How does Zoho FSM (Field Service Management) Work 

This article will focus on integrating Zoho FSM software into your business; it’ll also highlight various advantages of the FSM and how it can make running your business easier and faster. 

There’s been a slight change in Zoho FSM integration platform, previously called CRM and books; Zoho FSM has been upgraded it to be called the billing page. For now, the billing page is integrated with invoices and payments. All your invoices and payments are powered by Zoho invoices. And Zoho’s plan in the nearest future is to integrate the billing page with Zoho books also. Additionally, you’ll also be able to integrate Zoho’s billing app with your existing bookkeeping app. Also, customers who don’t have a books organization software can create an organization in Zoho invoice and continue to use FSM. Those who have existing books software can easily integrate their software into FSM.

But What is Zoho FSM?

Zoho FSM is a cloud application that offers a unique solution to an age-old industry problem. The problem of handling the entire life cycle of the processes involved in the management and execution of field services. 

FSM brings an automated approach to all processes that are pivotal to field services, such as work order management, scheduling, dispatching and tracking of service appointments, and invoicing. This eliminates the burden of paperwork and other tedious manual tasks that usually bog downfield service activities. 

Zoho FSM helps users carry out their tasks efficiently by providing a unified platform that allows users to efficiently monitor all the different field processes. 

FSM service appointments can be scheduled based on their territory and dispatched to the most appropriate technician to ensure minimum turnaround time. The mobile app is a handy tool for on-the-go field technicians. Built-in invoicing features ensure that billing times are greatly reduced, resulting in immediate payments and realization of revenue.

FSM Workforce

Under Workforce, there are four different types of profiles, the last profile out of all the profiles will have access to the mobile application. 

User Management

Under the user management tab, there’s administration, dispatcher, customer service agent, and field technician. 

zoho-fsm

Note: The field technician can only access the platform through the mobile app. Field technicians can use the mobile app to check their schedules, accurately navigate to the service locations, log authentic data from out in the field, including attaching photos and adding notes, be equipped with the right equipment, create service reports and easily collect online payments.

An added function to user management is the ability to provide different technicians/users with multi-tasking roles. For example, suppose you want a dispatcher rider to act as a field technician for a day or more. In that case, you can easily enable this function, resulting in the dispatcher working also as a field technician. So once this person gets confirmed as a dispatch rider/field technician, he can access both the web and mobile app using the same email ID.

Crew

In some cases, some of the appointments might require more than one agent or more than one field technician to complete a job in that case. You can define a crew. 

Defining a crew is pretty straightforward. First, you start with the crew name; you can give a name like Mexico City crew or California crew, and then you can define and select the service territory the crew would be assigned to. You can also select the size of the crew, say, five people or seven people or more depending on the job requirement. 

zoho-fsm-crew

Adding Individuals to A Crew

If you want to add another individual to a crew, click on add new one, select the field technician name (which has been pre-registered into the system) and then select a start date and an end date. However, in some cases, if you do not want to give an end date and if you decide whether this technician has to be there indefinitely, you can leave the end date blank and save it. 

So similarly, you can add as many individuals as you want to the crew and set a start date for their appointment and an end date.

Service Territories

Service territories are the service location where an organization is going to offer its services. So, a client/customer has various branches in different locations; they can add it as a service territory. For example, if a client has a branch in California or Arizona, they can add the service locations independently, making it easy to assign technicians to such location. 

zoho-fsm-territiries

Assigning A Technician to A Service Territory

So, after adding a service territory, you have to go back to the users’ tab and then to the field technician/contractor’s tab, after which you scroll down a little till you get to the territory field. The territory field is where you will map the service territory to a single field technician. 

So, a single person can be assigned to multiple service locations or service territories. For example, a technician could be assigned to multiple buildings in a city or different states depending on the job requirement. 

Skills 

Every field technician will have a different type of skill set available to them. So, you can add the under skills, such as painting expert, Roofing expert, installation expert, and this will be helpful when you create a work order. When you create a work order, there is an option to choose the skill set that a particular employee has. 

You first have to add the skill type to the app before assigning it to an individual. After adding a skill, you scroll back to users, select a user, and the option to add a particular skill to a certain user would be made available to you. A technician/ user can be assigned multiple skills depending on their qualification and experience.

Finally

With your business ability to assign work to the right technician based on skill and location, it makes it easy to efficiently manage invoices, quotes, and all back-office operations, making FSM the right app of choice.

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