Microsoft Dynamics 365 Connected Field Service

Hi Everyone,

Today i am going to share my thoughts around Connected Field Service.

What is Connected Field Service?

Connected Field Service gives an opportunity for predictive service model via combination of
IoT diagnostics
Scheduling
Asset Maintenance
Inventory Management.

Benefits of Connected Field Service:

1. Reduce downtime by connecting to IoT devices to diagnose problems before customers are aware of an issue
2. Address issues faster by remotely monitoring devices and informing customers 
3. Device telemetry and service maintenance data helps to make intelligent decisions around dispatching technicians with the right expertise, availability, and proximity to the job

There are two options you can use to connect IoT-enabled devices into the Field Service solution:

 Azure IoT Central

 Azure IoT Hub

Lets look at the each of these briefly

Connected Field Service Azure IoT Central:

Connected Field Service for Azure IoT Central: Provides direct integration  Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Azure IoT Central, it's a managed software as a service(SaaS) solution.

Microsoft Azure IoT Central enables System Administrators/Developers to configure rules and actions, so based on the actions, IoT alerts will be created in Connected Field Service.

Keep in mind also based on the activities in Connected Field Service, the information can be sent back to IoT Central.

It can be achieved by using Microsoft Flow automating workflows across the Field Service.

Lets see the steps on how to integrate Dynamics 365  with Azure IoT Central for the Connected Field Service Solution without coding skills:

• IoT Central can send information about device abnormalityto Connected Field Service (as an IoT Alert) for diagnosis purpose.
• Connected Field Service can create cases or work orders triggered from device abnormality.
• Connected Field Service can schedule technicians for inspection to prevent the downtime incidents.
• IoT Central device dashboard can be updated with relevant service and scheduling information
• Azure IoT Central requires no extensive cloud development or coding skills to get an IoT solution up and running.

With Microsoft Flow templates, users can connect their accounts, take advantage of our pre-built templates, and customize their own flows in an easy visual designer without the need for developer experience.

Connected Field Service Azure IoT Hub:

Connected Field Service for Azure IoT Hub is an add-on solution that brings Azure IoT platform as a service(PaaS) offering into Dynamics 365 for Field Service.

With this solution, you can run a deployment app to put all the Azure IoT services and Dynamics puzzles together.

All Azure IoT services run in your own Azure cloud subscription. Additionally, Microsoft provide an enterprise-ready template that you can customize for each Azure IoT service.

Connected Field Service Architecture:

So let's look at each of the components in the Connected Field Service briefly.

Azure components and services that are involved with Connected Field Service as follows:

Service bus queue:

This provides a queue for both inbound and outbound messages (commands) flowing between Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement and Azure. 

When an IoT alert is sent to Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement, or a command is sent from Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement to the IoT hub, it will be queued here.

Logic Apps:

Logic Apps provides a middleware service between Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement connector and Queue connector.

 Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement connectors are used to construct entities that are related to Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagementand Queue connectors are used for polling the queue.

Stream analytics:

Stream analytics provides real time event processing engine for deep insights from data, makes it easy to set up real-time analytic computations on data streaming from devices, sensors, web sites, 

social media, applications, infrastructure systems, and more. It is functioning as a funnel to send selective IoT alerts to Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement.

IoT Hub:

Connected Field Services uses the IoT Hub to manage the state of registered devices and assets. In addition, 

the IoT Hub sends commands and notifications to connected devices—and tracks message delivery with acknowledgement receipts. 

Device messages are sent in a durable way to accommodate intermittently connected devices.

Simulator:

This is a test web app to emulate the device that is sending commands or receiving commands from the IoT hub.

Azure SQL Database:

Connected Field Service uses SQL Azure to store device heartbeat messages for later use by PowerBI to show the status of devices in Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement.

Azure Blob Storage:

Queries that Stream Analytics will use are stored to Azure Blob storage.

I hope this helps.

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