Straight from the Source: Microsoft's Jason Cohen on Field Service, Project Operations & What's Next

What happens when the people who build D365 Field Service sit down with the people who implement it every day? You get this episode.

Jason Cohen has been on the Microsoft Field Service product team for nearly eight years — going all the way back to the FieldOne acquisition — and he joins Scott and Will for one of the most candid conversations the Service X Factor has had yet.

The big headline: Field Service and Project Operations are now deeply integrated, and Jason believes this changes the implementation equation permanently. The old sales-order-based model worked for some scenarios, but it left internal work, milestone-based projects, and mixed billable/non-billable jobs out in the cold. The new FSPO integration — built on dual-write — closes that gap and gives implementers the flexibility to extend, map, and connect across the full Microsoft stack, with or without Finance & Supply Chain.

Jason and the crew also dig into:

• Scheduling improvements — the "paper cuts" initiative delivering real dispatcher UX wins, performance gains, and smarter defaults
• Mobile — where the focus is going (bigger touch targets, faster loads, more reliable offline sync)
• Licensing — persona-based and simpler than you might think
• The overlapping bookings saga — why one of the most-requested "features" would actually break everything
• Change management vs. customization — and why the product almost never fails when you implement it right

Plus the obligatory shoutouts to Ben Vollmer, Dan Gittler, and the legend himself — Shawn Tabor — and a reminder that Field Service has always been better when the community and the product team are talking to each other.

If you're a D365 partner, implementer, or architect, this one's worth your full attention. Subscribe, share with your team, and tell us in the comments: what's the one Field Service improvement that would change your life next quarter?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Welcome everyone to another edition of the Service X Factor Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Scott LaFonte, and as always, I'm joined by William Quad McClendon. Will, how's it going today?

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Hey, hey, everybody. I'm doing great. It's a lovely day.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Not that anyone can see you, but he's got these cool glasses on. He's going for the whole Magnum PI.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

TC. TC, baby.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

It's all right. You can say you're going for the look. I know. I know the truth.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

The young people out there are gonna be like, who the heck is TC? And what is Magnum PI? Is he talking about Magnum Pi? Right? Hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

That's so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Oh, we're dating ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

But yeah, we're excited about our guest. Absolutely. So our guest, and and this one, really, if you're in the field service space and you know D365 field service, uh, probably needs no introduction, but we'll introduce him anyway. Mr. Jaden Cohen of the Microsoft uh product team for field service. Jason, how's it going?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, doing well. Thanks for uh thanks for having me. Thanks for the intro. Uh speaking of dating ourselves, not that anyone can see this either, but I'm wearing uh an old, a very old uh dynamics t-shirt, uh which has an incredibly old field service logo on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

It's like that was my favorite field service logo.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Little truck.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

That's right, the little truck. So so Jason, just real quick, for those that actually don't know in your you and your background, um tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up in this in the field service space to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, so you know, you know, field service uh has been a Microsoft product for, I don't know, I think about 10 years now, which is crazy. And before that, it was a small company called Field One that Microsoft acquired. Uh so I was on field one. At the time, I was sort of leading implementations for field one and I led, you know, are a couple of them that were you know successful, which was which was good. Then we were acquired. Yeah, then we were required. I ended up in the eventually sort of acquisitions are always weird, but through the process of the acquisition, I ended up in fast track eventually. Uh they were trying to figure out where people who were doing implementations landed. Um and I was there for about, I don't know, maybe two years, helping customers, helping our large strategic customers as they were sort of picking up this new thing that we had. Uh and then um, you know, I've I sort of wormed my way into the into the field service team through, I don't know, mostly just through sitting outside people's offices back when back when people were in offices.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Banging on their door and saying, let me in.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

That's right, basically. Ingratiating myself. And so I've been here in the field service team for in this, well, in some version of this role uh for almost eight years, yeah. Almost eight years out now, I think.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So yeah, because I think I I think I've I started speaking to you, but I don't even know. It's been at least five years, at least.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

I think that's right. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

At least uh I can't remember what I ate for breakfast. I'm certainly not gonna remember anything from five plus years ago.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Agreed, agreed. Yeah, but you guys have been very busy with the product and development enhancements, especially as of late. I mean, we took a little break there, I mean, we'll be honest, but you guys have accelerated things and have done a lot in the last few months. So you've been busy, brother.

Product Slowdown, Then Acceleration

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, we have been busy, and uh yeah, you're not you're not wrong. We did have a little bit of a uh a sort of uh slowdown for a minute there. Uh, you know, internal to Microsoft. Microsoft's a giant machine, and there were things there were sort of just internal like movements or you know, where we were sort of moving around that we yeah, but we survived. And um, you know, we're put we're pushing out a bunch of good stuff now. I think there's a lot of stuff that I'm excited about that we're doing, and glad to be, you know, sort of shipping really meaningful improvements. Yeah. Well I know the one I've been oh good.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

As I say, as everyone was figuring out, I think Microsoft was making the shift of just software company to adopting more with AI. Kind of the to be blunt, you guys were probably the first ones to put an automated feature out with that product so quick. Yeah, you know, work orders and work orders into the into Outlook integration was you know, jaw dropping and amazing. So it wasn't like you guys were just sitting on your hands, you were putting stuff out there, and you've always done dope stuff with the product. So like let's give credit where credit's due. I appreciate that. I mean, yeah, come on.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

I think everyone just got so used to so much rapid development in the field service space that they were like, what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah, like well, let's let's stop. We're giving credit where credit's due on that.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I wasn't saying you guys are just sitting around, like you guys needing bonbons given to early.

AI Features And Outlook Work Orders

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, we had to make some hard choices now. But yeah, we are back in, I think, firing the you know, out meaningful features across the whole the whole gamut of the product again for the last, you know, whatever, year and a half or two.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Well, especially around integrations. I mean, you guys, especially recently, right? You talk about the the project operations integration, you know, not that long ago. You had the business central integration, now there's F and O integration for field service. Um all things that especially if you're if you're within the Microsoft stack and you have Business Central or F and O, I mean I mean amazing, right? Especially on the project side, because I know that was something that you and I spoke about several years ago, and I actually had built it out, but you guys have I I mean, I'm like, yeah, this is like blows whatever I built out of one. Obviously.

Integrations: BC, F&O, And PO

SPEAKER_00 6:22

We, you know, it's it's a thing that it unsurprisingly, it's a thing that people have been asking for for years, obviously. Like we recognize that like this FSPO thing that we're that we just released, uh, and it's the first version of it. We'll have some follow-ups coming, you know, sort of as soon as we can release them. Not not a specific timeline at this exact moment, but soon. Um but yeah, like that that PO, FS, like these are things that organizations are often using together. And uh it's been a thing that folks wanted to work more closely together for forever. It's been very high on our list of visual requests for a long time. Um and I think the sort of the straw that broke the camels back was like we put out an integration, which you know, talking to talking about integrations, we put out an integration about two years ago that we have since we're we're deprecating. So folks may have folks are it's been public knowledge for a while, but uh but uh we we took we didn't take that lightly, but we did decide to deprecate, partially because the FSPO integration now is such an important sort of fundamental capability to connect these two products, FS and and Project Project Operations, but also project operations find you know released a really key part that when before we introduced our last integration, they were not yet supporting materials usage or consumption of inventory. That was a key part. So yeah, now we're doing this through FSPO. Uh, we're really excited about both the integration channel through the you know, sort of fairly mature long-standing Proje ops integration and the deeper connection between field service and proje ops that we think will unlock tons of value for field service. I think I said this on a on a on a post that you made a little while ago on LinkedIn, Scott, but I suspect in the next year or so we will see that it is the minority scenario where you can implement field service without project operations because of the way we're building this, because of all the things that the Proje ops integration is going to be bringing. Yeah, we think it'll be the way that the sort of the default for how you implement and and uh release field service.

Why FS + Project Operations Matters

SPEAKER_01 8:33

That's awesome. So the nice thing about that too is that if you're a field service expert, you know, you also better learn project operations if you don't know it, and vice versa. You know, we when it was it it was interesting because when it used to be called project service, I remember Sean and Tabor and I did a a presentation uh internally at Hitachi, but also at Community Summit, and we called it the the power of three customer service, field service, and project service, and why the three are so important, and you know, just because it's now renamed project operations doesn't mean it's not part of, in theory, service.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

That's right. Yeah. Yeah, we think is a so the version one that we released doesn't support this as much as it will very soon, but we think there's a really meaningful, complex service scenario that of course our customers have. You know, they want to do services that you know that like they want to plan projects that are many, you know, sort of many visits uh that include many different people visiting at different times, doing different pieces of the project. I mean, it's you know, it's no there's no rocket science in that. That's of course very common. Uh, and field service is a natural part of that. Like those organizations, they they they are both doing sort of project-based service work and also like reactive-based service work most of the time. And so having one sort of field execution you know, app experience for anybody who's doing work in the field, whether it's project-based or non-project-based, just makes a ton of sense. And you can then plan the whole thing, you know, all of the financials flow together, it all just works, which is our goal, just to make it all sort of seamless.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

It's always a good thing, especially when it comes to financials.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Uh, yeah, that's right. Um and and I mean, you know, the last thing I think I've alluded to it, but like it is also worth noting this integration between FS and PO works regardless of whether you're integrating with FNO. If you are integrating with FNO, if you are integrating with FNO, great, you know, obviously, you know, that works too.

Deprecations And The New FS–PO Approach

SPEAKER_02 10:36

But if you just want those two products to work together and you're not using FNO, uh so I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna ask you a terrible question here, and I'm gonna try to get out of I'm gonna get it out of the way, right? For folks who don't understand, if you could do us a quick favor, you know, what was the historical way of you know the pro I can talk about it, but people don't want to hear me talk. They they're gonna hear you talk. So what was historically, how does Field Service handle integrations into FNO? And why is this new I want to say this this this new shift so impactful to organizations? And if they're if you have any questions, I might ping you about a licensing question. What are the licensing impacts? But I really want to get into a licensing model, but just to if folks are just if they're tuning in, they're trying to understand why we're so giddy about this, and I'm you know, shout out to Dick Humph, but why we're so giddy about it.

Projects vs Sales Orders For ERP Sync

Dual-Write, Extensibility, And Offline

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, I mean, I think there's so we've had some integrations uh to FNO or you know to the to the sort of finance supply chain solutions for a while. There was one that was released shortly after I joined the product, talking about eight years ago or so, that was based on the sort of data integrator, which I think is still theoretically out there, and and I think we still have some customers. But that one used sales orders as a way to sort of integrate. And we recognize, of course, that that's a viable pattern. But you know, one, it's it was super old technology, the data integrators is still supported. Uh technically, uh, you know, I'm not it's still supported, period, I guess. I'm speaking formally as a micro. Uh, but it is, you know, sort of not, it's not but on so this new pattern is based on projects, which we think is meaningful because it it offers a great deal of flexibility. So we thought a lot about how should we sort of do this in the future, and we went we ended up on projects. And the reason we ended up on projects is because we know that we have customers today who use field search for sort of customer scenarios, and sales orders are great for that. You know, I'm serving an external customer, I want to bill them the work that I'm doing, all sort of ends you know, rolls up in sales from a sales perspective. But we also know that we have a lot of scenarios where customers are doing sort of internal work, non-sales. So that that pattern didn't really support that. Um we had no real meaning. Uh so what we what we're doing now with projects, a project can be, you know, uh can have a billable component to it or can be all cost. Uh and so projects are a great vehicle for for that. In addition, obviously, we're excited about this because it ties these two CE products together on the CE side, agnostic of when whether you're flowing back to FNO, which we think is incredibly meaningful for customers who aren't using, you know, finance supply chain. And then I guess you know, the the so like we've had uh we had one other integration which I sort of mentioned earlier that was using uh you know use dual write partially and also use a couple of other sort of bespoke patterns for integration. Um one that you know virtual tables uh which are which are fun uh but have some you know some challenges, especially when nuances to it. Yeah, especially when start talking about offline, which is really important to feel clear. Which worked well, it was great, but it was really hard to extend. So we think this new pattern is really important because it's all dual write-based, so you have a ton of control and flexibility. So, of course, you can extend on the CE side as you always could, but now you can extend the maps uh to make sure that the data flows across if you're adding additional data uh or introduce new maps for new data that is relevant to whatever implementation. So I think that's important.

unknown 14:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

So customers can still use it for like, you know, like you know, your regular work order management and you know, from sales to work order management, but now we've just kind of extended it to other functional business areas, correct?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah, right. I mean, of course. Uh we're still we're still able to support obviously the direct, you know, sort of sales-based scenario, but we have increasing numbers of customers where they're serving their own yeah, their internal resources. How do we better support that? There's other things we want to do to better support that, which we're doing as well.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

So I I worded it that way just because I want folks to understand that you know, field service ain't going nowhere. We're just opening it up and getting bigger, larger, and better. Just throwing that out there. So shout out to the field service team for doing something phenomenal that not other people folks are doing. Um so licensing impacts, just if we had to sum it up, sure. I'm assuming that folks need to have the FNO lights, FNSC licensing in order to be able to write to the proper tables or pool data. What does the licensing look like?

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yeah, I mean, if you're, you know, I mean, I think about the way that I think about licensing is persona based, right? Like who is the person? What is the what does each individual person need to do in? Uh so if I use field service and I just use field service, even if I'm integrating data through project operations and into you know finance supply chain, I just need a field service license. That data is, you know, is just a part of your organizational sort of data flow. Um, but you're not you don't require a license for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

So putting flexible licensing model. Just saying, just really good job. Really good job, guys.

Licensing Logic And PO Install Notes

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Really good job. I will say, you know, the asterisk to that statement uh is you know, you for this integration pattern to work, it has to, you know PO has to be installed in the first place. And I do think there are there's a license check before you can install PO. So so there is a a small asterisk which root which is you know, so you gotta meet that minimum license uh check to be able to install PO in the first place. But once it's installed, obviously this works. Even if you're not using uh if you are using if you're not using PO at all, uh we made sure to add to the licensing guide some language around you can still create projects because of course that's our vehicle for integration back to FNM. So if you're just using it as a mechanism to get data into FNO, but if you're also using it, uh you know, if you're also using PO, and we think there's lots of reasons to do that, uh you know, the users that are using PO should be licensed in PO, just like you know, just like they uh they would be if they were if field service wasn't pressed. But if you're just using F if your user is just using FS, license an FS. If you're just using PO, license in PO. I guess that's the way I think about it. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

You guys have done great work for this. This is really, really a big deal. Big deal.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

It's huge. That's my dogs think so too, because they're just barking. They think it's it's it's a big deal. So I I mean if you look at anyone that's looked at the release notes over the last say couple of releases, I mean, I'm looking at them right now, right? And you can see that that innovation is there, and you can see that it you know some of it's tailed around it's kind of sprinkled everywhere, right? I mean yeah, we're talking integrations are huge, but you know, other innovation that you guys have done, of course, around AI and optimizing resource scheduling and and all of the you know, technician productivity, which is I mean, let's face it, technicians being efficient uh out in the field is is paramount when it comes to field service.

Mobile Usability, Performance, And Offline

SPEAKER_00 18:19

For sure. Yeah, and there's a lot more that we're planning to do there. You know, we know we still have some things that are you know not as easy as we want them to be, but uh we are we are definitely investing in our mobile experience. We're definitely investing in the scheduling experience. Uh one of the things my favorite things, actually, shout out to Michael Kellan, he that that he's been driving this thing that we've called paper cuts. It's not really like some of them are really meaningful improvements, and some of them are very small uh sort of improvements. But it's one of my favorite initiatives that we've been doing for the last, I don't know, a while now, year or year or plus uh, where you know they sort of put together a list of none of them are not independently, they're not one huge feature. It's like a bunch of small improvements around mostly around scheduling and scheduling scenarios. Um and uh, you know, sort of releasing those. Some of those are things that folks have been asking for for years, uh just make it much easier to use, better experience, more performance. There's been a ton of stuff that they've done, really cool stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Okay. No, no, no, you go go quad.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Because he said something that means a lot to me. There's a lot of questions I have, but I'm I'm gonna be very, very good because I don't I don't want to get beat up. So dumb question, Jason. You mentioned it. We're making investments in our mobile experience. I I think field service mobile, you know, we were light years ahead of others for quite some time, and you know, other products kind of copied and pasted what we were doing with it. And anyway, I I just I'm just curious. Without violing violating any of our NDAs, are you allowed to kind of give a a a glimpse or maybe kind of paint a fairy tale if you if you were to describe what may be coming as a fairy tale, are you allowed to kind of tell us what we could be expecting?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Um you know, I will I mean I guess like I'm not as close to it as some of our other PAs, so I can only speak to it a little bit, but I know there are some really like important things uh around usability and and performance that we're doing uh to end, and some of that we have to work with the platform on, which makes it, you know, um we have sort of partners uh in how we have to implement this. Uh control improvements on several of the controls that are sort of problematic or painful and sort of in many circumstances. So like I think there's a bunch of things that we hope make it easier to use, you know, especially for folks out in the field who uh one of the things that may or you know, I guess one fairy tale that I think folks have asked for is like I want sort of bigger buttons and bigger uh, you know, sort of, you know, like the like the experience right now is relatively small. And you're a tech out in the field doing a bunch of things, you know, with you know, whatever. Like they're not trying to hit a very tiny little uh with uh with their hand while they're holding or you know, whatever, holding tools or or doing something else in the other. So there are some things that we hope to do there, which we're excited about that require some partnership with our with the platform. So yeah. Fingers crossed, we'll see some of those things coming through soon.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm hoping one day we do some a little bit more with the offline experience.

unknown 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Um, I think the UI and in areas, I think, I think that's something we we were, I know we're there's always gonna be feedback around that, right? We're never gonna let's just be blunt, we're never gonna get a thousand percent on that, right? Because there's always someone that's gonna have something to say about it. But I think uh we we are what I've seen from historically from the product in when I was in the partner channel, and then even now here is that they're very responsive to to uh requests. And so if there is feedback, you we justify it, and you guys generally uh make those adjustments. So I mean I'm just I'm excited to see what's coming, man.

Platform Tradeoffs And Flexibility

SPEAKER_00 22:12

I appreciate that. I mean, I'll you know, we'll we also know offline is one of the more it's important, uh it's incredibly important for field service. Um, but also an area that, yeah, has been is is not easy to uh it's a in it in so part of it's that it that's interesting, and sometimes I fantasize about Just working on a product that's like, I just build whatever I think is the right thing, and then you use it that way. But that's not what we build. We build uh so what we build uh extensibility is feature number one. Uh and so we have to think about that, which makes offline some of those offline challenges even harder, uh makes most of our feature development even harder, but we recognize that that's sort of core value for the platform. Uh so yeah, offline is there's probably not a single magic solution, but we're doing a lot to examine uh reliability, examine sort of how do we make it faster and or at least feel faster. Uh there's bunch that uh we've got a lot of smart people on it, and yeah, uh bringing in some experts as well to help us understand the space better.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

It's understated, right? That's our perspective. We're building a platform. Um you're building a platform, not we.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

And I think that you know, to your point, Will, uh it's a great point, is that I think sometimes people forget right, customers, partners, right, that it's not field service isn't in a bubble. So you can't just go to you know the product team and say, Why don't you do this? To your point, it is part of a platform. There's a bigger, bigger play at stake, right? And it's just one wheel in the or one cog in the wheel. So it's it's to your point that you said, Jason, earlier, it's a you know, Microsoft's a machine and it there's a process that needs to be followed.

Don’t Fight The Product: Process First

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yeah. You know, it's funny there's like this. Um I just I'm I have such a clear memory of this one ICM ticket where somebody was uh was you know, sort of raised that ICM is like an internal tool used to make uh sort of support tickets that go beyond the sort of general support channel. Um and they raised this ticket uh and you know ended up coming to you know my you know uh through you know with my and some of my engineering colleagues, you know, ended up in my desk. And the answer was we're not gonna make that change uh that they really wanted. Uh and it was defensible, like it made sense. And in their scenario, it made perfect sense. I understood why they wanted the change, but from a product perspective, it what it made less sense. Uh it didn't make you know as much sense as it you know it did for them, and it potentially caused problems for other customers. And I and I wrote back to that customer, and I had I remember I remember writing this particular message where I was like, I recognize this in the answer you want. Uh I hope you appreciate that you know that we're giving you this answer now, which is not which is not giving you exactly what you want. But we we do the same thing, you know, 90 other times to other customers who are asking for changes that would negatively impact you. Uh, and so it's always a balance. It's always like a really hard question, you know, question to answer. Like this is a platform used by a ton of people. How do we make changes in a way that's safe? How do we make changes that will help other, you know, help everybody and hopefully not hurt anybody? We recognize we don't get that perfect, but we try not. So yeah, sometimes I wish I could just go work on a I don't know, whatever. Pick your pick your standard cuts product. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

What I find what I find most of the time. Oh sorry maybe laughing.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Oh god, I wish we had video for these things, man, because like it's it's it's it's awesome. I'm sorry, it's awesome. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

But what I find most of the time and most interesting, and I wrote about this recently, is and I and I've seen it a thousand times, right? A customer going in, ambassadizing a field service, and then all of a sudden complaining about something that doesn't work that's out of the box that inherently works really well. And I just, you know, field service is just like anything else, right? You you can't just you know, there's there's a certain place in an in an implementation that I would have said, okay, hold on, timeout. Why are we doing it this way? Why are you trying to break the inherent process and functionality that Microsoft specifically built just so that it can fit into your process instead of looking at your process and saying, all right, how can we get it to work a little bit better with out of the box?

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Yeah, yeah, preach, preach. Because there's so much thought that went into what was already built and so much research. I I I I I scratch my head and I'm like, why are you folks doing it this way? Because doesn't this seem a little more logical and I guess a little more efficient? I mean, I'm just and it gets me in trouble, but you know, like that's you know, to say I appreciate that.

Scheduling Complexity And Common Traps

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I appreciate, of course. Like we all want to be, you know, I mean, it would be great if everybody would just use this out of the box. But we also recognize and we try our best uh to support like that that no two businesses are the same, that almost no, I don't know if there's a single implementation that just uses it as is made, uh, which which we think is right. That's correct. Like everybody's business is different, and the you know, and the platform should help help you, you know, uh help an organization, you know, sort of get the serve the solution that they need. But it it is it is a challenge. One of the things that I'm constantly saying to my colleagues, I think one of my one of my peers is uh annoyed with me right now, because I say it to her all the time, is like, let's not introduce rigidity that we don't have to. Uh, if we don't have a good reason for you know making a restrictive, making something restrictive or harder, like let's not do and there's and so like I've been pushing back on a lot of things that people want to do, all with good reason. Like they're all very smart people with good intentions, and they're all trying to, and but I like I've pushed back a number of times saying, like, you know, if we do this, it will block people from being able to adopt. If we don't have to be rigid, let's not do it. Um so we're trying also to support as being as flexible as we can. So we expect we expect extension and we try our best to allow for.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

But let's get I'm I'm gonna again, I'm not I'm not hyping it up, but this is a product that's near and dear to my heart. So like excuse me, and I'll shut up after this. But like you have so many like so many other offerings that uh that can help extend the field service experience, right? Like you were you had the extensions with PowerPage. Um, you can throw you know an additional Canvas app in there if you need it, or or now even code apps, right? Like since it all sits in the Dataverse, you know, you can add or build on top of it. And I think that's kind of like from an architectural standpoint, where maybe Scott or I were kind of like direct customers. Uh instead of going in there and chopping it up, you know, you could technically, because you have the field service licensing, uh you could technically extend or expand it with other offerings. And I think that made a lot more sense of most of our customers. I mean, it just it that's just my little two side. And I I I I think for for makers or any of our consultants who are building or designing these solutions, if you're going into field service, you know, plan to get your hands dirty with things like Power Automate, Power Pages. You know, you're gonna have a breadth of knowledge after doing one or two field service projects because of its extensibility and it plays well with others.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, I appreciate that. Totally with you, 100%. Yeah. Use and you know, and hopefully folks use the things that are out of the box for the things that they're good for. One thing that I will say is uh which I've seen I haven't only I've only seen it once, but please don't reinvent incident type, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

But anyway, I think oh I've seen some really interesting things with incident types, and I sit there and like, why? Why it you know, it's one of those things that keeps me up at night. It's just like why would you do that? So speaking of that, I I I gotta interesting question for you. I mean, you get the you talk to partners, you talk to customers, you get emails. I mean, what's one of the wildest or most interesting scenarios that you've heard or request that you've gotten that are like okay, this one's out of left field.

Overlapping Bookings And Real Scenarios

SPEAKER_00 30:38

I mean I'll say this is a slightly boring answer. I'm trying to come up with more insane. I'll say we get, you know, we like almost nothing that we get is like totally out of left field. At least not that makes it to us, you know. So like where I will say, like, sometimes people are like, yeah, I want it to work this way, and I'm like, I get it, you know, but we're not gonna do that because that's not gonna serve, you know, whatever, 90% of our customers. It works great for you, that's great. I love it, but it's not a good thing for me. So I can't think of like a good example that really was like, there's no that makes no sense. But I'll say I will say, I know that I sort of like some projects if you want. I'm just teasing. I'm not gonna go there because I know where I was gonna go. Well, and I'm you know, like again, like it's these things are all good, they're all important. Like it should work for you, and that's great if it's there's like a very specific thing that you want that does even if it doesn't make sense for the product. Um so yeah, that and I also think I forget a lot of them just because like it's water, you know, it's just like water off, you know, it's like you you just you constantly hear about things that people want, and it's like a quick evaluation of like, and sometimes not so quick, depending on this on the suit on the feature, but like how valuable is it? How much do we think it you know improves the product and expands our our addressable, our addressable market? How much do we think it improves our existing customers' experiences? How much effort is it gonna take? What else do we not get to do because we're doing uh and so some you know, so like you'd be kind of like doing a quick evaluation of like, is this where we should be spending our our uh and a lot of stuff that like makes no sense. It's just like a really quick, like all right, I'm not doing that, and I forget about it immediately, you know.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Understand that.

unknown 32:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

So you have a question, Scott, or you will be key to it.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I have I have some, but no, you go. Absolutely. All right.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

So just I'm just throwing this out there, just gonna just make it a little humorous. So, Jason, um, and I want this, do not cut this from the podcast, because this is my disclaimer. So I I reached out to Ben Fulmer and I was like, you know, hey, oh boy, Jason's a good dude. You know, is there anything you I wish we had careful? I wish we had cameras off for this because you you all our faces dropped. I'm sorry. Shout out to you, Ben.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

You never know what Ben's gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Is there anything I could ask Jason that would, you know, just you know, what could I ask Jason? And I think this is the only safe question I'm gonna ask. But I I I want I want to I I do want to know, and I think the audience will probably know. How do you think of uh ERP with field service? Like, do you think of field service as an ERP system or ERP light? Or what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 33:25

I mean, this is probably a little bit of Ben Channel, uh, a job he had in the uh yeah, I mean, I'll say we we have a lot of financial functionality that is light. Yeah, light's a good word for it. I mean, it's good, it's it's meaningful if you're doing something really small, but that's not how typically who are customers. Uh so we have made a decision you know, which we sort of come back to again and again, which is like the system of record for service, not the system of record for financial data, though we of course feed that system, and we should, so we should feed that system. So, yeah, to uh to Ben's past life where he sort of throwing, I think, throwing uh throwing shade rightfully on some of the challenges we have with you know sort of with field service sort of not being well connected to our ERP systems at the time. We think we think we've meaningfully addressed that and we'll continue to, but uh yeah, uh we aren't we are your system of record for certain uh and that's what we target. That's what we're we uh that's how we make our that's like one of the key principles we use when we're making decisions on how to build.

Manufacturing, Constraints, And Wishlists

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Well i ignore Ben. I I was just teased. Sorry about that. My docking stage went my docking stage and just went nuts. So sorry if I cut out on there, but yeah, it ignore him. I I was just the thing I love about Field Service and what drew me to the product was that the community that supports was was really uh I say niche, but it was a tight get tight knit group, but it was an amazing group of folks. Still is you know, I and it still is, and for me it's always gonna be um so anytime I can kick you out. You're gone. No, man, I can't go anywhere. It's actually, you know, when I tell consultants this, if they're like, hey, what do I do? Do I want to jump into the power platform directly, X, Y, and Z, I'd say, hey, you know what? Learn something about D365, jump right into field service, you know, get on a field service project and implementation. Because I think that way you'll springboard into a lot of the power platform offerings.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Um I remember when all of a sudden I'm I was at Microsoft and it's like, hey, we need people to become experts in field one. And it was just one of those. I mean, right, you can resonate with with the product. And I think, Will, that goes to like, hey, learn field service. Well, yeah, what's field service? Well, you have have you ever had someone come over to your house or your where you were uh live and fix uh an air conditioner or an appliance or yeah, you know, what do they fill out? How do they how do they know what they're working on? That's field service.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Yeah, and that's where that's where I was going with it. Like to like I thought when I looked up field service, it was strictly just ERP, and that's where I was like, I had so much anxiety about that that you know, when I had my first project, like I was shaking in my boots, and so are there boundaries and areas where they cross to some extent? Yeah, but do I think that's what we built? Absolutely not. But if we you know, we have things for that, right? There's a lot of cool ways to integrate into other ERP systems. I just think that the space is so large, so big for what we have, it it hits the nail on the head. So, you know, I I just I wanted to hear your input on that, just kind of as a thought. Like, and then I now I I have instant regret, so my apologies, right? So no more Ben Bollmer questions. Um, it's it's I just I think that we're that product is is is our product is is damn good. Um Ben's awesome. I'm gonna annoy you about some scheduling.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

We've we've name dropped Ben and Taber and Gitler. It's like an all-star lineup.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

We actually gotta get Giddy on here, man. If we one day, yeah, if it if he actually if he actually is available, we gotta get him in here.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

But I think like coming up from underwater, absolutely. Yeah, he's a busy guy for sure. But yeah, it's nice.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

So, what about the scheduling pieces? Are we doing anything? Do you have any insight into uh resource scheduling? I mean, everyone uses it, right? Like, I'm sorry, all the offerings use it. I mean, sorry, other DTXI products use it, but yeah, anything new coming down there with the scheduling?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah, I mean, we're spending a lot of time on, I mean, like I mentioned, like sort of uh I talk all I call them paper cuts, or we come, you know, internally we can we talk about them as paper cuts, but like just tons of small improvements. Some of them aren't small at all. In fact, the other day uh there were some meaningful that we're we have implemented. I don't know if they've been released anyway, just like massive perf improvements when we've been investing over and over again because we recognize that this that these like when you're using scheduling, uh that it that folks folks say it's slow. And you know, fair enough, it's often slow. Uh, but we've been doing a ton of work to improve perf. We've been doing a ton of work to improve usability, and we're doing a number of things to better support not just FS scheduling scenarios, but project scheduling scenarios, which we which we know are, you know, there's a huge amount of folks who use pro you know use pro jobs and projects with scheduling. Um but I was trying to think, I'm trying to think of a specific one. I mean, I'll say scheduling is not my direct area, uh though I work closely with uh with all the with all the our uh PM colleagues. But we're spending a lot of time. I think the biggest thing we're spending a lot of time focused on is uh is SOA. And we'll see we'll see lots of improvements there over the next months and years.

Paper Cuts And Schedule Board Performance

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, so like let's just I'm gonna give credit where credit's due. Like so like the schedule board being new and the the UI elements to it that were out were kind of its first of its kind in D3 in Dynamic 365, how the mix all this custom. Like, so like let's just when we updated it back in, I think it was two, was it 21 or 2020? When did we start doing that?

SPEAKER_01 39:06

God, we are it's it's so happy that they cut out the whole because I'm red, green, colorblind, and I was like, Wow, please change the colors.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're gonna make it better and we're gonna make performance. There's a lot of things, but like here's the deal like there's I think I don't think folks understand just how complicated resource scheduling is, and I think oftentimes it's so oftentimes we tend to mix things like there's asset scheduling versus resource scheduling, right? And there's there's there's those scenarios and getting folks to understand how this actually works, you know, the time zone conundrum, right? Like, you know, how do you show multiple times in MC? Right?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

We we've been there, right? Like, so you don't think actually thinking about one thing, apologies for cut for interjecting, but there was a thing that you asked earlier. What's one thing that people asked that you were that was like crazy? Um people pushed pretty there were several organizations that did different times to ask for the same thing. It was like, don't allow overlapping bookings. Uh uh, you know, like the and I think the people who asked that didn't really think through uh because I could not disagree more. It's an insane, it would be an insane thing if you would if you said you could not have overlapping bookings. Now we're getting we're gonna get so deep on the we can go down this super nerdy rabbit hole. But anyway, it was a uh that was the one that was one that stuck with me because it's come up several times from different sources, and not you know, and internally folks who are relatively new to the area, because we always have internal, you know, so they're like, should we do this? And I have to explain, like, you know, I mean other I'm not the only one explaining it, but you know, we have to explain like no way. It's important that sometimes they overlap, it happens, like that's part of the process.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Hypothetically, you you have multiple tickets open for the same customer for whatever reason. Overlap them, have the same technician go.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Like honestly, like it's been such a because I think we use it for we use the schedule board sometimes for scenarios that don't necessarily align with what they may need. Like I I I I am gonna pick on a factory line one time, right? Someone wanted to schedule out components being built on a factory line, and I immediately was like, no, this is a bad idea. Like, let's not do this. Like, you will build something custom. And one of the nail the things that they were irked about with using the schedule board was like, why are there overlapping booking times? I should never, as soon as I put it down, there shouldn't be a prompt that pops up and says no and you don't allow it. And I'm like, Yeah, no. And someone was like, You can use booking rules. I was like, Yeah, that's not what that's for. I don't think you I I I really don't. And you have to kind of you're trying to re-educate them, but they're like, no, but it does all this. And I'm like, Yeah, I know, but that's not resource scheduling, right? You know what I mean? Like, that's not what you're doing, isn't resource scheduling, right? And and I I don't I I am you showed restraint and I didn't, Jason. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Wait, will ever wait, will restraint? Those two words don't go together, right?

Time Zones, UI, And Real-World Dispatch

SPEAKER_02 42:08

But no, I I have to live it, right? Because we're the ones that had to actually implement it and put it together, right? And then people folks like Jason are over there banging their head against their desk because they're like, get the product team online. And and I have to sit there and explain, hey guys, the thing that you built, the purpose that you built it with, yeah, we're doing it the complete opposite. And you have to look like you're, you know, you're putting a triangle in a in a in a in a square, you know, by using a square peg. Like it's not gonna work, right? And then these poor folks have to kindly but surely educate and walk us back. And we're just sitting here looking at you know, all the other people on the team like we told you so, right? And then the poor customer makes you know, they're like, God, Microsoft isn't X, Y, and Z. So it's a big circle of I'm not gonna curse because my kids listen to podcasts now, but it's a very, very painful cycle, right? And so, yeah, it triggered, it's triggering, it's triggering.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

I mean, speaking of that manufacturing scenario though, like it's a thing that I think, you know, one of the things that I've been wishing wishing for for a while. Uh I don't know that you know, I'm I'm sharing something that's there's no there's no plan for implementing it in the immediate future. Uh, so it's still on the wish list, but it's like it would be appropriate that that you can schedule things that are also scheduled, and then that that sort of smart scheduling should be aware of the sort of schedule. So if you're thinking about like a production sort of production run machinery, like that machine has a production run, it's gonna be, you know, whatever, pumping out widgets at at uh, you know, for these hours, uh, don't set schedule service, like be you know, service should be scheduled aware of that production schedule. Uh, and that's obviously not just true in manufacturing scenarios. And so, yeah, that's a thing that we talked about internally that we think makes a lot of sense, but until we have some real crystal signal on customers who are like dying for it.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

I don't see us prioritizing it, but you know, I think customers have seen cool like scheduling other scheduling project products off saying that's way where you kind of have like a flight dispatch scheduling, you know, feat you know, like board really what it is, and they think, oh, I'll just apply this to this particular thing. And I I I just I feel like they're just they're competing, they're different products. Like, you know, really I'm just gonna throw this my first AI uh you can build a kind of a scheduler light.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

light for your scenario now using some cool cool libraries or just build your own web resource and you know do it that way I don't care but just stop abusing the schedule board sorry stop it the public service announcement stop it stop it and then saying it's just terrible just stop stop stop we do have you know we do have uh when we think about mal like we do significantly more mal scheduling than on FS because I think of so many people using it for not just FS scenarios and obviously uh it's also used in projects and in customer service but also it's used in these custom scenarios so yeah you're right total you could schedule anything but like it just you need to think about it I mean I get it I'm not saying not but like you could some of those niche scenarios they they just think about something else.

Career Paths And Community

SPEAKER_02 45:22

I'm with you that came up and I was like no no we're not gonna talk about them but uh no no no no the one thing that I would say is scheduling is a hard hard problem I mean it's the thing that we've been spending years on that we're still trying to get right you know we think we're doing a pretty good job but we know there's lots of very nobody knows our faults better than so I would I would uh I would advise not trying to vibe code a scheduling solution up on in the I know use other libraries say use other libraries but let them figure it out go ahead let them go for it let them go for it let them go for it let's see how much fun they have with time zones let's see how much fun that is with them let them figure it out yeah that's right no seriously let them do the time zone conversions let them have fun with that and I'm I'm I'm saying I'm saying that because yeah because because I think if people try to do it themselves or build it themselves then they'll have an appreciation for what's already been built and that'll help them understand scheduling. I mean when when I was making suggestions about vibe coding I'm saying like if you want something stupid simple like oh here's an appointment here to go there those are those scenarios where I think vibe coding is cute and fun. But when you're looking at something as robust as I'm gonna go back to that dispatch flight dispatch scheduling uh demo that we've seen other people do that's not as easy as it looks the UI is beautiful it's slick and it's cute but that's not as much that's not as easy as you think it is and that's a complex scheduling scenario that's already been thought out and presented to you. You, our customers for their business processes need to take the time to look at their business process and then come up with their scenario and then try to make a scheduling solution if they need to that fit that fits it to find and then that that's how that works. Instead of just jumping in and then coming in there and trying to make the schedule board fit a process that you haven't even defined yet and and then going to you guys and complaining about it.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

We do have some I know we're running out of time so well I want to give you the honors of asking the last question.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

No man you this is all you man this is you and Jason look I'm not I'm not asking Jason any more questions like that. I'm not because I already I already I already triggered him with the Ben Bulmer question and then he triggered me with the scheduling question on purpose. So it's tit for tat.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

And I I I I I I'm just gonna stop at the um I'm going you know what I'm gonna ask a non-field service question.

Closing Thanks And Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 48:04

Okay so you were on the west coast and now you're on you're in Georgia why why the uh speaking of time zones yeah speaking of time zones there you go scheduling but uh what prompted that moving and and how are you liking the east coast yeah join joining us on the east coast welcome to the dark side appreciate it yeah I mean obviously Dan's over here my my manager uh yeah P uh lead lead for field service as I mean I moved over the you know I mean at I guess at the time that I moved sort of late whatever basically sort of COVID is at least the time where we are on uh was kind of wrapping up but I went back to the office a number of times and nobody was there where everybody was working from home felt like at the time like what's the there's not a real center of grass uh and field service you know as a product we have people all over the all over the you know across Canada US and uh so there's not a so it felt like you know there's some flexibility here so my family uh is out here on the east coast my wife's family's out here on the east coast uh a young child so we decided to get closer to everybody else been nice with Dan it's made it easier to actually collaborate with some of our my European colleagues who work on on finance and supply uh because uh you know I'm slightly closer uh you know see several hours closer to and then you know I I also kind of shift my hours I shift my hours a little bit uh you know day to day still get online earlier than this but my core hours I try to make like 10 to 6 um which which then means that I have a little bit of time in the morning to like you know just go for a run whatever before I uh you know really try to pin myself to my desk so it's nice so you're saying we need to schedule calls for you at 9 a.m yeah that's right that's right I won't be there because I'll be out running something right now I didn't see I'll get online for some things that are important.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

I'll pretend I'm running with you about that. All right well any any last questions for Mr. Cohen?

SPEAKER_02 50:12

No Jason you're friggin' awesome we appreciate it we thank you and your team for what you guys have been pushing on you know what's some tough years but honestly we appreciate what you guys have done for and um looking forward to what seeing more awesome stuff from you guys.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

I appreciate that uh I appreciate again the chance to uh obviously share what a little about what we're doing and how we're thinking about uh and appreciate all the work that uh you know everybody does to like help customers implement this we know that that's often it's I would say it's probably more important than what we're doing because you know we're giving a decent base solution and so I appreciate the I appreciate getting the chance to sort of talk through this with everybody talk through you know talk through this through this channel with everybody to sort of share a little bit of how we think about things and uh appreciate all the work everybody does to make sure they help their customers.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

Parting public service announcement the product works your implementation needs help it's the reason why it fails or change management but it's not the product I mean I wouldn't say that I'd say that certainly but we have we have carry it plenty of our own uh we were trying to help man just roll with it just roll with it just roll with it that I know that I think we're perfect we know our sins more than anybody else Jason Jason Jason all they're gonna say is an MVP said it so just just just just yell at them just say hey an MVP said it MVP said this product is perfect.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

All right go for it I didn't say perfect I didn't say perfect no no wait no man that's what you just said roll the tape roll the roll the tape I do think though that you're right Scott change management is more important than technical changes when we think about these big implementations so you're right for you're 100% on spot on for that from that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Yeah look at that I'm right for the day all right I'm calling it all right well hey Jason it's been a pleasure as always I know we we chat a little bit online but it's been a pleasure having you on and uh we look forward to seeing what's coming out cool appreciate it thanks for the chance to chat uh talk again soon oh man