Following the acquisition of FieldOne by Microsoft, Dynamics CRM has extended its functionality for field service management solutions. Assuming you're familiar with the basics of field service and have worked on CRM developments before, today's blog will show you how to customize the Schedule Board's Custom Tab. If you are new to field service for Dynamics CRM, check out this blog first.

To keep things simple, we will demo a simple script that will update the custom fields "urgency" and "note" in the Bookable Resource Booking entity's records, which the scheduler can use to enter quick information. This information can potentially be used by the "AC Repair Guy" in their mobile app or by the booker or managers themselves.

In this scenario, we are viewing the Schedule Board and we have already created a bookable resources booking for our resource (AC Repair Guy) whose job is to go to a customer site to repair the AC. The booker could double click the bookings to open a new window and update it, but what if they could do it from the schedule board itself and save some clicks?

As we can see in the left side of the Schedule Board, a custom tab allows users to quickly update important information regarding the bookings without having to leave the Schedule Board. For this demo, pressing the Update button will update the bookable resource booking's CRM record with the information entered in the input boxes. Here, the booker is providing extra information to the AC Repair Guy by saying his second task is also in the same building. The technician can see this in his mobile app, thereby making him more efficient.

Getting Started with the Customization

The web resources implemented in the customization of the Schedule Board's Custom Tab is the same as the web resources we implement in the CRM forms. The web resources used to achieve this simple customization are as follows:

1. FSCustomTab.html – This is the HTML file that we display in the Custom Tab section of the Scheduler Board.

2. FSCustomTab.js – The JavaScript file that contains the code to update the entered information to Bookable Resource Booking's CRM record.

For the simplicity of this example, the GUID of Bookable Resource Booking has been hardcoded. The GUID can be extracted from the Schedule Board's DOM.

3. jquery.js, json2.js and XrmServiceToolkit.js – These open source codes are utilized to update the CRM records. These are easily available online.

Once we have all web resources imported in our CRM, we can navigate to the Schedule Board and double click the Schedule Board's main tab to access the Tab Settings.

Here, we can change the display name of the main/custom tab, change the views, etc. In the "Custom Tab Web Resource" setting, we are pointing to the FSCustomTab.html file which loads our custom HTML in the custom tab section when the Schedule Board loads.

This is just a glimpse into the possibilities a simple customization can unlock in the functionality of Schedule Board, potentially making processes faster and more efficient if used in right way. Make sure you check out our website to learn more about field services and feel free to let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Happy CRM'ing!