Performing a Service Call

Overall steps of the field service process:

1. Determine if a service is needed. This may be in response to a single contact with the customer from an email or phone call, for example, or as the result of a troubleshooting workflow.
2. If the issue cannot be resolved through research and initial dialogue, the ticket is assigned to a technician and scheduled for completion.
3. The service technician executes the service either onsite or remotely.
4. The technician confirms the actual scope of the service, including: the time required; parts; and tools needed as appropriate.
5. Based on the confirmation, an invoice is generated for the customer for the service performed. This part of the process is generally done with an ERP system such as SAP S/4HANA.

The field service technician checks the details of the work ticket assigned to him/her and undertakes the service call. When the job is complete the technician updates the work ticket accordingly and logs the time spent so the customer can be invoiced, or the time can be charged against a warranty or maintenance plan.

Time entries can be recorded in a ticket, or independently of a ticket.

One way a technician can record time is to start a recording when they start a task, and stop recording when they are done. Another is to record the amount of time spent on a task when they are complete.