Have Field Operations? Set Up Field Service Lightning

So your organization has a team out in the field servicing your customers – they could be hard-hat-wearing, wrench-carrying technicians that fix anything from street lights to elevators or they could be home healthcare nurses or they could be associates that get documents to your customers. It does not matter what they do, what matters is you have people in the field that need to know where to go, what to do, and have the ability to update progress made on the job.

Does this sound familiar? What does your organization use today – pen and paper? IVR? Telephone? If so, you should check out Field Service Lightning!

Field Service Lightning

Field Service Lightning helps provide visibility to activities in the field. It helps manage work assignments and provides productivity tools that empowers field employees to perform better. We unlock this 360 degree view with three major components – core, mobile and managed package. All three work together to solve some of the toughest challenges that come your way. So let’s get started!

Getting Started with Field Service Lightning

Before setting up Field Service Lightning in your production org, let’s set it up in a Developer Edition (DE) org so you can demo it to your users and executives. Once you have signed up for one, ensure you have the necessary Permission Set Licenses (PSLs) – these control specific capabilities in Field Service Lightning. Login to your DE org, go to Setup, and under Settings > Company Settings > Company Information, scroll down to Permission Set Licenses.

You should see four PSLs that start with ‘Field Service’.

• Field Service Standard – provides access to all necessary objects
• Field Service Scheduling – provides the ability to leverage our algorithm to schedule work
• Field Service Mobile – provides access to the dedicated, offline Field Service mobile app
• Field Service Dispatcher – provides access to the ‘Dispatch console’ for managing work assignments

Now that you have the necessary licenses, let’s setup Permission Sets based on each of the PSLs, that you can assign them to your users.

Of course, you are a pro in creating permission sets. But, if you need a refresher, complete this Trailhead module. Now create a new Permission Set based on the Field Service Standard PSL. Once saved, you will notice that you do not see ‘System Permissions’.

Now, go to Setup > Search for ‘Field Service Settings’ > and ‘Enable Field Service Lightning’.

Once enabled, you should see System Permission in the Permission Set you just created. Under System Permissions, enable the ‘Field Service Standard’ permission and save. You now have a permission set that gives you access to all the FSL objects.

Now create another one from the Field Service Mobile PSL. Remember to enable both ‘Field Service Mobile’ and ‘Field Service Standard’ under System Permissions.

Note: Don’t forget to set up object access, and assign the Permission Set based on Field Service Standard PSL to yourself.

We have created two Permission Sets, let’s create three more! To do this and to set up the scheduling capabilities of Field Service Lightning, you should install this managed package.

Once installed, open the ‘Field Service Admin’ app and go to the ‘Field Service Settings’ tab.

Now under the ‘Permission Sets’ tab, click ‘Create Permissions’ for the FSL Dispatcher. Repeat for ‘FSL Resource’ and ‘FSL Admin’. This creates the necessary Permission Sets to access the Dispatch Console and for your field employees to be schedulable.

When you go back to the Permission Set list, you should see these new permission sets. These give you additional flexibility in controlling access to various capabilities in Field Service Lightning.

Next Steps

Now that all the permission sets have been created you can assign them to yourself to demo the different functionalities to your users. Once in your production org, use the table below for the recommended assignments by persona: