A global pandemic has a unique way of revealing the value of remote collaboration. State-by-state shutdown orders led to many of us – across all industries – working remotely for the first time, and for industries with field service operations, social distancing guidelines have made collaboration an entirely new challenge. In this “new normal,” businesses around the globe are relying on Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Remote Assist technology to collaborate effectively.

This is the second in a two-part blog series exploring what Remote Assist can do for organizations like yours. In Part I, we took a high-level look at what Remote Assist is and how it can advance the capabilities of your field service operation. In today’s installment, we’ll explore Remote Assist – which leverages the power of Microsoft Teams – in action within Dynamics 365 Field Service.

Dynamics 365 Field Service and Remote Assist can certainly work independently of each other, but the potential to truly strengthen an organization is highest when they’re used together. They are indeed a dynamic duo, enabling visibility, collaboration, expert knowledge sharing, documentation, and mobility. Organizations using Dynamics 365 Field Service are able to provide frontline workers with Remote Assist on HoloLens, allowing them to see their Field Service bookings and quickly call the remote collaborator listed in the booking's Support Contact field. Technicians in the field can launch Remote Assist mobile directly from a Field Service Mobile booking via deeplinks, see relevant work order information, and post the Remote Assist call information to the associated work order's timeline in Dynamics 365.

Just imagine the improvement to the day-in-the-life experiences of your field techs when they can view work orders from Field Service Mobile, and when they need assistance, simply launch Remote Assist from within the work order. Employee satisfaction improves instantly, which obviously translates directly to improved customer satisfaction. It’s truly the best-case solution for field service organizations.

Remote Assist in combination with Dynamics 365 Field Service is – under normal circumstances – a huge benefit for businesses trying to reduce costs and increase efficiencies, but given our current global pandemic circumstances, it is an absolute must-have! And fortunately, as a way of helping clients during this especially challenging time, Microsoft is offering a six-month trial of Remote Assist at no cost. Click here for more information on this free trial.

Your next step is to connect with the Field Service and Remote Assist experts at PowerObjects. We will work with you to determine if it makes sense to implement Remote Assist in your organization (hint: it does!) and then get it implemented and connected with your existing technology infrastructure.

To learn more about Remote Assist, please visit Microsoft’s mixed reality site. To learn about Field Service solutions from PowerObjects, visit our site.  And if you’ve read this far, you’re either a really big fan of Remote Assist or, more likely, you work in an organization with field service operations. Assuming the latter, we have a couple of recent webinars that are right up your alley:

• Fuel Your Business with Connected Field Service – Fuel your business with Dynamics 365 Field Service combined with the power of Connected Field Service!
• Discover the Connected Business Model for Field Service – Don’t miss out on learning the Microsoft Field Service platform from A to Z in this webinar on demand.

Finally, in case you’re interested, Microsoft’s newly released Connected Customer Service will help you solve customer issues without having to dispatch a resource – it leverages the power of Azure IoT for Customer Service scenarios. It’s worth checking out.

As always, happy D365’ing!