manage scheduling and optimization, and use the dispatcher console.
  2. The Field Service app lets dispatchers do what they do best: view and manage an airtight service schedule!
  3. The Field Service tab leads to the dispatcher console, where you can manage your team’s service schedule.
  4. The Field Service Settings tab is where you customize the managed package’s settings and access the Guided Setup tool. (Salesforce Setup includes a separate Field Service Settings page whose settings aren’t related to the managed package.)
Spent time understanding different setup options available for Field Service
After you create your field service permission sets, give users the permissions they need to complete their field service tasks. You can assign permissions in Setup or Guided Setup. Check this help article to understand different permission sets and how to assign them using a guided setup.
Create Service Resources for Field Service
Create and manage Service Crews
1. Considerations for Scheduling Service Crews
2. Capacity-based scheduling isn’t supported for service crews because a service resource of type Crew can’t be capacity-based.
3. Work orders, work order line items, and work types come with a Minimum Crew Size and a Recommended Crew Size. For example, a crew might have a recommended size of 3 but a minimum size of 2. Work orders and work order line items inherit their work type’s crew size settings.
Skill Fields for Field Service
Add Required Skills to Work Orders or Work Types for Field Service
Create Skills for Field Service
Guidelines for Creating Service Territories for Field Service
1. A service territory represents a region in which field service can be performed.
2. Create service territories to track field service work and ensure that resources are assigned to service appointments near their home base.
Guidelines for Creating Operating Hours for Field Service
1. Operating hours define when service resources are available, and work can be performed in service territories.
2. Define Operating hours & assign them to service territories, service territory members, or accounts to indicate their field service hours.
3. Booking windows based on entitlements (i.e. 2 hours vs 4 hours).
4. When accounts can be serviced typically used to constrain visiting hours.
Get Started with Time Sheets
1. Users can view up to 100 past time sheets offline on their mobile devices.
2. The first field on Time Sheet Detail displays as the header. Three more fields can be displayed as details below the header.
3. Create Time Sheet Templates
4. TimeSheetEntry
  1. Represents a span of time that a service resource spends on a field service task.
  2. Timesheets are composed of timesheet entries. Timesheet entries typically track individual tasks like travel or asset repair.
  3. TimeSheetEntry can be associated with WO and WOLI.
Salesforce Field Service Lightning License Types

Managing Work Orders: 23%

A Work Order represents work to be performed on your customers’ products.
1. Attach knowledge articles to WO and WOLI so technicians can quickly access product specs, instructions, and more.
2. Child work orders are separate work orders. They are related to each other in the hierarchy of parent and related child records.
A Work Order Line Item (WOLI) represents a specific task a technician must perform to complete the work order.
1. They can be marked as completed one by one and can each have their own active service appointment.
2. Pricing details, such as discounts and unit price, are set at the line item level.
Use the matching rule to ensure appointments are assigned to service resources with the required skills.

Understand how work orders and service appointments interact

Service Appointments	Work Orders and Work Order Line Items
Scheduling details such as time constraints, scheduled times and actual times.	Let you enter general information about a task.
Assignment details specifies the Service Resource who will perform the field work.	Are optimized by FSL to be used as the parent records of Service Appointments.
Have a parent record.	Provide important capabilities, such as relationships to pricebooks and Salesforce Knowledge.

Link a work order to the asset so you can easily track the work.
A work type is a work order template that saves time and standardized field service work.
1. When you add a required skill to a work type, work orders and line items that use that work type will automatically inherit the required skill.
Guidelines for Creating Work Orders for Field Service
Add Service Resource Preferences to Accounts or Work Orders for Field Service
Track Required Inventory
Let Users Create Work Order Line Items from the Field Service Mobile App
Set Up Milestones
Service Appointment Fields for Field Service
Guidelines for Creating Service Appointments for Field Service
Manage Service Appointments
Customize the Service Appointment Life Cycle

Managing Scheduling and Optimization: 28%

Field Service connects your workforce, products, and customers on one platform to deliver exceptional on-site service. The managed package powers up your field service team with more great features. The dispatcher console lets dispatchers see appointment lists, scheduling actions, a mobile worker availability chart, and an interactive map in one place. A guided setup tool helps admins integrate and maintain scheduling policies, global actions, sharing tools, and optimization rules.

Understand factors to balance when making a schedule

Questions	Priorities	Factors to Balance
How much can field service reps spend on travel time?	Serve a large territory. Perform as many jobs as possible each day. Minimize travel time between appointments.	Remote customers must wait longer for mobile workers to arrive. Long travel times cost more.
How can your company get the right mobile worker for each job?	Customers can request the same mobile worker (such as always wanting the same nurse for home healthcare). Customers can request not to work with a certain mobile worker.	Mobile workers aren’t available all the time.
What skill level is needed for the job?	Make sure that the service recommendation can do the job well.	Mobile workers have different skills and different skill levels.
What happens when things change?	Jobs run over, and traffic slows you down, parts break, mobile workers get ill, and much more.	Scheduling in advance versus scheduling during the day.

Each scheduling policy is made up of work rules and service objectives.
1. Work rules determine which candidates can complete the job. Do the candidates have the required skills? Are they available in the right territory at the right time? These kinds of questions eliminate unqualified candidates.
2. When you have a list of qualified candidates, service objectives use your business priorities to choose the best candidate for the job. For example, if your top priority is to minimize travel, the qualified candidate closest to the job site is the best choice.

Here’s a list of service objectives the managed package provides. As with work rules, you can create service objectives when you need them.

Service Objective	How It’s Used	Example
ASAP	Measures how soon the appointment can be scheduled. ASAP is tricky, as it can contradict other objectives. For example, scheduling an appointment as soon as possible can result in more travel time.If prompt service is an important consideration, assign a high weight.	If an appointment is scheduled at the earliest moment possible (closest to the earliest start permitted or arrival window start), it gets a perfect score of 100. If it’s scheduled at the last slot before the due date or arrival window end, it gets a score of 0.
Minimize Overtime	Measures the use of overtime hours needed for a service appointment. It favors slots requiring the least overtime.If reducing overtime costs is an important consideration, assign a high weight.	For an hour-long appointment: If it’s scheduled entirely on overtime, the score is 0. If half the scheduled time is overtime, its score is 50. If none of the scheduled time is overtime, its score is 100.
Minimize Travel	Measures travel time required for a service appointment. It favors the time slot requiring the least travel time.If reducing travel costs like mileage, gas, and service costs is an important consideration, assign a high weight.	In optimization operations—global optimization, resource schedule optimization, in-day optimization, and the Reshuffle action—travel time is presumed to be between 0–120 minutes. For an option with a travel time of 120 minutes or more, the score is 0. For an option with a travel time of 60 minutes, the score is 50. In non-optimization scheduling operations—such as the Book Appointment, Candidates, Schedule, Fill-In Schedule, and Group Nearby Appointments actions—the score is based on the travel times available. Travel is calculated linearly between the closest and the furthest travel. For an appointment with three scheduling options, here’s how the options are scored. Schedule after an appointment at the same site. Travel time is 0 minutes, the score is 100. Schedule after an appointment in a neighboring city. Travel time is 60 minutes, and because that’s the appointment’s maximum potential travel time, the score is 0. Schedule after an appointment in a site located 30 minutes away. Because it’s in the middle of the previous options, the score is 50.
Preferred Resource	Measures whether an appointment is given to the preferred mobile worker.If it’s important that the preferred mobile worker shows up, assign a high weight. If it’s critical that a certain worker shows up or stays away, use the Required Services or Excluded Services work rules.	If an appointment is assigned to the preferred mobile worker, the score is 100. If it’s not, the score is 0.
Resource Priority	Ranks appointments based on the assigned mobile worker’s priority.	A mobile worker with a value of 1 is rated the highest. Larger numbers indicate that the mobile worker has a lower score.
Skill Level	Measures how well a worker adheres to a work order’s skill requirement. Specify whether to favor the least- or most-qualified mobile worker.Use this option to assign your most qualified workers to complicated work or high-priority accounts.	If you choose the least-qualified skill level, the candidate with the lowest acceptable score for the skill wins. Let’s say that an acceptable installation skill level is 5. A mobile worker with an installation skill of 6 gets a higher score than a worker with an installation skill of 8.Most-qualified is the opposite. The candidate with the installation skill of 8 gets the higher score. If there are multiple skill levels, the score is calculated with the average grade of each skill level.

Scheduling policies rely on specific scenarios. The scheduler uses these scenarios to create the best schedule. But scenarios vary depending on how the day unfolds. Let’s take the scenario of an ideal day. You scheduled your appointments automatically, and not many of them moved during the day. Your standard scheduling policy gets you through just fine.

policy	Designed to…	Use it
Customer First	Balance great customer service with travel minimization. Appointments are graded first by the customer’s selection of a preferred mobile worker or resource, then by the ability to schedule an appointment as soon as possible. The next priority is travel minimization.You can adjust this everyday policy if, for example, you prioritize travel minimization over as soon as possible arrival.	During an average day.
High Intensity	Have mobile workers complete as many appointments as possible. This policy grades appointments first by minimizing travel, then by scheduling appointments as soon as possible.	During periods of high service volumes, like a storm scenario, where employee productivity is your top priority.
Soft Boundaries	Balance great customer service with travel minimization, like the Customer First policy. But this policy also allows mobile workers to share their time between territories for better service coverage.	When you want mobile workers to cover nearby territories, such as in urban areas with small geographic territories.
Emergency	Be used with the Emergency Chatter action to dispatch emergency service appointments.	For emergency situations, like someone being stuck in an elevator during a power outage.

Scheduling policies automate scheduling to help you create your daily schedule quickly and easily. But schedules change, and it’s the dispatcher’s job to make sure that everything runs smoothly. That means that sometimes the dispatcher must reassign appointments manually.

Operation	What it does	How to use it
Schedule	If an appointment is not yet scheduled, add it to the best slot on the Gantt.	In the appointment list or on the map, select one or more appointments and click Schedule.
Reschedule	If the schedule changes and the current time slot can’t be used for a service appointment, use Reschedule to search for the next best slot.	In the Gantt, right-click the appointment and choose Reschedule.
Get Candidate	View a list of ranked candidates who can perform the job. Choose the candidate and time slot with the highest score.	In the Gantt, right-click the appointment and choose Get candidates.In the appointment list, click the appointment and choose Candidates.
Appointment Booking	View a list of ranked time slots. Choose the time slot that works best for you.	On the work order or service appointment, click the Chatter feed, and choose Book Appointment.If appointment booking is set up in your Salesforce Experience site, customers can book their own appointments there. The admin can add Book Appointment as a global action to other places, too.
Emergency Scheduling	Perform the job as quickly as possible. Emergency scheduling uses real-time traffic and its own scheduling policy. The Emergency policy allows candidates to travel from other territories and allows appointments to overlap.	In the Gantt, double-click the appointment, click the Chatter feed, and choose Emergency. Choose to dispatch the mobile worker as soon as possible or after they complete their current service appointment.

The scheduler grades time slots using the weighted service objectives set in your scheduling policy. Time slot ratings are as follows.
1. Ideal or Golden. These time slots have the highest grade. If you can, select one of these.
2. Recommended. These time slots have a fairly high grade, too. Select if the ideal time slots don’t work for you.
3. Satisfactory. While these time slots meet the minimum requirements, they’re not the best choice, but they get the job done.
Create and Manage Scheduling Policies
Create Scheduling Dependencies Between Service Appointments
Considerations for Multiday Scheduling
What’s Schedule Optimization?
1. Manually constructing an efficient field service schedule can drive even the most serene administrator to madness. Field Service’s optimization tool does the work for you by generating an optimal schedule according to your priorities and constraints.
2. Define the scope of optimization to include an entire service territory’s schedule or just a single resource’s schedule.
  - Global optimization – Optimize your team’s schedule for one or more service territories across a specified range of days. You can configure this type of optimization to run regularly—for example, every evening. Or, you can run it manually as needed. Global optimization is the most thorough and powerful type of optimization and therefore takes the most time to complete.
  - In-day optimization – Navigate last-minute schedule upsets by rapidly optimizing your team’s schedule for one or more service territories on the day of service.
  - Resource optimization – Optimize an individual service resource’s schedule on the day of service.
Set Up Routing for Travel Time Calculations
Set Up and Run Optimization Jobs
Dispatch Service Appointments

Configuring Mobility: 10%

The Field Service mobile app for Android and iOS is an all-in-one tool for mobile workers on the go. This enterprise-class mobile experience leverages Salesforce in a lightweight design optimized for a modern mobile workforce. Offline capability means that users can keep working without internet connectivity and know that all their changes are saved. And the app is highly customizable, allowing you to tailor it to your unique field service needs.

Main features of the FSL Mobile App

Feature	Description
Offline capability	The app works offline, so mobile workers can complete their work even with limited or no network connectivity.
Push notifications	Push notifications help your mobile workforce stay up to date, making sure they never miss an important event.
Custom branding	Brand the app to give it your company’s look and feel.
Configurable layouts	Flexible layouts let you choose what record information to display to your users.
Configurable actions	Configure quick actions to help users quickly complete common tasks, pass record data to other apps, and build flows to guide your team through collecting information and finalizing jobs.
Chatter	Communicate with dispatchers, partners, and customers using Chatter.
Site user access	Give members of your Experience Builder site—like contractors—custom access to your field service operation.
Geolocation tracking	Keep tabs on service resources and enable smarter scheduling with resource geolocation tracking.
Service reports	Create previewable service reports summarizing field service visits. Seal the deal by capturing customers’ signatures on the reports.
Salesforce Knowledge integration	Attach specs, instructions, and best practices to work orders and work order line items to keep relevant information at your team’s fingertips.
Work order overview screen	Help your team quickly find the information they need to complete assignments. The work order overview screen displays information about a work order’s service appointments, line items, asset history, and more.
Find nearby work	Help your team find other work orders in the same location so they can take care of nearby jobs.
Inventory tab	Let your team manage track consumption, request products, and view their inventory from the app.
Appointment Assistant	Give customers temporary, live tracking of Salesforce Field Service mobile workers.

Prepare for the FSL Mobile App
1. Install the Mobile Field Service Package (Connected App Settings & Push Notifications)
2. Give techs access to the App with Licenses & Permissions (Field Service Mobile & Standard licenses)
3. Provide techs access to data, Objects, and Fields.
4. Associate a Service Resource record with the tech’s Salesforce User (Service Resource must be “Active”)
5. Brand the Field Service Mobile App
6. Different options to customize Field Service Mobile App
Technicians can see the assignment on their mobile devices.
The mobile app supports quick actions of Create Record and Update Record.
Visualforce, Lightning Component, and Custom Override actions are not supported.
Field Service Mobile App Considerations
Capture Customer Signatures on Service Reports with a Flow
Guidelines for Using Signatures on Service Reports

Managing Inventory: 8%
1. Use Field Service’s inventory objects to track the storage, request, consumption, return, and retirement of items in your inventory.
2. Inventory management starts with product items, which represent the stock of a particular product at a particular location. Each product item is associated with a product and a location in Salesforce.
3. Inventory can be stored there if the Inventory Location option is selected on a location. Product items can be associated only with inventory locations.
4. You can link a location to multiple accounts and service territories. For example, if a location is a shopping mall, you can choose to associate it with every account that operates a store in the mall. You can also create addresses for a location, such as a mailing and home address. And to keep track of customer sites create associated locations, which contain lookups to an account and alocation.
5. If a particular product is needed to complete a field service job, add products required to ensure that the assigned service resources arrive prepared. Products required can be child records of work orders, work order line items, and work types. Work order and work order line items inherit their work type’s products required.
6. When a product is consumed during the completion of a work order, track its consumption by creating a product consumed record. You can add products consumed to work orders or work order line items. Track product consumption at the line item level if you want to know which products were used for each line item’s tasks.
7. How you use products consumed depends on how closely you want to track the state of your inventory in Salesforce. If you want to track the entire life cycle of items in your inventory, including their storage, transfer, and consumption, link your product consumed records to product items. This approach ensures that your inventory numbers update automatically to reflect the consumption of products from your inventory. If you want to track product consumption only, however, specify a Price Book Entry on each product consumed record and leave the Product Item field blank.
  1. Product requests are orders for products that you might create when stock is running low.
  2. Product request line items are subdivisions of a product request.
  3. Product transfers track the movement of product items between inventory locations.
  4. Shipments represent the shipment of product items between locations.
  5. Product item transactions describe actions performed on a product item. Auto-generated records help you track when inventory is replenished, consumed, or adjusted.
  6. Return orders track the return of a product item due to damage, order errors, or other reasons.
  7. Return order line items are subdivisions of a return order. The movement of items into and out of your inventory and between locations is tracked using these objects:
8. Implement Product and Price Book in your developer org.
  Field Service Pricing Data Model
9. Set Up Your Field Service Inventory
10. Manage Your Field Service Inventory
11. Use product service campaign to record the actions to address situations such as product recalls, manual firmware upgrades, safety or compliance audits, or end-of-life communications. Assets affected are associated with a campaign using product service campaign items. Campaign and campaign items can then be associated with work orders and return orders as needed to complete the work.
Managing Assets: 5%
1. Use warranty items to record details of the labor, parts, and expenses and any exchange options provided to rectify issues with products sold or installed. Create standard warranties for products and product families and, for products you install, record details of additional or extended warranties along with exclusions and void terms.
2. A warranty term is linked to a product warranty term to define the standard warranty offered for a product or product family. When a product is installed, asset warranty term details are created from the standard warranty. An asset warranty term can be associated with a work order, work order line item, case, or entitlement to track actions related to fulfilling the warranty term provisions.
  Field Service Warranty Management Data Model
3. Set Up and Manage Assets
  1. If asset sharing is set to the Controlled by Parent—the default setting—the Account field, Contact field, or both must be completed for an asset to be saved. If asset sharing is not set to Controlled by Parent, assets can be saved without an associated account or contact.
  2. Deleting a product does not delete any asset records associated with it.
  3. Deleting an account or contact deletes all associated assets. All three records are deleted if you delete an account with a related contact associated with an asset. Restoring the account restores all three records.
  4. If you delete an asset with both a parent asset and child assets, its parent and children are no longer linked in an asset hierarchy.
4. Set Up Asset Availability and Reliability Reporting
Configuring Maintenance Plans: 5%
1. An asset in Salesforce represents a specific purchased or installed product. For example, if you sell generators, you can create a generator product in Salesforce and create multiple assets representing the generator you’ve sold. Each customer’s generator would be tracked in its asset record that’s linked to the generator product.
  1. You can associate assets with various Salesforce records in addition to products.
    1. Cases
    2. Locations, like a customer site or warehouse
    3. Maintenance plans
    4. Work orders or work order line items
    5. Entitlements
    6. Service contracts or contract line items
  2. To show that one asset has replaced another, create an asset relationship with the help of two related lists on asset record home pages.
    1. The Primary Assets related list shows assets that replaced the current asset.
    2. The Related Assets related list shows assets that the current asset replaced.
2. Guidelines for Generating Work Orders from a Maintenance Plan
3. Guidelines for Working with Maintenance Work Rules
4. A maintenance plan lets you define the maintenance schedule for one or more assets and generate a batch of work orders for future maintenance visits. With the click of a button, all the work orders for a solar panel system’s monthly maintenance visits can be ready. Sita can’t wait to try it.
  1. A maintenance plan can be linked to an account and contact—representing the customer—and, if the customer has one, to a service contract.
  2. A maintenance plan can cover multiple assets. For example, you can create a maintenance plan to track the monthly maintenance of 20 laser printers installed in a customer’s office building. The assets covered by a maintenance plan are represented as child records of the maintenance plan called maintenance assets. You can define maintenance work rules for most assets and maintenance plans for more complex reoccurring maintenance.
  3. After you create a maintenance plan or maintenance work rules, it’s time to generate work orders for the planned maintenance visits. Maintenance plans come with a Generate Work Orders quick action, which can also be called Apex code. Your maintenance plan settings determine how many work orders and work order line items are generated at once and what their settings are. You can opt to generate one work order per maintenance asset for each visit or a parent work order for each visit with one work order line item per maintenance asset.
  4. Maintenance plans, maintenance assets, and maintenance work rules can be associated with a work type:
    1. If you specify a work type on a maintenance plan, the plan’s work orders use that work type.
    2. If you specify a work type on a maintenance asset, generated work orders that are associated with the maintenance asset use the maintenance asset’s work type.
    3. If you specify a work type on a maintenance work rule, generated work orders associated with the maintenance work rule use the maintenance work rule’s work type.
      Field Service Preventive Maintenance Data Model

Permissions and Sharing: 5%

Permission set licenses are required for some Field Service users to interact with settings, the dispatcher console, and other features. Learn how permission set licenses match different groups of users.
All users need the Field Service Standard user permission to access field service objects. Field Service user licenses already include this permission.

Field Service also includes three permission set licenses related to the managed package and mobile app. These permission sets are created when you set up Field Service.

Permission Set	Description	Who Need It
Field Service Dispatcher License	Provides access to the dispatcher console.	Dispatchers
Field Service Scheduling License	Allows the user to be shown on the dispatcher console Gantt and included in scheduling and optimization.	Mobile workers (field technicians)
Field Service Mobile License	Provides access to the Field Service mobile app.	Mobile users (field technicians)
Self-service	Provides access to Experience Builder sites where users can view all global actions and their related objects. Provides access to create, book, and schedule their appointments.	Customers
Field Service Guest User	Gives unauthenticated users limited access to view and create records.	Guest users

Dispatchers and field technicians can’t handle inbound customer communications in call centers, manage customer cases or complete sales-oriented tasks without additional licenses.
Limit Access to Field Service Records
1. By default, all users can view and update work orders, work order line items, and service appointments. You can limit access to these records so that your team members see only the records that are relevant to them.
User territories give users access to the following objects for that territory.
1. Resource Absences
2. Service Appointments
3. Service Resources
4. Service Territories
5. Parent objects of shared Service Appointments; for example, Accounts, Assets, Opportunities, Work Orders, and Work Order Line Items
When a service resource is removed from a service appointment, sharing is deleted only for that service appointment. Sharing on the parent work order is still retained.
If territory membership changes frequently, try a frequency of 1 day. For example, if territory membership is generally static, you can decrease the frequency to 30 days.
The service territory is guided by a combination of factors, such as:
1. Organizational preference to limit where resources live and work
2. Union stipulations
3. Management structure
4. Practical, logical limit to how far a resource can cover an area
5. Resource preferences
Service Appointment Life Cycle
1. Once the Service Appointment is generated, it goes through stages, represented by status categories. The status category names and the service appointment life cycle can be customized to fit your business. Out of the box, service appointments come with these status categories:
  1. None
  2. Scheduled
  3. Dispatched
  4. In Progress
  5. Completed
  6. Cannot Complete
  7. Canceled

Conclusion

If you have good hands-on experience with all the above topics, passing the exam will be a cinch, and you will be able to earn the much-coveted Field Service Consultant certification! However, if you do not have enough experience with the Field Service Lightning and plan to become a Field Service Consultant. I suggest you draw a 2-3 months plan (finish the above Trailhead and Instructor-led training) to prepare for it.

I hope that you find these tips and resources useful. If you put the time and effort in, you will succeed. Happy studying and good luck!