June 13, 2025 • 54 mins
Mark Christie, a Field Service expert and prominent community builder, joins hosts Scott LeFante and Will "Quad" McLendon to challenge conventional thinking about scheduling technologies and implementation approaches.
This wide-ranging conversation reveals how Universal Resource Scheduling (URS) differs from Field Service, providing the same scheduling capabilities without requiring work orders - a potential cost-saving approach for many organizations.
The discussion explores the nuanced distinction between resource scheduling (people) and asset scheduling (equipment), along with fascinating use cases that demonstrate field service's versatility beyond traditional scenarios. From tracking professional athletes' housing arrangements to managing drug testing procedures to booking sports facilities, Mark illustrates how the fundamental scheduling principles apply across diverse industries.
Looking forward, the hosts and Mark examine Microsoft's new scheduling optimization agents, which shift from traditional user licensing to a per-job transactional model. This approach potentially makes advanced scheduling capabilities more accessible to smaller organizations that previously couldn't justify the enterprise-level investment.
The episode concludes with a passionate discussion about community building within the Microsoft ecosystem, where Mark highlights his work with Scottish Summit and his commitment to increasing diversity and inclusion in technical spaces.
Whether you're a field service professional looking to optimize your implementation approach or a business leader exploring how scheduling technologies might transform your operations, this episode delivers practical insights and innovative perspectives you won't want to miss.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey there and welcome to the Service X Factor podcast
.
I'm Scott LaFonte, seven-timeMicrosoft MVP and field service
strategist at CongruentX, andyour guide for today's episode
On this show.
My co-host, fellow MicrosoftMVP and service innovation guru,
will McClendon, and I willspotlight the people, platforms
and ideas that transform serviceteams from cost centers into
(00:25):
revenue powerhouses.
Each episode will unpackreal-world wins, hard-learned
lessons and the emergent techreshaping the front lines Think
AI, co-pilots, predictiveanalytics and everything in
between.
So grab your coffee, settle inand let's discover your
organization's X -Factortogether.
Let's dive in X Factor together.
(00:49):
Let's dive in.
Welcome everyone to anotherepisode of the Service X Factor
podcast.
I am one of your co-hosts,scott LaFonte, here with Big
Will McClendon, my other co host.
How's it going, will?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It's going great and it's Quad for you, sir.
You have to call me Quad.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Quad.
All right, that's right, Quad.
I love it All right.
Well, today we have anotherspecial guest across the pond
from us who actually boasts abig sneaker game along with his
field service skills, Mr MarkChristie.
Mark, how's it going?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Not too bad Yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, hanging in there.
It's a Friday morning here, youknow, friday afternoon there
for you, but I want to know moreabout this sneaker game before
we get going into field service.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Okay, so I'll answer the sneaker one, If you tell me
first why is Will called Quad?
Where did that name?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
come from.
Oh, so I'm the fourth.
That's a little-known secretabout me.
I'm actually the fourth in line, so you know my dad's the third
.
His father was junior, so soyou can actually save right,
that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I just never clicked.
I actually have you saved.
This will mcclendon the fourthon my phone and I never even
thought about it, so it's not.
Yeah, I may have a definitive.
I like my trainers.
I am, I don smoke, I don'tdrink, I don't do drugs.
I don't go out that often.
(02:08):
I just spend all my money onsneakers.
I've got sneakers that areworth over $1,000 per pair
batons right the way through tothe ones that I'm looking at in
the hallway Obviously greatvisual here for an audio podcast
(02:31):
, but I have got some MB3 Puma.
Did anyone ever watch a show?
Dexter's Laboratory?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
You've got to watch Dex man.
Right.
So I have got a pair of DexterMB3s.
When when you look at our youknow the kids coloring books,
you get where you've got thelines you've got to color in.
They look like somebody stoppedhalf of the coloring and a
kid's etch a sketch or not, it'skaleidoscope style drawing.
(02:59):
So yeah, that's that's kind ofwhere where I am with that, but
I I do like my, I kind of makethat thing that every event I go
to speak at I have a nice freshnew pair of Outlandish trainers
.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So Scottish Summit, you know we traveled over there.
I forgot to bring the goodsneakers and I look at them.
I had some whack, new balancesand I look at Mark's shoes.
I just came from another eventso you know my feet were swollen
.
I look at Mark and I was likeGod man, that man.
So next year or when you doScottish Summit, we'll make sure
I have the J's.
I got fours on for you today,but I want to make sure I have
(03:33):
the J's next year so werepresent correctly.
Just so you know that's whatI'm doing.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
All right, I'm On that note.
Mark, I see you a lot onLinkedIn.
You're obviously well known inthe dynamics and power platform
space, but also a lot withinfield service in general, and so
that's why we're glad to haveyou on board here to talk about
all things service slash, fieldservice.
I know Quad has a lot of he'sbeen salivating.
He's got a lot of goodquestions for you in terms of
(04:10):
scheduling, so I'm going to turnover the first question to Quad
.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well, we've all been there before, right, like Scott,
you've worked with it.
Mark's worked with it, so we'retalking about URS.
We all know what it's for.
Mark's worked with it.
So we're talking about URS.
We all know what it's for.
But you know, mark.
Why don't you give our audiencea glimpse of what you, as
someone who's worked with it anddelivered it on multiple
projects, multiple customersfrom multiple scenarios?
What is URS for?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So URS is Universal Resource Scheduling.
So for me it's obviously it isthe same schedule board you're
using in field service.
But when I'm talking tocustomers, when we get leads
come in, customers are alwayslike oh, I need field service.
It needs to be field service.
Field service is what we'redoing.
So for me, the first part ofconversation isn't do you need
(04:59):
field service.
It is more what is therequirement?
Like, are you going to bescheduling engineers?
Do you want to do invoices?
Are you using products andservices?
What about a mobile app?
It's actually determining whatyou are wanting to use
scheduling for.
Because I kind of take take theholistic approach that when
(05:20):
somebody says field service,they're talking about scheduling
.
They've just they've googledfield, they've googled servicing
and microsoft then has come upfield service.
So kind of asking the questionsbut the thing with with urs,
I'd say it is the same scheduleboard.
It uses the same resources, ituses the same skills, but it
doesn't use work orders.
(05:41):
So you can actually choose whattables you customize and use
yourself.
You use it in a sales.
So you can actually choose whattables you customize and use
yourself.
Use it in a sales environment.
You can actually schedule casesor you can build fully custom
entities so it gives you theextensibility to be able to take
customer service and use theschedule board for that.
My biggest thing that I likeabout that is more around the
(06:05):
licenses.
Being scottish, I'm reallycheap.
I don't want somebody to haveto buy a customer service
license to to use customerservice and then buy field
service attached to use fieldservice.
What work works smarter, notwith more money and see can I
actually use universal resourcescheduling to meet my needs
(06:27):
rather than use two products.
So yeah, that was a long answerfor a basic question.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
No, it's great, yeah, it hits the nail right there on
the head, because you know,when they say field service 99.5
, they're also talking aboutscheduling and folks don't
understand.
They're two different products.
But that leads me intosomething I wanted to ask you
because you kind of mentioned it.
We're around use cases.
Can you explain to our audience?
I think they'll find value init?
There is a distinct differencebetween resource scheduling and
(06:58):
asset scheduling.
Can you tell them?
Tell them the differencesbetween that?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
yeah, so.
So I mean, resource schedulingis usually people or groups, and
whereas assets are I want toschedule a cherry picker, or I
want scaffolding, or I thoughtyou were going somewhere with
that question about some of myinterest in field service
deployments and I thought that'swhere you were going.
(07:23):
But I will answer that no,we're not going that for this
show.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That's the after hours show.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
That's the after show , that's after we record.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So, yeah, scheduling items that people need, whether
it's some people will use it forscheduling right, I need the
jerry picker, I need thescaffolding I need and to hire
part, but some people actuallyfor fire.
So rather than just say, okay,I would like an engineer to come
out, that's, I would like thisair compressor for five days,
(07:54):
and it's booking out thoseassets rather than booking out
the people.
Sometimes you get both rightthings you need the asset and
you need to hire a person thatgoes with that right, and so you
would create that as anincident type potential and as a
person and as the facility, theequipment.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the beauty of
scheduling right.
I mean, it's so flexible interms of what you can schedule,
and not just record wise, butthe type of resource or the
grouping of resources you know,crews and things of that nature.
I think that's where the truevalue comes in is.
(08:32):
I mean, if you're just doingbasic scheduling and it's
working for you, that's great.
But if you have more complex orrobust requirements, you know
there's probably a good chancethat there's functionality.
We chance that there's.
There's functionality.
We know that there's thingsthat mark that you've done.
I know quads done as well toextend the schedule ward.
I think I'm gonna call youquads now and I said knock on
(08:56):
you.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, hey, it worked because all my instances that
you ever spun up for over thepast two years have had quad, is
the username just throwing itout there.
So I see an environment go quad, go quad.
I like it so.
But to that, mark Scott, we'vedone some crazy stuff with the
schedule board.
There's been some days where,like you know, hey, this isn't
going to necessarily work, like,for example, factory lines, you
(09:17):
know, versus people on thoselines, right, these are the
kinds of things that make it alittle difficult.
I know I've used alternatives.
Not, these are the kind ofthings that make it a little
difficult.
I know I've used alternativesit's not a knock on the product,
but I've used alternatives.
Mark, I would love because thisis why we brought you on if you
could share some of youralternatives to the schedule
board.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I'm going to actually answer a question you didn't
ask before this, though, like wementioned, going in creating
the schedule boards andcustomizing them.
We mentioned like going increating the schedule boards and
customizing them.
I would.
So if you've ever done fieldservice, you know a field
service implementation is morelike an fno implementation.
You do not have to customizefield service.
(09:56):
As long as you know the datamodel on field service and you
can import and load in the datathe correct way, I would say you
can meet 95% of customerrequirements.
I genuinely, for people thatspend months or months
customizing field service,you're doing it wrong and that's
just me being really brutal.
(10:17):
It's all about the data.
You can get a customer up andrunning in ten days, no matter
the volume of data.
As long as you get the dataincorrectly and you've done the
workshops, you understand whatthe processes are, what their
skills are, their resources,products and incentives you
genuinely can get a customer outof the box up and running in 10
(10:40):
days.
Then take the time and let themtell you what the gaps are.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Wow 30 was good 10.
Yeah, so so that's becausethat's good, mark's, mark's
incredible.
But to be so, shout out to reamif she's, if she's watching
ream on time.
I think it was like five yearsago we were on a client and she
illustrated the best way I'veever heard it said.
She said I've told the customerhey, field service is data
driven, scheduling is datadriven, rso is data driven.
So what is your data?
So shout out to re.
Said I've told the customer hey, field service is data driven,
scheduling is data driven, rsois data driven.
(11:07):
So what is your data?
So shout out to ream.
I've stole that line and if anyof my customers hear me say it,
it's because of her.
But yeah, to that point, mark,if your data is right and the
data model is great, then youknow thumbs up.
But remember, getting the dataright is oftentimes the hardest
obstacle for for most of ourcustomers, because they don't
necessarily understand theirdata.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah, Well, that's their problem.
If you can get from the data,if you can get from the
templates and explain what it is, it's up to them to get that
data right.
Yeah, I mean, let's be honest,nowadays there are so many
different AIs and GPs that cando a lot of this, but I think a
lot of the fundamentals of themgetting their data right is
using how the format is and howyou're going to import it,
(11:48):
because the terminology thatfield service uses for us in
Europe isn't really like nothingmakes sense.
A work order nobody uses thatterminology.
Incident types like these arevery Americanized.
I mean, I don't even know ifthey're even Americanized or if
it's just legacy from your oldField 1 scan.
But explaining what an incidenttype is or what a resolution
(12:11):
type is, or bookable resource,booking, characteristic skill,
explaining what these stupidtables all mean, it's being able
to explain to the customer whatthe data is and in what format,
because they probably do haveall of that data.
They've just put it in fivedifferent places and call it
five different things, so it'sjust being able to educate them.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
No, you're right.
And how it's all relatedtogether, right, and I think
that's the big thing.
Right.
Cleaning the data, that, ok,you know, look, if your data is
dirty, yeah, that might takesome time but you know, to get
the day and it's our job to say,hey, we need it, this is how we
need it, this is what goes infirst, second, third, fourth,
fifth, so on and so forth.
(12:52):
You know, and that's where thatcomes into play.
And to your point, I mean, Ilove the idea of right.
It shouldn't take months.
Right, at the end of the day,get foundational work, field
service up and running, right,you can always build on top of
it as you're moving along.
But if you do these massiveprojects like it's an erp doing,
(13:13):
you know this big bang approachfield service.
You know chances are adoptionis going to be really low and
you've over configured it orover customized it when you
don't even know what everyone'sgoing to want or need.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
period I mean, I've got a lot of customers that are
coming from excel and sharedoutput calendars like you've got
all these grand ideas of whatyou want, but bullshit, let's
just.
Let's just get it into thesystem, get it working, and then
tell me why it doesn't work foryou, because that is it like.
Here's a solution.
This is a tried and testedmethod that Microsoft or field
(13:48):
one sky before that I've beenusing for 15 years.
This is the, the gold standard,the template.
The place where Microsoft spenda lot of their R&D money is
doing the processes.
So let's use out the boxprocess, let's load the data in,
run it for three months, thenwe'll review.
Tell us what works well, tellus what doesn't work well.
(14:09):
But by that time the customer'salready using it, they're
already paying their license,they're now buying more days
from you.
That's a good soft intro for itas well.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So to that point I'm going to go into this, guys, and
my apologies if I sound like Iwas just moving the needle a
little bit, because I just wantto be cognizant of your time and
our time and just want to rideon this point for a second.
Use cases.
Right, let's go into scheduleboard.
So, Mark, you've had someamazing use cases with
PowerPages and Force Teams.
It's legendary what you've done.
(14:48):
But I want to get intoconfiguration about the schedule
board.
So when I take the scheduleboard and let's say I have a
hospital and they have areceptionist and they want to do
something as simple as look atwhat time a patient is in or
where the patient is, becauseyou know, somebody comes up and
(15:09):
they say, hey, I'm here to seeWill McClendon, right, and if
you think about that, that canbe a little bit complicated.
So you know, we have ourcontacts.
We may think Will McClendon isa contact and we can look at the
hospital room and it'll find it.
But if you look at the way theschedule board is laid out and
how it displays data, that's alittle bit more tough.
So sometimes you have to usealternatives or something
(15:32):
simpler.
What are some alternatives toscheduling that you have found
that have helped some of yourcustomers to kind of, let's say,
accelerate the process or be abetter fit.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So I'm going to again give a couple of different
answers here.
One and I hate this answer andI hate myself for giving the
answer, and, well, I hate youfor asking the question.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
That's what I think it is.
Oh God, yes, that's great.
Copilot is good.
Edit that out.
Yeah, Copilot.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Copilot is a marketing machine for Microsoft.
What I would say is right hatsoff the field service team.
The field service team haveactually done well with their
field service co-pilot stuff.
If you look at sales and youlook at some of the customer
service stuff, they're co-pilotsfor the sake of being co-pilots
, whereas I actually feel thatthere is value from the field
(16:22):
service co-pilots.
But get a little bit clever.
So create your own co-pilot or,sorry, agents.
We're calling them this weekand maybe next week by the time
the podcast comes out, they'recalled something different, but
for now, the artist yeah, theyare artists, formerly known as
co-pilot, prod agents, agents,organisational agents create a
(16:45):
power automate that where youput the name in, it will come
back and then it will justreturn when their appointments
are, what rooms they are andusing the good old adaptive
cards quite clever to use them.
There's different methods andways of bringing back that data
that you don't have to use aschedule board.
You can be clever with yourdata.
Again, everything is datadriven.
That data that you don't haveto use a schedule board.
You can be clever with yourdata.
(17:05):
Again, everything is datadriven.
I I don't really care whatproduct I use or when I use it,
it is 95 about data model, fivepercent about the application
layer.
If your data is good, you canliterally do anything you want
with that data.
There's a a phrase for datashit in, shit out.
You've probably heard thatphrase.
(17:26):
That is 100% field service.
If you've got bad data, you'regetting bad results, but if your
data's good, you're gettinggood results.
But alternative, going down thatroute, I've used things before
like FLS, fast, lean, smart fordoing it.
There are PCF components outthere.
There's using gridids, becausepeople look at the schedule
(17:47):
board and think, oh yeah, theschedule board's great.
Have you actually ever justlooked at your work orders and
created a nice view for yourwork orders?
Group your view by certainthings, especially with the new.
I see you using the power apps,grid control, where you can
have different colors and youcan filter by statuses.
You can group things beingclever with views as well.
(18:09):
Again, you don't have to go atthe nth degree getting the
little developers out of thebasement and stuff like that.
You can literally just view theviews and build stuff out
correctly, and so that that'swhere I would go with that is,
be clever and listen to whatyour customer wants, because
what your customer wants isn'talways necessarily what you
(18:31):
think is cool and what you wantto build.
Listen to what they actuallywant and actually need yeah
shout out to the great that'sgreat.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
The fls guys did a phenomenal job with legit
routing.
I say routing specifically fromgoing from point A to point B.
That product is gnarly and theydid a really, really good job.
So shout out to the FLS guys onthat.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I mean when I'm asked about it, because I sometimes
come up against competes,against the FLS, or they're
looking for it because peoplethink that their field service,
especially when we go down theRSO FLS is about getting the
right person to the right job asquick as you can, whereas RSO
is more about job and gettingthe job done correctly.
(19:13):
They are two very distinctproducts with two very different
outcomes and they complementeach other very well.
So it's about choosing theright tool at the right time.
We don't just because we're infield service and we wear the
Microsoft hat doesn't mean thatthat's it's best platform for
someone yeah, yeah and I thinkthat's.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That's great, that's a great uh analogy, right,
because at the end of the day,right?
Yes, we are in microsoftplatform and there's a lot of
tools out there that you couldutilize, but it doesn't mean
that it's the only it's.
It's the right fit, right, somay not be the right fit.
It also may not be the rightfit from right if you have
thousands of resources you wantto schedule.
(19:51):
It may not be the right fitfrom a price point either.
And got some things.
Those are some things that youknow organizations need to take
a look at.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yes, Scott, scott, mark, you guys have been in
there.
Somebody has put the bug intheir ear.
It drives me nuts.
They say RSO will optimize yoursituation in your fix, your use
case.
You know, we know thedifference between for our
audience, but can you guys helpthem understand the difference
between optimized resourcescheduling versus routing from
(20:27):
point A to point B?
There's a distinct difference,right?
Could you guys help themunderstand why RSO is a complete
monster than FLS in that usecase?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yes, I mean for the resource scheduling optimization
.
It's about getting getting theresource and it's about the jobs
.
So I need to do this job andthis priority, whereas FLS is
more about the resource andgetting the resource to the job
quickest, so it's about routeplanning, it's about mapping,
(21:01):
which is really good at what itdoes, and that's the distinction
.
One is about getting people tothe job quickest to get more
jobs in.
The other is about getting theright person to the job to get
the first thing fix and as a asan end user or as a customer,
you want a scheduling engine andyou either want it because
(21:22):
you're trying to get more jobsin per day or you're trying to
get your first time fix rate.
Yep, that's how I try anddefine it too.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And honestly I mean I preach all the time at
conferences about first timefixed rate and what it means if
your first time fixed rate islow, what that means from a cost
perspective to yourorganization.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It's amazing.
So I was working, so this is avery weird scenario.
So I'll set it up a little bit.
Microsoft came to me me theyhad a customer.
That customer was using fieldservice in about six territories
and throughout the world.
They wanted to do a largeimplementation of rso, which is
great, fine, no problem.
(22:05):
Nobody at microsoft knew how itworked and couldn't demo it.
And we're talking this is inthe last six months, and so
microsoft actually paid for usto approve for concept for a
customer.
Really, really strange.
But their requirements werenumber of jobs.
So they were doing 4.2 jobs perperson per day.
They wanted to increase that to4.7 and I'm like it doesn't
(22:28):
seem like a lot.
They had 1700 engineers just inthe uk.
So when you actually look at,okay, 0.5 jobs per day over the
1700, that actually worked outabout 850 extra jobs per day a
week, 12 000 and 1 200 120 000 amonth extra jobs, and their
(22:53):
minimum hourly charge was £70.
So that was close to an extramillion pound a year just by
having that extra half a job perday.
And you don't like when you'rethinking half a job a day, it's
not worth me even getting out ofmy bed and you looking at this
product for that.
But when they stepped out, thisis what they were looking at.
Day, it's not worth me evengetting out of my bed and you
looking at this product for that.
(23:13):
But when they stepped out andthis is what they were looking
at and it's like wow, thatactually really does make sense.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It is a really good use case yeah, yeah, no, that's,
that's a fair point, so itdoesn't have to be to your point
, like big numbers, like hey, we, we're gonna get three more
jobs per resource, per tech, perday.
Half a job, depending on howmany texts you have.
Right, and that's what it is.
How many?
How many texts do you have?
If you have ten, alright, youknow, is the juice worth the
(23:45):
dough now?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
but if you have 1700 Proves in the pudding, yeah, and
the part I always try to tellpeople as well field service is
an enterprise level applicationfor enterprise level customers.
It also has an enterprise levelprice tag.
There are so many smallbusinesses that cannot afford
(24:08):
the.
What are we now?
$80 per user per month, I thinkis the current cost cost if
you're a small 5, 10, 15, theimplementation costs and the
fuel service licenses you'rehitting about three years before
you're getting proper return oninvestment for that.
If there was just something inthat little gap there that could
(24:29):
fill that little gap, it wouldhave been amazing, so real quick
about filling in the gaps therethere have been.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
People go.
Oh god, I hope you hadn't you'regonna get me that was great all
right, you gotta put that inthe bloopers.
So yeah, about that.
You know, when I first startedimplementing field service, it
(25:01):
was never really just hey, let'sdo one large, massive
implementation.
We kind of took an iterativeapproach.
Let's do work order management,let's talk about asset
servicing, let's let's doinventory management right, it's
bits and pieces.
Now you guys have somethingspecial in the pot, right,
proximo has something specialwith the field service light.
Can you tell us a little bitabout?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
that, yeah.
So I'm going to to probablybreak ndas here, but I mean I'm
too.
Because one is there was aproduct that microsoft were
working on that was about a weekaway from delivery and that was
a light version of fieldservice that would sit within
teams actually as an m365 appand would use the back end of
(25:44):
field service as a database.
Really nice product, worksreally really well, was basic
and it would hit that smallmarket.
The other really good thingabout that was it was actually
in 365 and office sellers weregoing to be the people who were
selling it, so it wasn't justyour, your biz app sales people.
There was a whole new marketthat I was going to hit and the
(26:06):
UK obviously isn't as big as theStates in terms of size and
companies.
So there are customers therethat are five to fifty resources
that that want to use fieldservice and this would have been
perfect for them.
So that unfortunately did getcanned very, very close to
release.
So we had a lot in the pipeline.
So we've actually gone out andbuilt a a light field service.
(26:29):
So we're still using commondata model a light field service
.
So we're still using commondata model.
We've built out an extra sixcustom tables.
So we have jobs, we have jobrequests, we have skills, we
have user skills and we have twoother tables that fly from the
current, remember.
But what we've also done on theback of that is the schedule
board is nice in field serviceand we've tried to replicate
(26:53):
that by building our own pcf.
Now what we've done is the pcf,that microsoft, the schedule
board is now pcf.
There's a lot of richfunctionality on that and it is.
It is good.
We've leveraged, using themanifest and the pcfs, to be
able to build out customizationand make it customizable so that
you can decide what are yourresources, what is your job
(27:15):
tables, etc.
And so that you can schedule onthe schedule board and drag and
drop things on to it and itwill update the child records
and move the time.
Well, I bet, like the, thecurrent schedule board will do,
and but a bit nicer looking.
No, not as much in features,but it just hits that market.
(27:36):
That's there.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Have you guys already dropped?
That Is it, or is it indevelopment?
Speaker 3 (27:40):
It is currently going through AppSource verification
at the moment, so I would expectAppSource verification at the
moment.
I probably expect it to drop inthe next 90 days Awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
That would be awesome .
We'll want to be on the next 90days.
We'll want to be on the lookoutfor that.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
We know how the application goes Don't get me
started on that one.
It's a lightweight applicationto try and hit that smaller
market.
The way that they were pricingis really we're giving the data
model away for free and we'recharging for the PCF component.
Now that can be availableglobally, yes, but it must be
(28:20):
transacted through app source.
We don't want to do any of thebilling off it, we're just
letting that all go throughthere which is how, honestly, I
think a lot of things are goingto move anyway to be.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
you know that's another topic for another day
how I feel where we're goingwith this whole thing, right.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I want to get back to one thing, though.
So we talked about RSO.
Mark, have you played aroundwith the preview scheduling
optimization agent?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I actually think they're quite cool.
Again, the field service teamare actually a fair play to Dan
and the team.
I mean as for some, I think I'mever going to give him any
credit for anything but and itis really good and it makes
sense.
I mean, I think we we're allaware of the fact that field
service is going to go away fromlicenses.
You're not going to be buyinglicenses anymore.
(29:07):
You're going to be paying perjob.
Everything on the powerplatform is going to be a
transactional thing.
You're going to pay, paying perjob.
Everything on the powerplatform is going to be a
transactional thing.
You're going to pay per job.
So with the operational agents,it means that you're going to
be paying per job, scheduled orrescheduled.
That that's the way things aregoing and I actually again think
it lowers the bar to entry inthe system because you're not
having to buy the licenses.
(29:29):
You could be a five user systemand just by the number of jobs
that you're scheduling, fromwhat I can gather, that is going
to be a minimum number of jobsthat you have to transact per
month.
So if you schedule 50 jobs permonth, you might have to buy a
bucket, but it's still.
I think it's a good model.
(29:50):
Obviously, operational agentsjust know the way that they're
working and the way that you canconfigure them, the
configuration settings for them.
If you've ever used RSO before,it is exactly the same, yeah.
So I would say RSO is very muchgoing to disappear, die and be
set up off in flames.
(30:10):
I've been told that, no, it'snot.
It's still going to disappear,die and be set off in flames.
I've been told that, no, it'snot, it's still going to be
there for now.
But I sorry that wasn't thewords, it was continue selling
it and there'll be a migrationpath.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I think it was the exact words that I was yeah, I
was going to say that you got aneyebrow raise from me on that
one.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I was like yeah, and we've used it and I've been
using the optimization agent inone of our environments here at
Congro at X, and you know,besides the fact that right now,
right, you can't do bulkupdates of resources, it's one
at a time it is a heck of a loteasier than configuring RSO yes,
(30:49):
100%, I mean, and it is soclose to just being able to
detect everyone on that viewbecause, remember, when you
create, when you're building outyour rso, you're supplying your
view of your and resources andyour view of your jobs.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
That's part of the configuration, whereas if you
can just go directly to the viewand select the ones you want to
schedule, it makes it so mucheasier.
But, again, I do think peoplewill forget that it's a cost per
schedule and get shocked at theend of the month when they're
rescheduling jobs every 25minutes.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
All right.
So I'm going to be the bad guyhere, I'm going to throw this
out there.
So, if you're able to definewhat your end goal is, is it
best resource matching?
Is it time you know what isyour goal?
Some of these items where youcan be built by yourself using
whatever technology you may wantto use, right, you can do
linear programming, you can dolearning, you can do well, you
(31:46):
can even use Power Automate tomap it.
With the Azure function, youcan do a thousand different ways
to do it.
Where do you think the orgcompanies are going to really
then be able to define the value, because some of these
technologies are out therealready and they can just jump
in and use it.
Where do you think Microsoft isgoing to go with hey, we built
this nice little agent, it'sautomatically integrated into
(32:07):
our component, our controlversus hey, I can throw
something from Syncfusion orhell.
Hey, I can throw something fromsync fusion, or hell, I can go
call Mark, he has a PCF and Ihave my own.
You know, endpoint, that I thatcan do the mathematics for my
optimization already there.
How are they going to compete?
I mean, what are your thoughtson that?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
well, this is a very philosophical question.
Well, I'm surprised that youwere able to do this one.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So, and I think I am going to text you some thoughts
I would say so.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
There's a few comments I have around this one
microsoft and ai and I think aiin general is currently about
five years.
Our companies are.
We have all these cool toolsand all of the cool machine
learning and all of the the aiand all of gpts that can do
anything.
Businesses don't know what theyneed and what they they can get
from an ai thing, just like wehad the digital transformations.
I think in about three or fouryears everyone is going to be
(33:05):
doing an ai transformation.
I don't think anyone isanywhere near properly ready to
do this right now.
So what we're giving people isobviously Microsoft have got all
of the back end AI machinelearning, everything that's
running in the background,realistically right.
Copilot is just a graphical,nice interface for the back end.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
With actions being power, automate right.
It just blows my mind thatfolks haven't gotten the
difference between AI versusautomation, but remember as well
.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Power Automate is just a nice graphical front end
for a logic.
That's all it is True, true,true.
So, and the same with CustomerVoice.
Customer Voice is the same assomething in the background as
well, Kind of a little bit ofwhat exactly it is.
But Microsoft are really goodat building out the
infrastructure, the hardware andthe large like the AI foundries
(34:04):
, etc.
But putting that nice graphicalinterface in the front of it
and that's what's allowingpeople with a kind of low bar of
entry to get into using it.
That's what's allowing peoplewith a low bar of entry to get
into using it.
I don't think that companiesare ready for large-scale AI
right now.
One, their data is not in thatplace Nobody's data, because if
(34:24):
people are making businessdecisions based on horrible data
, then that company is not goingto be there for two months
longer.
You still need to make surePeople are going to spend years
getting their data and theirdocumentation and their
processes right before they eventouch AI.
True that?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
drives me nuts.
If your data is wonky, thenyour AI, because it's just going
to reference your data.
It's going to give you somewonky responses, because it's
just going to reference yourdata.
It's going to give you somewonky responses.
So I do.
When we were talking, when theAI bug, like you know, first
really hit and folks werelooking at it and they were, you
know.
One of my conversation pointwas how does your data look
right?
Are you sure that it's clear?
(35:05):
Are you sure that it's accurate?
And you know you can.
Microsoft's done a great jobthrough Azure AI Foundry, giving
organizations the ability tokind of add in some of those
guardrails to make it efficient.
But again, the heart and soulof it is going to be the
customer's data so.
I think we spent a significantamount of time helping customers
organize it.
I think having good datastewards those areas are going
(35:26):
to really add value.
You said three years.
I was a little bit morepessimistic, but I think we're
going to move in the rightorganizations.
I think we're in said threeyears.
I was a little bit a little bitmore pessimistic, but you know
we'll, we'll.
I think we're going to move inthe right organizations.
I think we're at the right,right place.
I think organizations have hadthis oh my god, what have we
gotten ourselves into?
Moment and now and now it'slike, okay, folks, you know, up
in the process, you need to goand, like you know, I think
(35:48):
we'll.
I think we're going to be in agood spot, though.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, I'll give you an example.
We've got some customers whoare co-pilot-only customers.
One of them is a dairy companyand what they've done is they
have put in the UK legislationfor dairy produce what standards
everything has to meet.
They've put in their ownrecipes what their best-selling
recipes are, and they've askedco copilot to then build out
(36:14):
additional recipes for them.
Like that is a clever use ofcopilot.
They have the way that ispretty good and so.
So yeah, using things cleverlike that, that is a very used
case.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
That's not something you'd run a whole business on,
but quite clever all right, somoving into that space of clever
use cases, so field service,get back into field service.
Field service, we know it.
It hit the ground with manionand just took off right.
We know that that's the area inspace that it just, really,
(36:49):
quite frankly, dominates in verywell.
You, though, however, have hadsome very interesting field
service use cases, allowing youto also leverage the Power
Platform to extend it.
You want to talk about some ofthe sport, how you use it in the
sports medicine area.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
So there's a few different things.
So, in terms of sports wise, weuse facility booking.
So you've got an AstroTurffootball pitcher, you've got an
astroturf football picture,you've got an ice rink that you
want to book time on, and thatcan be done through scheduling,
because you're just schedulingthe facility, but kind of where
I think you're going is aroundthe collection of urine from
(37:26):
samples for no I wasn't goingto't going there.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well, we can go there .
Speaker 3 (37:34):
So I was working with an agency who I mean they're a
US based company called Randoxyeah, so Will will probably be
drug tested enough.
You'll probably know them.
But what they do is they doworkplace drug testing and again
, it's just fundamental fieldservice.
They need a resource, which isa person collecting it, they
(37:57):
need a facility, and thatfacility is a place where the
tests are happening and theequipment is the tube.
They then also do the send awayof it and then they post the
results back on power pages.
So again, when you've got,you've got the need, you've got
the requirement, you've got theresource, you've got the, the
job which is actually doing it,it is fundamental field service.
(38:20):
When you take your fields, the,your field service hat off and
think it's scheduling, it's aperson in a van, it's hvac.
If you've got a job, you've gota person, you've got a job,
you've got a person, you've gota need and you've got a customer
.
That is what field service is.
I've got quite a lot of otherunique use cases.
I've even spent time withMicrosoft sales team going
(38:43):
through them with the fieldservice team, just to explain
that it's not just a man in awhite van with a bag of tools.
There's so many differentthings that can be done yeah,
yeah, that was actually one ofhis.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Just so you guys know we're not looking like we're
creep boys.
Mark's what is mark's uhsession?
Because mark does publicspeaking events and does a great
job.
One of the sessions was abouthow field service is more than a
guy and a white man.
So you know it.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Just that's why yeah, that's why we're hysterically
laughing over here.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So you know, Mark, you also had a use case.
So you know you made the introfor myself and Franco.
So Franco is phenomenal, soshout out to Franco, one of the
best ever did it with PowerPages.
You also had a use case whoeverdoes it, I'm sorry by that,
franco.
(39:38):
You also had a use case whereathletes can go into it, kind of
like a portal, and they canthen adjust or bid or move to
different teams, correct?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So that's field service.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Not field service, but we also.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
So my background before I got into IT, I was a
professional soccer coach forten years, so that was my
background.
We then built IP aroundsponsorship management and
sports.
So it's a sales process, butit's a unique one for the sports
industry, where they're notselling physical items, they're
selling sponsor boards, they'reselling advertsverts, they're
(40:11):
selling sponsor the goal at thenew york.
That's the sort of thing thatthey're doing.
So so that's one part of it.
But we also have a playermanagement.
So what not a lot of peopledon't realize is when, when
clubs sign players, theysometimes give them houses, they
give them cars, and there's noway of tracking that.
(40:32):
So we've got a system,especially in Europe.
In Europe, in ice hockey,basketball, there's a lot of
imports, so each team has like16 North American imports.
That means 16 cars, that means16 visas and contracts, et
cetera.
So we've got a system thatallows you to register your
(40:52):
players, assign them houses,take the reading of the gas when
you go into the house and tellyou how many miles you've got in
the car when you get the car.
But the portal side, if itallows them to log into the
portal to supply their pay slips, to supply their passports,
their driving licenses, etc.
Then that's transferred or it'swhen it's saved, it goes
(41:13):
straight into dataverse and thenthe admin team can pick up that
information.
Rather than scanning it in theoffice, putting it in a filing
cabinet, losing it, misplacingthe passport, it's all done
digitally.
So you have all of that to yourfingertips that's yeah, that's
pretty, that's pretty slick.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You know, I know I wanted to get back real, real
quick.
I know we're almost out of time, but talk about all the
different scheduling optionsthat comes in so critical.
In the healthcare industry.
I've had so many demos andprocess.
We don't schedule resources, weschedule patients to rooms, we
(41:53):
doctors to patients, and thisand you know all the different
scheduling functions.
And so I think to your point is,you know the flexibility of
maybe it's not to schedulebefore, but maybe it's to your
point.
Maybe you're using differentsorts of views and you're
filtering things, or maybeyou're using a different PCF
control, or maybe you'recontacting, you know, mark at
(42:14):
Proximo.
Look at their scheduling tools.
So there's a lot of differentthings.
But I think, from aimplementation partner, we have
to be careful of not to lookinside the box but outside the
box in terms of you know, listen, truly listen to what the
customer is is asking for, andnot necessarily fit them into
(42:36):
that, that square peg into theround hole yeah, a hundred
percent, because one of thethings that I think a lot of
people forget is you can just goon your work fund availability
and it will bring back who'savailable.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
You don't always need a schedule board.
Yeah, use a schedule assistant.
You don't always need aschedule board.
Yeah, you use a scheduleassistant.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
You don't always need a schedule board to your point
mark like this is where I I love.
So this is where the microsofthit the nail on the head.
Right, that search resourceability api that the schedule
assistant uses is open.
You can do everything you wantwith the click of a button, just
leveraging this api.
Like it is, so powerful, peoplejust sometimes just don't know
about it.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Yeah, and that's it.
That is what I mean.
Again, that's what you can lookat.
The API is there.
It can be used for it to workwithin.
So here's the trick.
So I'm going to go when Ibecause we came a cropper with
this one we were looking atcould we actually use the
schedule board api for the pcfthat we were building?
To use the api for the scheduleboard, you still need either a
customer service or a fieldservice license correct because
(43:41):
you don't get it so right.
We had to.
We had to build all that usingsome some interesting fetch
queries.
But yeah, it's you, that is oneof the biggest things.
You don't have to use theschedule board.
But yeah, it's you, that is oneof the biggest things.
You don't have to use theschedule board.
You can create a PCF button ifyou want.
That goes away and finds it.
So if you walk on to the portal, if you use the field service
template power page, it's usingthe schedule board API as well
(44:05):
to find the regular ability yes.
So just utilizing that and it'snot a difficult API, I mean, if
you've been able to build on topof it that can assess the bar
of where it is, and yeah, 100%,you got jokes.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Hold on, you see, that was messed up, mark.
You got jokes.
All right, I got you.
I'm going to get you for thatone.
Scott, did you have any othertechnical questions on that?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
No, no, no more technical questions.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
You mind if I take the ball real quick and just do
something real crazy here.
This is it.
You go for it, juan.
All right, so here's the deal.
For folks who may not know Markdoes so much for the community
on the record and off the record.
He is him and Ian are probablythe kind of souls that I've met
in my life.
(44:51):
Now, to that point, mark, forfolks who don't know, you and
Ian have done so much forScottish Summit.
Do you want to talk about someof your community activities and
why community is so importantin our not just our industry but
, heck, in our space?
You want to go and talk aboutthat for a bit?
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Yeah.
So for me, the Microsoftplatform is a very unique
community.
I've worked in differentindustries where if you're
working on similar projects, youhate the person next to you
who's doing that project from adifferent company.
You don't like them.
That that's how it is like.
If you're a salesperson andyou've got a friend who's a
salesperson, you never talkabout what you're doing, you
(45:34):
don't discuss it, whereas I feelthe microsoft community is open
.
Like I've spoke to people whenwe've been bidding on the same
bit of work and like we've askedquestions of each other like
how would you do it?
Like that it's there.
The openness, the ability tohelp is just different from any
other industry or community I'veever seen.
So being able to to help peopleget into it.
(45:55):
So I everyone, I mean.
I think I make it quite obviousI am not really a fan of the MVP
programme.
I think it is not diverse andit is not inclusive.
I have said this from day one,but one of the things I really
wanted to do by being in theprogramme is help get it there.
I call out quite often If youhave ever seen me on LinkedIn
(46:19):
and I am quite vocal on certainthings and non apologetic for it
?
Because there's there is a lackof diversity, lack of inclusion
within the whole community.
So I spend a lot of time in thebackground and I say, well, a
lot of people don't know this, Imay not have quite a lot of
people in the background whenpeople are running events.
(46:41):
They always come to me and askquestions about events.
I can, I can give people advicearound them and because I want
to, to help people be able toget to the next stage where they
can then start helping peopleget into the community, take the
next steps, like the first everscottish summit that we ran, we
were told in sc, in Scotlandthere isn't a community.
(47:02):
You'll not get more than 30people at an event.
That's genuinely what we weretold.
We got 300 to that first event.
There was then a big disparityon male and female speakers.
Our second Scottish summit event.
We had more female speakersthan male speakers at the event.
So every time we've donesomething, but we were the first
(47:22):
night of the event ever have adeaf keynote speech that was
done in sign language.
And again, that wasn't becausewe were trying to have
demographic.
That's because we knew a reallygood speaker who we thought had
an empowering story and wewanted that person to be able to
tell it, and so we're trying tobreak down doors and windows,
(47:46):
because you usually go throughthe window to steal things from
people, don't you?
Well, so so so we we try tobreak down the barriers and give
everyone the the ability to, toshowcase what they can do,
whether it be technical skills,whether it be social skills,
whether it be marketing skills,whatever they've got that they
(48:07):
not even necessarily feel thatthey're going to have value with
.
What they want to bring, andwhat they want to share is is
being able to give people theopportunity and the platform to
do that.
So, like when I'm speaking,where have I been recently?
I was at dynamics mines inportrose and slovenia, so I've
done a panel session on how toget into public speaking.
(48:28):
So, explaining, I had a panelof four different people
explaining.
These four different peopletook four different roads to get
into the community and gettinginto speaking.
Because the four differentopinions, hopefully the people
that were in the audience atthat point.
Hopefully one of theseresonated with get into the
community and getting intospeaking because the four
different opinions, hopefullythe people that were in the
audience at that point.
Hopefully one of theseresonated with them.
Who are there as attendees tothen maybe think well, actually,
(48:49):
if somebody like that can do itand that's their background,
then maybe I can do it.
So so it's just hopefullygiving people opportunity,
courage, a little bit of thoughtto to be able to get out there
and just take that next step.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
That's awesome.
Yeah, I think when my secondsession, my first time speaking
about anything technical, when Istarted hitting the road on
this I think it was ScottishSummit and the funniest thing in
the world is, mark.
I didn't know how I got thatsession, I didn't know how large
it was, it was virtual, it wasduring the pandemic, but it
(49:23):
wasn't until afterwards when,you know, people came up and I
started getting messages aboutcertain things that I realized
you know what I actually waspart of and it always been
eternally gratefully for forthat.
But it's folks like yousurprised they allow you into
Scotland.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Well, no.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I went last year for the first time, but that was.
I had a weird travel experience.
But you know, amazing event,it's a great event.
And so, for those who don'tknow, this is the last time for
2026, right, that that you'll bethrowing the hosting event no,
I'm not listening.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
No, the last event, actually my, my last one, with
me moving to norway, I thoughtyou were going to do one more.
No, there is going to be onemore, but it's not going to be
me.
And well, I've got a questionfor you.
Well, so when you were inperson in scotland talking about
field service with our mr vanballmer, and how did that
(50:17):
session go?
Speaker 2 (50:19):
okay.
So that was one of the mostamazing sessions of my life and
here's how it happened, right.
So you, you, you know it's beenan eye on stage and we
initially start and it's, it's,it's, it's been being been right
.
So he's munching through thenotes, it's so, and so in all of
a sudden, the doors open up andyou guys ever seen prince and
(50:41):
purple rain with the smokecoming out of the back?
you know it comes it comes, markchristie in this purple suit.
No, it comes, mark christie.
Mark gets on the stage and itturns into this awesome panel
and for me it was living thedream.
Man, it was ben, it was mark,and know, an hour can't capture
all the things that Mark hasdone for field service and
(51:02):
scheduling.
But you know, folks got a goodsession because we're not just
you know, we're not just, wedon't just know each other,
we're friends, we considerourselves family, I consider
Mark family, but you know, I,you know clearly I don't talk to
him enough, but anyway, but itwas just that great moment.
For me it was like living thedream because I privately pinged
(51:25):
Mark about things technicallyand so you know, ben is also one
of the guys you all know, benVollmer.
He's done a lot for fieldservice.
In fact he's just you know, hebreeds field service.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Do you know?
The best thing he ever done forfield service.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Leave it.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Yes, exactly that One of the things so that session
was really good.
I love being with you, but oneof the things that actually made
that.
My daughter was helping out atScottish Summit so she actually
came in and watched me.
She never, she has no idea whatthe community is, what these
events are and stuff.
So my daughter actually cameinto the room and watched me up
on stage.
So that for me was like a huge,huge thing man, that is so cool
(52:07):
man well, we gotta wrap, wegotta wrap it up guys.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
So I just wanted to say straight up, mark man, thank
you so much for coming.
My brother, we greatlyappreciate it.
Scott, you got anything youwant to say, sir?
Speaker 1 (52:18):
No, I definitely appreciate your wisdom, your
rifts towards Quad Love it, loveit.
But no, I appreciate everythingthat you do for one the
community and the field serviceand the platform.
So, mark, it's been a truepleasure having you on today, so
I appreciate you taking thetime during your end of day, on
(52:40):
a Friday, no less.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
I just thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Yeah, I appreciate it .
Thank you everyone forlistening and we'll see you next
time.
Thank you, thank you.
Hey there and welcome to the Service X Factor podcast
.
I'm Scott LaFonte, seven-timeMicrosoft MVP and field service
strategist at CongruentX, andyour guide for today's episode
On this show.
My co-host, fellow MicrosoftMVP and service innovation guru,
will McClendon, and I willspotlight the people, platforms
and ideas that transform serviceteams from cost centers into
(00:25):
revenue powerhouses.
Each episode will unpackreal-world wins, hard-learned
lessons and the emergent techreshaping the front lines Think
AI, co-pilots, predictiveanalytics and everything in
between.
So grab your coffee, settle inand let's discover your
organization's X -Factortogether.
Let's dive in X Factor together.
(00:49):
Let's dive in.
Welcome everyone to anotherepisode of the Service X Factor
podcast.
I am one of your co-hosts,scott LaFonte, here with Big
Will McClendon, my other co host.
How's it going, will?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It's going great and it's Quad for you, sir.
You have to call me Quad.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Quad.
All right, that's right, Quad.
I love it All right.
Well, today we have anotherspecial guest across the pond
from us who actually boasts abig sneaker game along with his
field service skills, Mr MarkChristie.
Mark, how's it going?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Not too bad Yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, hanging in there.
It's a Friday morning here, youknow, friday afternoon there
for you, but I want to know moreabout this sneaker game before
we get going into field service.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Okay, so I'll answer the sneaker one, If you tell me
first why is Will called Quad?
Where did that name?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
come from.
Oh, so I'm the fourth.
That's a little-known secretabout me.
I'm actually the fourth in line, so you know my dad's the third
.
His father was junior, so soyou can actually save right,
that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I just never clicked.
I actually have you saved.
This will mcclendon the fourthon my phone and I never even
thought about it, so it's not.
Yeah, I may have a definitive.
I like my trainers.
I am, I don smoke, I don'tdrink, I don't do drugs.
I don't go out that often.
(02:08):
I just spend all my money onsneakers.
I've got sneakers that areworth over $1,000 per pair
batons right the way through tothe ones that I'm looking at in
the hallway Obviously greatvisual here for an audio podcast
(02:31):
, but I have got some MB3 Puma.
Did anyone ever watch a show?
Dexter's Laboratory?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
You've got to watch Dex man.
Right.
So I have got a pair of DexterMB3s.
When when you look at our youknow the kids coloring books,
you get where you've got thelines you've got to color in.
They look like somebody stoppedhalf of the coloring and a
kid's etch a sketch or not, it'skaleidoscope style drawing.
(02:59):
So yeah, that's that's kind ofwhere where I am with that, but
I I do like my, I kind of makethat thing that every event I go
to speak at I have a nice freshnew pair of Outlandish trainers
.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So Scottish Summit, you know we traveled over there.
I forgot to bring the goodsneakers and I look at them.
I had some whack, new balancesand I look at Mark's shoes.
I just came from another eventso you know my feet were swollen
.
I look at Mark and I was likeGod man, that man.
So next year or when you doScottish Summit, we'll make sure
I have the J's.
I got fours on for you today,but I want to make sure I have
(03:33):
the J's next year so werepresent correctly.
Just so you know that's whatI'm doing.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
All right, I'm On that note.
Mark, I see you a lot onLinkedIn.
You're obviously well known inthe dynamics and power platform
space, but also a lot withinfield service in general, and so
that's why we're glad to haveyou on board here to talk about
all things service slash, fieldservice.
I know Quad has a lot of he'sbeen salivating.
He's got a lot of goodquestions for you in terms of
(04:10):
scheduling, so I'm going to turnover the first question to Quad
.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well, we've all been there before, right, like Scott,
you've worked with it.
Mark's worked with it, so we'retalking about URS.
We all know what it's for.
Mark's worked with it.
So we're talking about URS.
We all know what it's for.
But you know, mark.
Why don't you give our audiencea glimpse of what you, as
someone who's worked with it anddelivered it on multiple
projects, multiple customersfrom multiple scenarios?
What is URS for?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So URS is Universal Resource Scheduling.
So for me it's obviously it isthe same schedule board you're
using in field service.
But when I'm talking tocustomers, when we get leads
come in, customers are alwayslike oh, I need field service.
It needs to be field service.
Field service is what we'redoing.
So for me, the first part ofconversation isn't do you need
(04:59):
field service.
It is more what is therequirement?
Like, are you going to bescheduling engineers?
Do you want to do invoices?
Are you using products andservices?
What about a mobile app?
It's actually determining whatyou are wanting to use
scheduling for.
Because I kind of take take theholistic approach that when
(05:20):
somebody says field service,they're talking about scheduling
.
They've just they've googledfield, they've googled servicing
and microsoft then has come upfield service.
So kind of asking the questionsbut the thing with with urs,
I'd say it is the same scheduleboard.
It uses the same resources, ituses the same skills, but it
doesn't use work orders.
(05:41):
So you can actually choose whattables you customize and use
yourself.
You use it in a sales.
So you can actually choose whattables you customize and use
yourself.
Use it in a sales environment.
You can actually schedule casesor you can build fully custom
entities so it gives you theextensibility to be able to take
customer service and use theschedule board for that.
My biggest thing that I likeabout that is more around the
(06:05):
licenses.
Being scottish, I'm reallycheap.
I don't want somebody to haveto buy a customer service
license to to use customerservice and then buy field
service attached to use fieldservice.
What work works smarter, notwith more money and see can I
actually use universal resourcescheduling to meet my needs
(06:27):
rather than use two products.
So yeah, that was a long answerfor a basic question.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
No, it's great, yeah, it hits the nail right there on
the head, because you know,when they say field service 99.5
, they're also talking aboutscheduling and folks don't
understand.
They're two different products.
But that leads me intosomething I wanted to ask you
because you kind of mentioned it.
We're around use cases.
Can you explain to our audience?
I think they'll find value init?
There is a distinct differencebetween resource scheduling and
(06:58):
asset scheduling.
Can you tell them?
Tell them the differencesbetween that?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
yeah, so.
So I mean, resource schedulingis usually people or groups, and
whereas assets are I want toschedule a cherry picker, or I
want scaffolding, or I thoughtyou were going somewhere with
that question about some of myinterest in field service
deployments and I thought that'swhere you were going.
(07:23):
But I will answer that no,we're not going that for this
show.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That's the after hours show.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
That's the after show , that's after we record.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So, yeah, scheduling items that people need, whether
it's some people will use it forscheduling right, I need the
jerry picker, I need thescaffolding I need and to hire
part, but some people actuallyfor fire.
So rather than just say, okay,I would like an engineer to come
out, that's, I would like thisair compressor for five days,
(07:54):
and it's booking out thoseassets rather than booking out
the people.
Sometimes you get both rightthings you need the asset and
you need to hire a person thatgoes with that right, and so you
would create that as anincident type potential and as a
person and as the facility, theequipment.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the beauty of
scheduling right.
I mean, it's so flexible interms of what you can schedule,
and not just record wise, butthe type of resource or the
grouping of resources you know,crews and things of that nature.
I think that's where the truevalue comes in is.
(08:32):
I mean, if you're just doingbasic scheduling and it's
working for you, that's great.
But if you have more complex orrobust requirements, you know
there's probably a good chancethat there's functionality.
We chance that there's.
There's functionality.
We know that there's thingsthat mark that you've done.
I know quads done as well toextend the schedule ward.
I think I'm gonna call youquads now and I said knock on
(08:56):
you.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, hey, it worked because all my instances that
you ever spun up for over thepast two years have had quad, is
the username just throwing itout there.
So I see an environment go quad, go quad.
I like it so.
But to that, mark Scott, we'vedone some crazy stuff with the
schedule board.
There's been some days where,like you know, hey, this isn't
going to necessarily work, like,for example, factory lines, you
(09:17):
know, versus people on thoselines, right, these are the
kinds of things that make it alittle difficult.
I know I've used alternatives.
Not, these are the kind ofthings that make it a little
difficult.
I know I've used alternativesit's not a knock on the product,
but I've used alternatives.
Mark, I would love because thisis why we brought you on if you
could share some of youralternatives to the schedule
board.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I'm going to actually answer a question you didn't
ask before this, though, like wementioned, going in creating
the schedule boards andcustomizing them.
We mentioned like going increating the schedule boards and
customizing them.
I would.
So if you've ever done fieldservice, you know a field
service implementation is morelike an fno implementation.
You do not have to customizefield service.
(09:56):
As long as you know the datamodel on field service and you
can import and load in the datathe correct way, I would say you
can meet 95% of customerrequirements.
I genuinely, for people thatspend months or months
customizing field service,you're doing it wrong and that's
just me being really brutal.
(10:17):
It's all about the data.
You can get a customer up andrunning in ten days, no matter
the volume of data.
As long as you get the dataincorrectly and you've done the
workshops, you understand whatthe processes are, what their
skills are, their resources,products and incentives you
genuinely can get a customer outof the box up and running in 10
(10:40):
days.
Then take the time and let themtell you what the gaps are.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Wow 30 was good 10.
Yeah, so so that's becausethat's good, mark's, mark's
incredible.
But to be so, shout out to reamif she's, if she's watching
ream on time.
I think it was like five yearsago we were on a client and she
illustrated the best way I'veever heard it said.
She said I've told the customerhey, field service is data
driven, scheduling is datadriven, rso is data driven.
So what is your data?
So shout out to re.
Said I've told the customer hey, field service is data driven,
scheduling is data driven, rsois data driven.
(11:07):
So what is your data?
So shout out to ream.
I've stole that line and if anyof my customers hear me say it,
it's because of her.
But yeah, to that point, mark,if your data is right and the
data model is great, then youknow thumbs up.
But remember, getting the dataright is oftentimes the hardest
obstacle for for most of ourcustomers, because they don't
necessarily understand theirdata.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah, Well, that's their problem.
If you can get from the data,if you can get from the
templates and explain what it is, it's up to them to get that
data right.
Yeah, I mean, let's be honest,nowadays there are so many
different AIs and GPs that cando a lot of this, but I think a
lot of the fundamentals of themgetting their data right is
using how the format is and howyou're going to import it,
(11:48):
because the terminology thatfield service uses for us in
Europe isn't really like nothingmakes sense.
A work order nobody uses thatterminology.
Incident types like these arevery Americanized.
I mean, I don't even know ifthey're even Americanized or if
it's just legacy from your oldField 1 scan.
But explaining what an incidenttype is or what a resolution
(12:11):
type is, or bookable resource,booking, characteristic skill,
explaining what these stupidtables all mean, it's being able
to explain to the customer whatthe data is and in what format,
because they probably do haveall of that data.
They've just put it in fivedifferent places and call it
five different things, so it'sjust being able to educate them.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
No, you're right.
And how it's all relatedtogether, right, and I think
that's the big thing.
Right.
Cleaning the data, that, ok,you know, look, if your data is
dirty, yeah, that might takesome time but you know, to get
the day and it's our job to say,hey, we need it, this is how we
need it, this is what goes infirst, second, third, fourth,
fifth, so on and so forth.
(12:52):
You know, and that's where thatcomes into play.
And to your point, I mean, Ilove the idea of right.
It shouldn't take months.
Right, at the end of the day,get foundational work, field
service up and running, right,you can always build on top of
it as you're moving along.
But if you do these massiveprojects like it's an erp doing,
(13:13):
you know this big bang approachfield service.
You know chances are adoptionis going to be really low and
you've over configured it orover customized it when you
don't even know what everyone'sgoing to want or need.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
period I mean, I've got a lot of customers that are
coming from excel and sharedoutput calendars like you've got
all these grand ideas of whatyou want, but bullshit, let's
just.
Let's just get it into thesystem, get it working, and then
tell me why it doesn't work foryou, because that is it like.
Here's a solution.
This is a tried and testedmethod that Microsoft or field
(13:48):
one sky before that I've beenusing for 15 years.
This is the, the gold standard,the template.
The place where Microsoft spenda lot of their R&D money is
doing the processes.
So let's use out the boxprocess, let's load the data in,
run it for three months, thenwe'll review.
Tell us what works well, tellus what doesn't work well.
(14:09):
But by that time the customer'salready using it, they're
already paying their license,they're now buying more days
from you.
That's a good soft intro for itas well.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So to that point I'm going to go into this, guys, and
my apologies if I sound like Iwas just moving the needle a
little bit, because I just wantto be cognizant of your time and
our time and just want to rideon this point for a second.
Use cases.
Right, let's go into scheduleboard.
So, Mark, you've had someamazing use cases with
PowerPages and Force Teams.
It's legendary what you've done.
(14:48):
But I want to get intoconfiguration about the schedule
board.
So when I take the scheduleboard and let's say I have a
hospital and they have areceptionist and they want to do
something as simple as look atwhat time a patient is in or
where the patient is, becauseyou know, somebody comes up and
(15:09):
they say, hey, I'm here to seeWill McClendon, right, and if
you think about that, that canbe a little bit complicated.
So you know, we have ourcontacts.
We may think Will McClendon isa contact and we can look at the
hospital room and it'll find it.
But if you look at the way theschedule board is laid out and
how it displays data, that's alittle bit more tough.
So sometimes you have to usealternatives or something
(15:32):
simpler.
What are some alternatives toscheduling that you have found
that have helped some of yourcustomers to kind of, let's say,
accelerate the process or be abetter fit.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So I'm going to again give a couple of different
answers here.
One and I hate this answer andI hate myself for giving the
answer, and, well, I hate youfor asking the question.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
That's what I think it is.
Oh God, yes, that's great.
Copilot is good.
Edit that out.
Yeah, Copilot.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Copilot is a marketing machine for Microsoft.
What I would say is right hatsoff the field service team.
The field service team haveactually done well with their
field service co-pilot stuff.
If you look at sales and youlook at some of the customer
service stuff, they're co-pilotsfor the sake of being co-pilots
, whereas I actually feel thatthere is value from the field
(16:22):
service co-pilots.
But get a little bit clever.
So create your own co-pilot or,sorry, agents.
We're calling them this weekand maybe next week by the time
the podcast comes out, they'recalled something different, but
for now, the artist yeah, theyare artists, formerly known as
co-pilot, prod agents, agents,organisational agents create a
(16:45):
power automate that where youput the name in, it will come
back and then it will justreturn when their appointments
are, what rooms they are andusing the good old adaptive
cards quite clever to use them.
There's different methods andways of bringing back that data
that you don't have to use aschedule board.
You can be clever with yourdata.
Again, everything is datadriven.
That data that you don't haveto use a schedule board.
You can be clever with yourdata.
(17:05):
Again, everything is datadriven.
I I don't really care whatproduct I use or when I use it,
it is 95 about data model, fivepercent about the application
layer.
If your data is good, you canliterally do anything you want
with that data.
There's a a phrase for datashit in, shit out.
You've probably heard thatphrase.
(17:26):
That is 100% field service.
If you've got bad data, you'regetting bad results, but if your
data's good, you're gettinggood results.
But alternative, going down thatroute, I've used things before
like FLS, fast, lean, smart fordoing it.
There are PCF components outthere.
There's using gridids, becausepeople look at the schedule
(17:47):
board and think, oh yeah, theschedule board's great.
Have you actually ever justlooked at your work orders and
created a nice view for yourwork orders?
Group your view by certainthings, especially with the new.
I see you using the power apps,grid control, where you can
have different colors and youcan filter by statuses.
You can group things beingclever with views as well.
(18:09):
Again, you don't have to go atthe nth degree getting the
little developers out of thebasement and stuff like that.
You can literally just view theviews and build stuff out
correctly, and so that that'swhere I would go with that is,
be clever and listen to whatyour customer wants, because
what your customer wants isn'talways necessarily what you
(18:31):
think is cool and what you wantto build.
Listen to what they actuallywant and actually need yeah
shout out to the great that'sgreat.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
The fls guys did a phenomenal job with legit
routing.
I say routing specifically fromgoing from point A to point B.
That product is gnarly and theydid a really, really good job.
So shout out to the FLS guys onthat.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I mean when I'm asked about it, because I sometimes
come up against competes,against the FLS, or they're
looking for it because peoplethink that their field service,
especially when we go down theRSO FLS is about getting the
right person to the right job asquick as you can, whereas RSO
is more about job and gettingthe job done correctly.
(19:13):
They are two very distinctproducts with two very different
outcomes and they complementeach other very well.
So it's about choosing theright tool at the right time.
We don't just because we're infield service and we wear the
Microsoft hat doesn't mean thatthat's it's best platform for
someone yeah, yeah and I thinkthat's.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That's great, that's a great uh analogy, right,
because at the end of the day,right?
Yes, we are in microsoftplatform and there's a lot of
tools out there that you couldutilize, but it doesn't mean
that it's the only it's.
It's the right fit, right, somay not be the right fit.
It also may not be the rightfit from right if you have
thousands of resources you wantto schedule.
(19:51):
It may not be the right fitfrom a price point either.
And got some things.
Those are some things that youknow organizations need to take
a look at.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yes, Scott, scott, mark, you guys have been in
there.
Somebody has put the bug intheir ear.
It drives me nuts.
They say RSO will optimize yoursituation in your fix, your use
case.
You know, we know thedifference between for our
audience, but can you guys helpthem understand the difference
between optimized resourcescheduling versus routing from
(20:27):
point A to point B?
There's a distinct difference,right?
Could you guys help themunderstand why RSO is a complete
monster than FLS in that usecase?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yes, I mean for the resource scheduling optimization
.
It's about getting getting theresource and it's about the jobs
.
So I need to do this job andthis priority, whereas FLS is
more about the resource andgetting the resource to the job
quickest, so it's about routeplanning, it's about mapping,
(21:01):
which is really good at what itdoes, and that's the distinction
.
One is about getting people tothe job quickest to get more
jobs in.
The other is about getting theright person to the job to get
the first thing fix and as a asan end user or as a customer,
you want a scheduling engine andyou either want it because
(21:22):
you're trying to get more jobsin per day or you're trying to
get your first time fix rate.
Yep, that's how I try anddefine it too.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And honestly I mean I preach all the time at
conferences about first timefixed rate and what it means if
your first time fixed rate islow, what that means from a cost
perspective to yourorganization.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It's amazing.
So I was working, so this is avery weird scenario.
So I'll set it up a little bit.
Microsoft came to me me theyhad a customer.
That customer was using fieldservice in about six territories
and throughout the world.
They wanted to do a largeimplementation of rso, which is
great, fine, no problem.
(22:05):
Nobody at microsoft knew how itworked and couldn't demo it.
And we're talking this is inthe last six months, and so
microsoft actually paid for usto approve for concept for a
customer.
Really, really strange.
But their requirements werenumber of jobs.
So they were doing 4.2 jobs perperson per day.
They wanted to increase that to4.7 and I'm like it doesn't
(22:28):
seem like a lot.
They had 1700 engineers just inthe uk.
So when you actually look at,okay, 0.5 jobs per day over the
1700, that actually worked outabout 850 extra jobs per day a
week, 12 000 and 1 200 120 000 amonth extra jobs, and their
(22:53):
minimum hourly charge was £70.
So that was close to an extramillion pound a year just by
having that extra half a job perday.
And you don't like when you'rethinking half a job a day, it's
not worth me even getting out ofmy bed and you looking at this
product for that.
But when they stepped out, thisis what they were looking at.
Day, it's not worth me evengetting out of my bed and you
looking at this product for that.
(23:13):
But when they stepped out andthis is what they were looking
at and it's like wow, thatactually really does make sense.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It is a really good use case yeah, yeah, no, that's,
that's a fair point, so itdoesn't have to be to your point
, like big numbers, like hey, we, we're gonna get three more
jobs per resource, per tech, perday.
Half a job, depending on howmany texts you have.
Right, and that's what it is.
How many?
How many texts do you have?
If you have ten, alright, youknow, is the juice worth the
(23:45):
dough now?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
but if you have 1700 Proves in the pudding, yeah, and
the part I always try to tellpeople as well field service is
an enterprise level applicationfor enterprise level customers.
It also has an enterprise levelprice tag.
There are so many smallbusinesses that cannot afford
(24:08):
the.
What are we now?
$80 per user per month, I thinkis the current cost cost if
you're a small 5, 10, 15, theimplementation costs and the
fuel service licenses you'rehitting about three years before
you're getting proper return oninvestment for that.
If there was just something inthat little gap there that could
(24:29):
fill that little gap, it wouldhave been amazing, so real quick
about filling in the gaps therethere have been.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
People go.
Oh god, I hope you hadn't you'regonna get me that was great all
right, you gotta put that inthe bloopers.
So yeah, about that.
You know, when I first startedimplementing field service, it
(25:01):
was never really just hey, let'sdo one large, massive
implementation.
We kind of took an iterativeapproach.
Let's do work order management,let's talk about asset
servicing, let's let's doinventory management right, it's
bits and pieces.
Now you guys have somethingspecial in the pot, right,
proximo has something specialwith the field service light.
Can you tell us a little bitabout?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
that, yeah.
So I'm going to to probablybreak ndas here, but I mean I'm
too.
Because one is there was aproduct that microsoft were
working on that was about a weekaway from delivery and that was
a light version of fieldservice that would sit within
teams actually as an m365 appand would use the back end of
(25:44):
field service as a database.
Really nice product, worksreally really well, was basic
and it would hit that smallmarket.
The other really good thingabout that was it was actually
in 365 and office sellers weregoing to be the people who were
selling it, so it wasn't justyour, your biz app sales people.
There was a whole new marketthat I was going to hit and the
(26:06):
UK obviously isn't as big as theStates in terms of size and
companies.
So there are customers therethat are five to fifty resources
that that want to use fieldservice and this would have been
perfect for them.
So that unfortunately did getcanned very, very close to
release.
So we had a lot in the pipeline.
So we've actually gone out andbuilt a a light field service.
(26:29):
So we're still using commondata model a light field service
.
So we're still using commondata model.
We've built out an extra sixcustom tables.
So we have jobs, we have jobrequests, we have skills, we
have user skills and we have twoother tables that fly from the
current, remember.
But what we've also done on theback of that is the schedule
board is nice in field serviceand we've tried to replicate
(26:53):
that by building our own pcf.
Now what we've done is the pcf,that microsoft, the schedule
board is now pcf.
There's a lot of richfunctionality on that and it is.
It is good.
We've leveraged, using themanifest and the pcfs, to be
able to build out customizationand make it customizable so that
you can decide what are yourresources, what is your job
(27:15):
tables, etc.
And so that you can schedule onthe schedule board and drag and
drop things on to it and itwill update the child records
and move the time.
Well, I bet, like the, thecurrent schedule board will do,
and but a bit nicer looking.
No, not as much in features,but it just hits that market.
(27:36):
That's there.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Have you guys already dropped?
That Is it, or is it indevelopment?
Speaker 3 (27:40):
It is currently going through AppSource verification
at the moment, so I would expectAppSource verification at the
moment.
I probably expect it to drop inthe next 90 days Awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
That would be awesome .
We'll want to be on the next 90days.
We'll want to be on the lookoutfor that.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
We know how the application goes Don't get me
started on that one.
It's a lightweight applicationto try and hit that smaller
market.
The way that they were pricingis really we're giving the data
model away for free and we'recharging for the PCF component.
Now that can be availableglobally, yes, but it must be
(28:20):
transacted through app source.
We don't want to do any of thebilling off it, we're just
letting that all go throughthere which is how, honestly, I
think a lot of things are goingto move anyway to be.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
you know that's another topic for another day
how I feel where we're goingwith this whole thing, right.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I want to get back to one thing, though.
So we talked about RSO.
Mark, have you played aroundwith the preview scheduling
optimization agent?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I actually think they're quite cool.
Again, the field service teamare actually a fair play to Dan
and the team.
I mean as for some, I think I'mever going to give him any
credit for anything but and itis really good and it makes
sense.
I mean, I think we we're allaware of the fact that field
service is going to go away fromlicenses.
You're not going to be buyinglicenses anymore.
(29:07):
You're going to be paying perjob.
Everything on the powerplatform is going to be a
transactional thing.
You're going to pay, paying perjob.
Everything on the powerplatform is going to be a
transactional thing.
You're going to pay per job.
So with the operational agents,it means that you're going to
be paying per job, scheduled orrescheduled.
That that's the way things aregoing and I actually again think
it lowers the bar to entry inthe system because you're not
having to buy the licenses.
(29:29):
You could be a five user systemand just by the number of jobs
that you're scheduling, fromwhat I can gather, that is going
to be a minimum number of jobsthat you have to transact per
month.
So if you schedule 50 jobs permonth, you might have to buy a
bucket, but it's still.
I think it's a good model.
(29:50):
Obviously, operational agentsjust know the way that they're
working and the way that you canconfigure them, the
configuration settings for them.
If you've ever used RSO before,it is exactly the same, yeah.
So I would say RSO is very muchgoing to disappear, die and be
set up off in flames.
(30:10):
I've been told that, no, it'snot.
It's still going to disappear,die and be set off in flames.
I've been told that, no, it'snot, it's still going to be
there for now.
But I sorry that wasn't thewords, it was continue selling
it and there'll be a migrationpath.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I think it was the exact words that I was yeah, I
was going to say that you got aneyebrow raise from me on that
one.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I was like yeah, and we've used it and I've been
using the optimization agent inone of our environments here at
Congro at X, and you know,besides the fact that right now,
right, you can't do bulkupdates of resources, it's one
at a time it is a heck of a loteasier than configuring RSO yes,
(30:49):
100%, I mean, and it is soclose to just being able to
detect everyone on that viewbecause, remember, when you
create, when you're building outyour rso, you're supplying your
view of your and resources andyour view of your jobs.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
That's part of the configuration, whereas if you
can just go directly to the viewand select the ones you want to
schedule, it makes it so mucheasier.
But, again, I do think peoplewill forget that it's a cost per
schedule and get shocked at theend of the month when they're
rescheduling jobs every 25minutes.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
All right.
So I'm going to be the bad guyhere, I'm going to throw this
out there.
So, if you're able to definewhat your end goal is, is it
best resource matching?
Is it time you know what isyour goal?
Some of these items where youcan be built by yourself using
whatever technology you may wantto use, right, you can do
linear programming, you can dolearning, you can do well, you
(31:46):
can even use Power Automate tomap it.
With the Azure function, youcan do a thousand different ways
to do it.
Where do you think the orgcompanies are going to really
then be able to define the value, because some of these
technologies are out therealready and they can just jump
in and use it.
Where do you think Microsoft isgoing to go with hey, we built
this nice little agent, it'sautomatically integrated into
(32:07):
our component, our controlversus hey, I can throw
something from Syncfusion orhell.
Hey, I can throw something fromsync fusion, or hell, I can go
call Mark, he has a PCF and Ihave my own.
You know, endpoint, that I thatcan do the mathematics for my
optimization already there.
How are they going to compete?
I mean, what are your thoughtson that?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
well, this is a very philosophical question.
Well, I'm surprised that youwere able to do this one.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So, and I think I am going to text you some thoughts
I would say so.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
There's a few comments I have around this one
microsoft and ai and I think aiin general is currently about
five years.
Our companies are.
We have all these cool toolsand all of the cool machine
learning and all of the the aiand all of gpts that can do
anything.
Businesses don't know what theyneed and what they they can get
from an ai thing, just like wehad the digital transformations.
I think in about three or fouryears everyone is going to be
(33:05):
doing an ai transformation.
I don't think anyone isanywhere near properly ready to
do this right now.
So what we're giving people isobviously Microsoft have got all
of the back end AI machinelearning, everything that's
running in the background,realistically right.
Copilot is just a graphical,nice interface for the back end.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
With actions being power, automate right.
It just blows my mind thatfolks haven't gotten the
difference between AI versusautomation, but remember as well
.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Power Automate is just a nice graphical front end
for a logic.
That's all it is True, true,true.
So, and the same with CustomerVoice.
Customer Voice is the same assomething in the background as
well, Kind of a little bit ofwhat exactly it is.
But Microsoft are really goodat building out the
infrastructure, the hardware andthe large like the AI foundries
(34:04):
, etc.
But putting that nice graphicalinterface in the front of it
and that's what's allowingpeople with a kind of low bar of
entry to get into using it.
That's what's allowing peoplewith a low bar of entry to get
into using it.
I don't think that companiesare ready for large-scale AI
right now.
One, their data is not in thatplace Nobody's data, because if
(34:24):
people are making businessdecisions based on horrible data
, then that company is not goingto be there for two months
longer.
You still need to make surePeople are going to spend years
getting their data and theirdocumentation and their
processes right before they eventouch AI.
True that?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
drives me nuts.
If your data is wonky, thenyour AI, because it's just going
to reference your data.
It's going to give you somewonky responses, because it's
just going to reference yourdata.
It's going to give you somewonky responses.
So I do.
When we were talking, when theAI bug, like you know, first
really hit and folks werelooking at it and they were, you
know.
One of my conversation pointwas how does your data look
right?
Are you sure that it's clear?
(35:05):
Are you sure that it's accurate?
And you know you can.
Microsoft's done a great jobthrough Azure AI Foundry, giving
organizations the ability tokind of add in some of those
guardrails to make it efficient.
But again, the heart and soulof it is going to be the
customer's data so.
I think we spent a significantamount of time helping customers
organize it.
I think having good datastewards those areas are going
(35:26):
to really add value.
You said three years.
I was a little bit morepessimistic, but I think we're
going to move in the rightorganizations.
I think we're in said threeyears.
I was a little bit a little bitmore pessimistic, but you know
we'll, we'll.
I think we're going to move inthe right organizations.
I think we're at the right,right place.
I think organizations have hadthis oh my god, what have we
gotten ourselves into?
Moment and now and now it'slike, okay, folks, you know, up
in the process, you need to goand, like you know, I think
(35:48):
we'll.
I think we're going to be in agood spot, though.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, I'll give you an example.
We've got some customers whoare co-pilot-only customers.
One of them is a dairy companyand what they've done is they
have put in the UK legislationfor dairy produce what standards
everything has to meet.
They've put in their ownrecipes what their best-selling
recipes are, and they've askedco copilot to then build out
(36:14):
additional recipes for them.
Like that is a clever use ofcopilot.
They have the way that ispretty good and so.
So yeah, using things cleverlike that, that is a very used
case.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
That's not something you'd run a whole business on,
but quite clever all right, somoving into that space of clever
use cases, so field service,get back into field service.
Field service, we know it.
It hit the ground with manionand just took off right.
We know that that's the area inspace that it just, really,
(36:49):
quite frankly, dominates in verywell.
You, though, however, have hadsome very interesting field
service use cases, allowing youto also leverage the Power
Platform to extend it.
You want to talk about some ofthe sport, how you use it in the
sports medicine area.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
So there's a few different things.
So, in terms of sports wise, weuse facility booking.
So you've got an AstroTurffootball pitcher, you've got an
astroturf football picture,you've got an ice rink that you
want to book time on, and thatcan be done through scheduling,
because you're just schedulingthe facility, but kind of where
I think you're going is aroundthe collection of urine from
(37:26):
samples for no I wasn't goingto't going there.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well, we can go there .
Speaker 3 (37:34):
So I was working with an agency who I mean they're a
US based company called Randoxyeah, so Will will probably be
drug tested enough.
You'll probably know them.
But what they do is they doworkplace drug testing and again
, it's just fundamental fieldservice.
They need a resource, which isa person collecting it, they
(37:57):
need a facility, and thatfacility is a place where the
tests are happening and theequipment is the tube.
They then also do the send awayof it and then they post the
results back on power pages.
So again, when you've got,you've got the need, you've got
the requirement, you've got theresource, you've got the, the
job which is actually doing it,it is fundamental field service.
(38:20):
When you take your fields, the,your field service hat off and
think it's scheduling, it's aperson in a van, it's hvac.
If you've got a job, you've gota person, you've got a job,
you've got a person, you've gota need and you've got a customer
.
That is what field service is.
I've got quite a lot of otherunique use cases.
I've even spent time withMicrosoft sales team going
(38:43):
through them with the fieldservice team, just to explain
that it's not just a man in awhite van with a bag of tools.
There's so many differentthings that can be done yeah,
yeah, that was actually one ofhis.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Just so you guys know we're not looking like we're
creep boys.
Mark's what is mark's uhsession?
Because mark does publicspeaking events and does a great
job.
One of the sessions was abouthow field service is more than a
guy and a white man.
So you know it.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Just that's why yeah, that's why we're hysterically
laughing over here.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So you know, Mark, you also had a use case.
So you know you made the introfor myself and Franco.
So Franco is phenomenal, soshout out to Franco, one of the
best ever did it with PowerPages.
You also had a use case whoeverdoes it, I'm sorry by that,
franco.
(39:38):
You also had a use case whereathletes can go into it, kind of
like a portal, and they canthen adjust or bid or move to
different teams, correct?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So that's field service.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Not field service, but we also.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
So my background before I got into IT, I was a
professional soccer coach forten years, so that was my
background.
We then built IP aroundsponsorship management and
sports.
So it's a sales process, butit's a unique one for the sports
industry, where they're notselling physical items, they're
selling sponsor boards, they'reselling advertsverts, they're
(40:11):
selling sponsor the goal at thenew york.
That's the sort of thing thatthey're doing.
So so that's one part of it.
But we also have a playermanagement.
So what not a lot of peopledon't realize is when, when
clubs sign players, theysometimes give them houses, they
give them cars, and there's noway of tracking that.
(40:32):
So we've got a system,especially in Europe.
In Europe, in ice hockey,basketball, there's a lot of
imports, so each team has like16 North American imports.
That means 16 cars, that means16 visas and contracts, et
cetera.
So we've got a system thatallows you to register your
(40:52):
players, assign them houses,take the reading of the gas when
you go into the house and tellyou how many miles you've got in
the car when you get the car.
But the portal side, if itallows them to log into the
portal to supply their pay slips, to supply their passports,
their driving licenses, etc.
Then that's transferred or it'swhen it's saved, it goes
(41:13):
straight into dataverse and thenthe admin team can pick up that
information.
Rather than scanning it in theoffice, putting it in a filing
cabinet, losing it, misplacingthe passport, it's all done
digitally.
So you have all of that to yourfingertips that's yeah, that's
pretty, that's pretty slick.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You know, I know I wanted to get back real, real
quick.
I know we're almost out of time, but talk about all the
different scheduling optionsthat comes in so critical.
In the healthcare industry.
I've had so many demos andprocess.
We don't schedule resources, weschedule patients to rooms, we
(41:53):
doctors to patients, and thisand you know all the different
scheduling functions.
And so I think to your point is,you know the flexibility of
maybe it's not to schedulebefore, but maybe it's to your
point.
Maybe you're using differentsorts of views and you're
filtering things, or maybeyou're using a different PCF
control, or maybe you'recontacting, you know, mark at
(42:14):
Proximo.
Look at their scheduling tools.
So there's a lot of differentthings.
But I think, from aimplementation partner, we have
to be careful of not to lookinside the box but outside the
box in terms of you know, listen, truly listen to what the
customer is is asking for, andnot necessarily fit them into
(42:36):
that, that square peg into theround hole yeah, a hundred
percent, because one of thethings that I think a lot of
people forget is you can just goon your work fund availability
and it will bring back who'savailable.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
You don't always need a schedule board.
Yeah, use a schedule assistant.
You don't always need aschedule board.
Yeah, you use a scheduleassistant.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
You don't always need a schedule board to your point
mark like this is where I I love.
So this is where the microsofthit the nail on the head.
Right, that search resourceability api that the schedule
assistant uses is open.
You can do everything you wantwith the click of a button, just
leveraging this api.
Like it is, so powerful, peoplejust sometimes just don't know
about it.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Yeah, and that's it.
That is what I mean.
Again, that's what you can lookat.
The API is there.
It can be used for it to workwithin.
So here's the trick.
So I'm going to go when Ibecause we came a cropper with
this one we were looking atcould we actually use the
schedule board api for the pcfthat we were building?
To use the api for the scheduleboard, you still need either a
customer service or a fieldservice license correct because
(43:41):
you don't get it so right.
We had to.
We had to build all that usingsome some interesting fetch
queries.
But yeah, it's you, that is oneof the biggest things.
You don't have to use theschedule board.
But yeah, it's you, that is oneof the biggest things.
You don't have to use theschedule board.
You can create a PCF button ifyou want.
That goes away and finds it.
So if you walk on to the portal, if you use the field service
template power page, it's usingthe schedule board API as well
(44:05):
to find the regular ability yes.
So just utilizing that and it'snot a difficult API, I mean, if
you've been able to build on topof it that can assess the bar
of where it is, and yeah, 100%,you got jokes.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Hold on, you see, that was messed up, mark.
You got jokes.
All right, I got you.
I'm going to get you for thatone.
Scott, did you have any othertechnical questions on that?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
No, no, no more technical questions.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
You mind if I take the ball real quick and just do
something real crazy here.
This is it.
You go for it, juan.
All right, so here's the deal.
For folks who may not know Markdoes so much for the community
on the record and off the record.
He is him and Ian are probablythe kind of souls that I've met
in my life.
(44:51):
Now, to that point, mark, forfolks who don't know, you and
Ian have done so much forScottish Summit.
Do you want to talk about someof your community activities and
why community is so importantin our not just our industry but
, heck, in our space?
You want to go and talk aboutthat for a bit?
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Yeah.
So for me, the Microsoftplatform is a very unique
community.
I've worked in differentindustries where if you're
working on similar projects, youhate the person next to you
who's doing that project from adifferent company.
You don't like them.
That that's how it is like.
If you're a salesperson andyou've got a friend who's a
salesperson, you never talkabout what you're doing, you
(45:34):
don't discuss it, whereas I feelthe microsoft community is open
.
Like I've spoke to people whenwe've been bidding on the same
bit of work and like we've askedquestions of each other like
how would you do it?
Like that it's there.
The openness, the ability tohelp is just different from any
other industry or community I'veever seen.
So being able to to help peopleget into it.
(45:55):
So I everyone, I mean.
I think I make it quite obviousI am not really a fan of the MVP
programme.
I think it is not diverse andit is not inclusive.
I have said this from day one,but one of the things I really
wanted to do by being in theprogramme is help get it there.
I call out quite often If youhave ever seen me on LinkedIn
(46:19):
and I am quite vocal on certainthings and non apologetic for it
?
Because there's there is a lackof diversity, lack of inclusion
within the whole community.
So I spend a lot of time in thebackground and I say, well, a
lot of people don't know this, Imay not have quite a lot of
people in the background whenpeople are running events.
(46:41):
They always come to me and askquestions about events.
I can, I can give people advicearound them and because I want
to, to help people be able toget to the next stage where they
can then start helping peopleget into the community, take the
next steps, like the first everscottish summit that we ran, we
were told in sc, in Scotlandthere isn't a community.
(47:02):
You'll not get more than 30people at an event.
That's genuinely what we weretold.
We got 300 to that first event.
There was then a big disparityon male and female speakers.
Our second Scottish summit event.
We had more female speakersthan male speakers at the event.
So every time we've donesomething, but we were the first
(47:22):
night of the event ever have adeaf keynote speech that was
done in sign language.
And again, that wasn't becausewe were trying to have
demographic.
That's because we knew a reallygood speaker who we thought had
an empowering story and wewanted that person to be able to
tell it, and so we're trying tobreak down doors and windows,
(47:46):
because you usually go throughthe window to steal things from
people, don't you?
Well, so so so we we try tobreak down the barriers and give
everyone the the ability to, toshowcase what they can do,
whether it be technical skills,whether it be social skills,
whether it be marketing skills,whatever they've got that they
(48:07):
not even necessarily feel thatthey're going to have value with
.
What they want to bring, andwhat they want to share is is
being able to give people theopportunity and the platform to
do that.
So, like when I'm speaking,where have I been recently?
I was at dynamics mines inportrose and slovenia, so I've
done a panel session on how toget into public speaking.
(48:28):
So, explaining, I had a panelof four different people
explaining.
These four different peopletook four different roads to get
into the community and gettinginto speaking.
Because the four differentopinions, hopefully the people
that were in the audience atthat point.
Hopefully one of theseresonated with get into the
community and getting intospeaking because the four
different opinions, hopefullythe people that were in the
audience at that point.
Hopefully one of theseresonated with them.
Who are there as attendees tothen maybe think well, actually,
(48:49):
if somebody like that can do itand that's their background,
then maybe I can do it.
So so it's just hopefullygiving people opportunity,
courage, a little bit of thoughtto to be able to get out there
and just take that next step.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
That's awesome.
Yeah, I think when my secondsession, my first time speaking
about anything technical, when Istarted hitting the road on
this I think it was ScottishSummit and the funniest thing in
the world is, mark.
I didn't know how I got thatsession, I didn't know how large
it was, it was virtual, it wasduring the pandemic, but it
(49:23):
wasn't until afterwards when,you know, people came up and I
started getting messages aboutcertain things that I realized
you know what I actually waspart of and it always been
eternally gratefully for forthat.
But it's folks like yousurprised they allow you into
Scotland.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Well, no.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I went last year for the first time, but that was.
I had a weird travel experience.
But you know, amazing event,it's a great event.
And so, for those who don'tknow, this is the last time for
2026, right, that that you'll bethrowing the hosting event no,
I'm not listening.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
No, the last event, actually my, my last one, with
me moving to norway, I thoughtyou were going to do one more.
No, there is going to be onemore, but it's not going to be
me.
And well, I've got a questionfor you.
Well, so when you were inperson in scotland talking about
field service with our mr vanballmer, and how did that
(50:17):
session go?
Speaker 2 (50:19):
okay.
So that was one of the mostamazing sessions of my life and
here's how it happened, right.
So you, you, you know it's beenan eye on stage and we
initially start and it's, it's,it's, it's been being been right
.
So he's munching through thenotes, it's so, and so in all of
a sudden, the doors open up andyou guys ever seen prince and
(50:41):
purple rain with the smokecoming out of the back?
you know it comes it comes, markchristie in this purple suit.
No, it comes, mark christie.
Mark gets on the stage and itturns into this awesome panel
and for me it was living thedream.
Man, it was ben, it was mark,and know, an hour can't capture
all the things that Mark hasdone for field service and
(51:02):
scheduling.
But you know, folks got a goodsession because we're not just
you know, we're not just, wedon't just know each other,
we're friends, we considerourselves family, I consider
Mark family, but you know, I,you know clearly I don't talk to
him enough, but anyway, but itwas just that great moment.
For me it was like living thedream because I privately pinged
(51:25):
Mark about things technicallyand so you know, ben is also one
of the guys you all know, benVollmer.
He's done a lot for fieldservice.
In fact he's just you know, hebreeds field service.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Do you know?
The best thing he ever done forfield service.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Leave it.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Yes, exactly that One of the things so that session
was really good.
I love being with you, but oneof the things that actually made
that.
My daughter was helping out atScottish Summit so she actually
came in and watched me.
She never, she has no idea whatthe community is, what these
events are and stuff.
So my daughter actually cameinto the room and watched me up
on stage.
So that for me was like a huge,huge thing man, that is so cool
(52:07):
man well, we gotta wrap, wegotta wrap it up guys.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
So I just wanted to say straight up, mark man, thank
you so much for coming.
My brother, we greatlyappreciate it.
Scott, you got anything youwant to say, sir?
Speaker 1 (52:18):
No, I definitely appreciate your wisdom, your
rifts towards Quad Love it, loveit.
But no, I appreciate everythingthat you do for one the
community and the field serviceand the platform.
So, mark, it's been a truepleasure having you on today, so
I appreciate you taking thetime during your end of day, on
(52:40):
a Friday, no less.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
I just thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Yeah, I appreciate it .
Thank you everyone forlistening and we'll see you next
time.
Thank you, thank you.
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