Field Service setup guide

This page walks through 10 steps to set up Field Service, in the order the in-app Setup assistant recommends. Each step lists what to prepare, the questions to answer first and the screen to use.

1. Prepare

Optional

What to have ready before setting up Field Service: company time zone and cleaned-up files of technicians, job types, customers and their equipment.

2. Field service rules

Required

Choose what a technician must provide to close a job, how job cost and invoicing work, how parts and tools are controlled, and (optional) contracts, maintenance plans, teams and scheduling.

Prepare first

• The rule agreed with the field team for closing a job: photo, GPS, checklist, time log, customer signature.
• How parts reach technicians today: from a central warehouse, from van stock, or bought per job.

Questions to answer

• What must a technician provide before a job can be closed: photo, GPS position, checklist, time log, customer signature?
• Is the customer invoiced when the job is done or only after they accept it? Do you need cost per job?
• Must parts requests be approved? Are vans and tools already managed in Inventory and the Asset Register?
• Do you sell maintenance contracts with visit quotas, and should jobs be generated automatically from maintenance plans?
• Do technicians work in teams, and do dispatchers need a dispatch board or shared-equipment booking?

3. Field service people

Required

Choose who runs field service, who dispatches jobs and who the technicians are. You cannot remove a person’s last role here.

Prepare first

• The list of field service managers, dispatchers and technicians — each must already be invited as a user.

Questions to answer

• Who heads field service, who dispatches jobs, and who are the technicians?
• Should a technician see only their own jobs, their team’s, or all?

4. Field service lists

Optional

The choice lists used on field service forms: technician skills, skill categories, territories, resolution types and escalation reasons. Open a list to fill it with the standard values, rename, hide or add values.

Prepare first

• The skills, skill categories, territories, resolution types and escalation reasons the field team really uses (Vietnamese and English names).

Questions to answer

• Which technician skills do you distinguish (electrical, HVAC, network…), and how are service territories split?

Lookups to review (Settings → Lookups):

• Escalation Reasons (escalation_reasons)
• Resolution Types (resolution_types)
• Service Territories (service_territories)
• Skill Categories (skill_categories)
• Technician Skills (technician_skills)

5. Document numbering

Optional

Number format of field service jobs and requisition batches. Changing the format after numbers were issued leaves two code styles.

Prepare first

• The numbering format the business wants (prefix, year, number of digits).

Questions to answer

• Do you want a specific numbering format for jobs, or keep the defaults?

Document types to configure numbering for (Settings → Document numbering):

• service_job
• fs_requisition_batch

6. Approval workflows

Optional · After step: Field service rules, Field service people

Parts and tool requisitions always wait for approval before they are issued: each needs an active workflow or a person who approves directly. Job workflows are optional (dispatch and escalation).

Questions to answer

• Who approves parts and tool requests before they are issued to a technician — one manager, or a multi-step flow?

Approval workflows to enable (Workflow → Template library) — see Workflow templates:

• field_service_requisition
• field_service_tool_requisition
• service_job

7. Technicians & job templates

Optional

Set up who does the work and how standard jobs are planned on the existing screens: technicians, job types and job templates. Counts update from real data.

Prepare first

• Import technicians first, then job types, then job templates — later files link to earlier ones by code.

Questions to answer

• Which jobs repeat often enough to deserve a standard template (materials, tools, hours, crew size)?

8. Import data

Optional

Bring customers in with the existing import screen and check that parts and vans exist in Inventory. Counts update from real data.

Prepare first

• Fill the old-system code column so re-importing the same file updates rows instead of duplicating them.

Questions to answer

• Where are customers, equipment and spare parts kept today, and how many of each?

9. Open jobs

Optional

Jobs still open on the cut-over date are imported with the existing import screen; finished ones stay in the old system.

Prepare first

• Agree the cut-over date: jobs still open on that day are brought into XBuddy; finished ones stay in the old system.

10. Go-live check

Optional

Run one real job end to end with the key user before go-live. Tick each step once its result is checked.

Prepare first

• Use one real customer and one real technician; agree with the key user who checks each result.

Next

See the feature pages of this app in the left menu, or the setup guides of every app.