Service X-Factor
Service X-Factor is the podcast where service operations stops being a cost center and starts being a competitive advantage. Hosted by Microsoft MVPs Scott LeFante and William McLendon, this show reveals the secret ingredients behind service operations success—transforming chaos into clarity and strategy into profits.
Service X-Factor
Beyond the White Van: Expanding Field Service Possibilities
Mark Christie, a Field Service expert and prominent community builder, joins hosts Scott LeFante and Will "Quad" McLendon to challenge conventional thinking about scheduling technologies and implementation approaches.
This wide-ranging conversation reveals how Universal Resource Scheduling (URS) differs from Field Service, providing the same scheduling capabilities without requiring work orders - a potential cost-saving approach for many organizations.
The discussion explores the nuanced distinction between resource scheduling (people) and asset scheduling (equipment), along with fascinating use cases that demonstrate field service's versatility beyond traditional scenarios. From tracking professional athletes' housing arrangements to managing drug testing procedures to booking sports facilities, Mark illustrates how the fundamental scheduling principles apply across diverse industries.
Looking forward, the hosts and Mark examine Microsoft's new scheduling optimization agents, which shift from traditional user licensing to a per-job transactional model. This approach potentially makes advanced scheduling capabilities more accessible to smaller organizations that previously couldn't justify the enterprise-level investment.
The episode concludes with a passionate discussion about community building within the Microsoft ecosystem, where Mark highlights his work with Scottish Summit and his commitment to increasing diversity and inclusion in technical spaces.
Whether you're a field service professional looking to optimize your implementation approach or a business leader exploring how scheduling technologies might transform your operations, this episode delivers practical insights and innovative perspectives you won't want to miss.
Hey there and welcome to the Service X Factor podcast. I'm Scott LaFonte, seven-time Microsoft MVP and field service strategist at CongruentX, and your guide for today's episode On this show. My co-host, fellow Microsoft MVP and service innovation guru, will McClendon, and I will spotlight the people, platforms and ideas that transform service teams from cost centers into revenue powerhouses. Each episode will unpack real-world wins, hard-learned lessons and the emergent tech reshaping the front lines Think AI, co-pilots, predictive analytics and everything in between. So grab your coffee, settle in and let's discover your organization's X -Factor together. Let's dive in X Factor together. Let's dive in. Welcome everyone to another episode of the Service X Factor podcast. I am one of your co-hosts, scott LaFonte, here with Big Will McClendon, my other co host. How's it going, will?
Speaker 2:It's going great and it's Quad for you, sir. You have to call me Quad.
Speaker 1:Quad. All right, that's right, Quad. I love it All right. Well, today we have another special guest across the pond from us who actually boasts a big sneaker game along with his field service skills, Mr Mark Christie. Mark, how's it going?
Speaker 3:Not too bad Yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hanging in there. It's a Friday morning here, you know, friday afternoon there for you, but I want to know more about this sneaker game before we get going into field service.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I'll answer the sneaker one, If you tell me first why is Will called Quad? Where did that name?
Speaker 2:come from. Oh, so I'm the fourth. That's a little-known secret about me. I'm actually the fourth in line, so you know my dad's the third. His father was junior, so so you can actually save right, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:I just never clicked. I actually have you saved. This will mcclendon the fourth on my phone and I never even thought about it, so it's not. Yeah, I may have a definitive. I like my trainers. I am, I don smoke, I don't drink, I don't do drugs. I don't go out that often. I just spend all my money on sneakers. I've got sneakers that are worth over $1,000 per pair batons right the way through to the ones that I'm looking at in the hallway Obviously great visual here for an audio podcast, but I have got some MB3 Puma. Did anyone ever watch a show? Dexter's Laboratory?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You've got to watch Dex man.
Speaker 3:Right. So I have got a pair of Dexter MB3s. When when you look at our you know the kids coloring books, you get where you've got the lines you've got to color in. They look like somebody stopped half of the coloring and a kid's etch a sketch or not, it's kaleidoscope style drawing. So yeah, that's that's kind of where where I am with that, but I I do like my, I kind of make that thing that every event I go to speak at I have a nice fresh new pair of Outlandish trainers.
Speaker 2:So Scottish Summit, you know we traveled over there. I forgot to bring the good sneakers and I look at them. I had some whack, new balances and I look at Mark's shoes. I just came from another event so you know my feet were swollen. I look at Mark and I was like God man, that man. So next year or when you do Scottish Summit, we'll make sure I have the J's. I got fours on for you today, but I want to make sure I have the J's next year so we represent correctly. Just so you know that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm On that note. Mark, I see you a lot on LinkedIn. You're obviously well known in the dynamics and power platform space, but also a lot within field service in general, and so that's why we're glad to have you on board here to talk about all things service slash, field service. I know Quad has a lot of he's been salivating. He's got a lot of good questions for you in terms of scheduling, so I'm going to turn over the first question to Quad.
Speaker 2:Well, we've all been there before, right, like Scott, you've worked with it. Mark's worked with it, so we're talking about URS. We all know what it's for. Mark's worked with it. So we're talking about URS. We all know what it's for. But you know, mark. Why don't you give our audience a glimpse of what you, as someone who's worked with it and delivered it on multiple projects, multiple customers from multiple scenarios? What is URS for?
Speaker 3:So URS is Universal Resource Scheduling. So for me it's obviously it is the same schedule board you're using in field service. But when I'm talking to customers, when we get leads come in, customers are always like oh, I need field service. It needs to be field service. Field service is what we're doing. So for me, the first part of conversation isn't do you need field service. It is more what is the requirement? Like, are you going to be scheduling engineers? Do you want to do invoices? Are you using products and services? What about a mobile app? It's actually determining what you are wanting to use scheduling for.
Speaker 3:Because I kind of take take the holistic approach that when somebody says field service, they're talking about scheduling. They've just they've googled field, they've googled servicing and microsoft then has come up field service. So kind of asking the questions but the thing with with urs, I'd say it is the same schedule board. It uses the same resources, it uses the same skills, but it doesn't use work orders. So you can actually choose what tables you customize and use yourself. You use it in a sales. So you can actually choose what tables you customize and use yourself. Use it in a sales environment. You can actually schedule cases or you can build fully custom entities so it gives you the extensibility to be able to take customer service and use the schedule board for that.
Speaker 3:My biggest thing that I like about that is more around the licenses. Being scottish, I'm really cheap. I don't want somebody to have to buy a customer service license to to use customer service and then buy field service attached to use field service. What work works smarter, not with more money and see can I actually use universal resource scheduling to meet my needs rather than use two products. So yeah, that was a long answer for a basic question.
Speaker 2:No, it's great, yeah, it hits the nail right there on the head, because you know, when they say field service 99.5, they're also talking about scheduling and folks don't understand. They're two different products. But that leads me into something I wanted to ask you because you kind of mentioned it. We're around use cases. Can you explain to our audience? I think they'll find value in it? There is a distinct difference between resource scheduling and asset scheduling. Can you tell them? Tell them the differences between that?
Speaker 3:yeah, so. So I mean, resource scheduling is usually people or groups, and whereas assets are I want to schedule a cherry picker, or I want scaffolding, or I thought you were going somewhere with that question about some of my interest in field service deployments and I thought that's where you were going. But I will answer that no, we're not going that for this show.
Speaker 2:That's the after hours show.
Speaker 1:That's the after show, that's after we record.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, scheduling items that people need, whether it's some people will use it for scheduling right, I need the jerry picker, I need the scaffolding I need and to hire part, but some people actually for fire. So rather than just say, okay, I would like an engineer to come out, that's, I would like this air compressor for five days, and it's booking out those assets rather than booking out the people. Sometimes you get both right things you need the asset and you need to hire a person that goes with that right, and so you would create that as an incident type potential and as a person and as the facility, the equipment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the beauty of scheduling right. I mean, it's so flexible in terms of what you can schedule, and not just record wise, but the type of resource or the grouping of resources you know, crews and things of that nature. I think that's where the true value comes in is. I mean, if you're just doing basic scheduling and it's working for you, that's great. But if you have more complex or robust requirements, you know there's probably a good chance that there's functionality. We chance that there's. There's functionality. We know that there's things that mark that you've done. I know quads done as well to extend the schedule ward. I think I'm gonna call you quads now and I said knock on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, it worked because all my instances that you ever spun up for over the past two years have had quad, is the username just throwing it out there. So I see an environment go quad, go quad. I like it so. But to that, mark Scott, we've done some crazy stuff with the schedule board. There's been some days where, like you know, hey, this isn't going to necessarily work, like, for example, factory lines, you know, versus people on those lines, right, these are the kinds of things that make it a little difficult. I know I've used alternatives. Not, these are the kind of things that make it a little difficult. I know I've used alternatives it's not a knock on the product, but I've used alternatives. Mark, I would love because this is why we brought you on if you could share some of your alternatives to the schedule board.
Speaker 3:I'm going to actually answer a question you didn't ask before this, though, like we mentioned, going in creating the schedule boards and customizing them. We mentioned like going in creating the schedule boards and customizing them. I would. So if you've ever done field service, you know a field service implementation is more like an fno implementation. You do not have to customize field service. As long as you know the data model on field service and you can import and load in the data the correct way, I would say you can meet 95% of customer requirements.
Speaker 3:I genuinely, for people that spend months or months customizing field service, you're doing it wrong and that's just me being really brutal. It's all about the data. You can get a customer up and running in ten days, no matter the volume of data. As long as you get the data incorrectly and you've done the workshops, you understand what the processes are, what their skills are, their resources, products and incentives you genuinely can get a customer out of the box up and running in 10 days. Then take the time and let them tell you what the gaps are.
Speaker 2:Wow 30 was good 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so that's because that's good, mark's, mark's incredible. But to be so, shout out to ream if she's, if she's watching ream on time. I think it was like five years ago we were on a client and she illustrated the best way I've ever heard it said. She said I've told the customer hey, field service is data driven, scheduling is data driven, rso is data driven. So what is your data? So shout out to re. Said I've told the customer hey, field service is data driven, scheduling is data driven, rso is data driven. So what is your data? So shout out to ream. I've stole that line and if any of my customers hear me say it, it's because of her. But yeah, to that point, mark, if your data is right and the data model is great, then you know thumbs up. But remember, getting the data right is oftentimes the hardest obstacle for for most of our customers, because they don't necessarily understand their data.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, that's their problem. If you can get from the data, if you can get from the templates and explain what it is, it's up to them to get that data right. Yeah, I mean, let's be honest, nowadays there are so many different AIs and GPs that can do a lot of this, but I think a lot of the fundamentals of them getting their data right is using how the format is and how you're going to import it, because the terminology that field service uses for us in Europe isn't really like nothing makes sense. A work order nobody uses that terminology.
Speaker 3:Incident types like these are very Americanized. I mean, I don't even know if they're even Americanized or if it's just legacy from your old Field 1 scan. But explaining what an incident type is or what a resolution type is, or bookable resource, booking, characteristic skill, explaining what these stupid tables all mean, it's being able to explain to the customer what the data is and in what format, because they probably do have all of that data. They've just put it in five different places and call it five different things, so it's just being able to educate them.
Speaker 1:No, you're right. And how it's all related together, right, and I think that's the big thing. Right. Cleaning the data, that, ok, you know, look, if your data is dirty, yeah, that might take some time but you know, to get the day and it's our job to say, hey, we need it, this is how we need it, this is what goes in first, second, third, fourth, fifth, so on and so forth. You know, and that's where that comes into play. And to your point, I mean, I love the idea of right. It shouldn't take months. Right, at the end of the day, get foundational work, field service up and running, right, you can always build on top of it as you're moving along. But if you do these massive projects like it's an erp doing, you know this big bang approach field service. You know chances are adoption is going to be really low and you've over configured it or over customized it when you don't even know what everyone's going to want or need.
Speaker 3:period I mean, I've got a lot of customers that are coming from excel and shared output calendars like you've got all these grand ideas of what you want, but bullshit, let's just. Let's just get it into the system, get it working, and then tell me why it doesn't work for you, because that is it like. Here's a solution. This is a tried and tested method that Microsoft or field one sky before that I've been using for 15 years. This is the, the gold standard, the template. The place where Microsoft spend a lot of their R&D money is doing the processes. So let's use out the box process, let's load the data in, run it for three months, then we'll review. Tell us what works well, tell us what doesn't work well. But by that time the customer's already using it, they're already paying their license, they're now buying more days from you. That's a good soft intro for it as well.
Speaker 2:So to that point I'm going to go into this, guys, and my apologies if I sound like I was just moving the needle a little bit, because I just want to be cognizant of your time and our time and just want to ride on this point for a second. Use cases. Right, let's go into schedule board. So, Mark, you've had some amazing use cases with PowerPages and Force Teams. It's legendary what you've done. But I want to get into configuration about the schedule board.
Speaker 2:So when I take the schedule board and let's say I have a hospital and they have a receptionist and they want to do something as simple as look at what time a patient is in or where the patient is, because you know, somebody comes up and they say, hey, I'm here to see Will McClendon, right, and if you think about that, that can be a little bit complicated. So you know, we have our contacts. We may think Will McClendon is a contact and we can look at the hospital room and it'll find it. But if you look at the way the schedule board is laid out and how it displays data, that's a little bit more tough. So sometimes you have to use alternatives or something simpler. What are some alternatives to scheduling that you have found that have helped some of your customers to kind of, let's say, accelerate the process or be a better fit.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to again give a couple of different answers here. One and I hate this answer and I hate myself for giving the answer, and, well, I hate you for asking the question.
Speaker 2:That's what I think it is. Oh God, yes, that's great. Copilot is good. Edit that out. Yeah, Copilot.
Speaker 3:Copilot is a marketing machine for Microsoft. What I would say is right hats off the field service team. The field service team have actually done well with their field service co-pilot stuff. If you look at sales and you look at some of the customer service stuff, they're co-pilots for the sake of being co-pilots, whereas I actually feel that there is value from the field service co-pilots. But get a little bit clever. So create your own co-pilot or, sorry, agents. We're calling them this week and maybe next week by the time the podcast comes out, they're called something different, but for now, the artist yeah, they are artists, formerly known as co-pilot, prod agents, agents, organisational agents create a power automate that where you put the name in, it will come back and then it will just return when their appointments are, what rooms they are and using the good old adaptive cards quite clever to use them.
Speaker 3:There's different methods and ways of bringing back that data that you don't have to use a schedule board. You can be clever with your data. Again, everything is data driven. That data that you don't have to use a schedule board. You can be clever with your data. Again, everything is data driven. I I don't really care what product I use or when I use it, it is 95 about data model, five percent about the application layer. If your data is good, you can literally do anything you want with that data. There's a a phrase for data shit in, shit out. You've probably heard that phrase. That is 100% field service. If you've got bad data, you're getting bad results, but if your data's good, you're getting good results.
Speaker 3:But alternative, going down that route, I've used things before like FLS, fast, lean, smart for doing it. There are PCF components out there. There's using gridids, because people look at the schedule board and think, oh yeah, the schedule board's great. Have you actually ever just looked at your work orders and created a nice view for your work orders? Group your view by certain things, especially with the new. I see you using the power apps, grid control, where you can have different colors and you can filter by statuses. You can group things being clever with views as well. Again, you don't have to go at the nth degree getting the little developers out of the basement and stuff like that. You can literally just view the views and build stuff out correctly, and so that that's where I would go with that is, be clever and listen to what your customer wants, because what your customer wants isn't always necessarily what you think is cool and what you want to build. Listen to what they actually want and actually need yeah shout out to the great that's great.
Speaker 2:The fls guys did a phenomenal job with legit routing. I say routing specifically from going from point A to point B. That product is gnarly and they did a really, really good job. So shout out to the FLS guys on that.
Speaker 3:I mean when I'm asked about it, because I sometimes come up against competes, against the FLS, or they're looking for it because people think that their field service, especially when we go down the RSO FLS is about getting the right person to the right job as quick as you can, whereas RSO is more about job and getting the job done correctly. They are two very distinct products with two very different outcomes and they complement each other very well. So it's about choosing the right tool at the right time. We don't just because we're in field service and we wear the Microsoft hat doesn't mean that that's it's best platform for someone yeah, yeah and I think that's.
Speaker 1:That's great, that's a great uh analogy, right, because at the end of the day, right? Yes, we are in microsoft platform and there's a lot of tools out there that you could utilize, but it doesn't mean that it's the only it's. It's the right fit, right, so may not be the right fit. It also may not be the right fit from right if you have thousands of resources you want to schedule. It may not be the right fit from a price point either. And got some things.
Speaker 1:Those are some things that you know organizations need to take a look at.
Speaker 2:Yes, Scott, scott, mark, you guys have been in there. Somebody has put the bug in their ear. It drives me nuts. They say RSO will optimize your situation in your fix, your use case. You know, we know the difference between for our audience, but can you guys help them understand the difference between optimized resource scheduling versus routing from point A to point B? There's a distinct difference, right? Could you guys help them understand why RSO is a complete monster than FLS in that use case?
Speaker 3:Yes, I mean for the resource scheduling optimization. It's about getting getting the resource and it's about the jobs. So I need to do this job and this priority, whereas FLS is more about the resource and getting the resource to the job quickest, so it's about route planning, it's about mapping, which is really good at what it does, and that's the distinction. One is about getting people to the job quickest to get more jobs in. The other is about getting the right person to the job to get the first thing fix and as a as an end user or as a customer, you want a scheduling engine and you either want it because you're trying to get more jobs in per day or you're trying to get your first time fix rate. Yep, that's how I try and define it too.
Speaker 1:And honestly I mean I preach all the time at conferences about first time fixed rate and what it means if your first time fixed rate is low, what that means from a cost perspective to your organization.
Speaker 3:It's amazing. So I was working, so this is a very weird scenario. So I'll set it up a little bit. Microsoft came to me me they had a customer. That customer was using field service in about six territories and throughout the world. They wanted to do a large implementation of rso, which is great, fine, no problem. Nobody at microsoft knew how it worked and couldn't demo it. And we're talking this is in the last six months, and so microsoft actually paid for us to approve for concept for a customer. Really, really strange.
Speaker 3:But their requirements were number of jobs. So they were doing 4.2 jobs per person per day. They wanted to increase that to 4.7 and I'm like it doesn't seem like a lot. They had 1700 engineers just in the uk. So when you actually look at, okay, 0.5 jobs per day over the 1700, that actually worked out about 850 extra jobs per day a week, 12 000 and 1 200 120 000 a month extra jobs, and their minimum hourly charge was £70. So that was close to an extra million pound a year just by having that extra half a job per day. And you don't like when you're thinking half a job a day, it's not worth me even getting out of my bed and you looking at this product for that. But when they stepped out, this is what they were looking at. Day, it's not worth me even getting out of my bed and you looking at this product for that. But when they stepped out and this is what they were looking at and it's like wow, that actually really does make sense.
Speaker 1:It is a really good use case yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's a fair point, so it doesn't have to be to your point, like big numbers, like hey, we, we're gonna get three more jobs per resource, per tech, per day. Half a job, depending on how many texts you have. Right, and that's what it is. How many? How many texts do you have? If you have ten, alright, you know, is the juice worth the dough now?
Speaker 3:but if you have 1700 Proves in the pudding, yeah, and the part I always try to tell people as well field service is an enterprise level application for enterprise level customers. It also has an enterprise level price tag. There are so many small businesses that cannot afford the. What are we now? $80 per user per month, I think is the current cost cost if you're a small 5, 10, 15, the implementation costs and the fuel service licenses you're hitting about three years before you're getting proper return on investment for that. If there was just something in that little gap there that could fill that little gap, it would have been amazing, so real quick about filling in the gaps there there have been.
Speaker 2:People go.
Speaker 2:Oh god, I hope you hadn't you're gonna get me that was great all right, you gotta put that in the bloopers. So yeah, about that. You know, when I first started implementing field service, it was never really just hey, let's do one large, massive implementation. We kind of took an iterative approach. Let's do work order management, let's talk about asset servicing, let's let's do inventory management right, it's bits and pieces. Now you guys have something special in the pot, right, proximo has something special with the field service light. Can you tell us a little bit about?
Speaker 3:that, yeah. So I'm going to to probably break ndas here, but I mean I'm too. Because one is there was a product that microsoft were working on that was about a week away from delivery and that was a light version of field service that would sit within teams actually as an m365 app and would use the back end of field service as a database. Really nice product, works really really well, was basic and it would hit that small market. The other really good thing about that was it was actually in 365 and office sellers were going to be the people who were selling it, so it wasn't just your, your biz app sales people. There was a whole new market that I was going to hit and the UK obviously isn't as big as the States in terms of size and companies. So there are customers there that are five to fifty resources that that want to use field service and this would have been perfect for them. So that unfortunately did get canned very, very close to release.
Speaker 3:So we had a lot in the pipeline. So we've actually gone out and built a a light field service. So we're still using common data model a light field service. So we're still using common data model. We've built out an extra six custom tables. So we have jobs, we have job requests, we have skills, we have user skills and we have two other tables that fly from the current, remember.
Speaker 3:But what we've also done on the back of that is the schedule board is nice in field service and we've tried to replicate that by building our own pcf. Now what we've done is the pcf, that microsoft, the schedule board is now pcf. There's a lot of rich functionality on that and it is. It is good. We've leveraged, using the manifest and the pcfs, to be able to build out customization and make it customizable so that you can decide what are your resources, what is your job tables, etc. And so that you can schedule on the schedule board and drag and drop things on to it and it will update the child records and move the time. Well, I bet, like the, the current schedule board will do, and but a bit nicer looking. No, not as much in features, but it just hits that market. That's there.
Speaker 2:Have you guys already dropped? That Is it, or is it in development?
Speaker 3:It is currently going through AppSource verification at the moment, so I would expect AppSource verification at the moment. I probably expect it to drop in the next 90 days Awesome.
Speaker 2:That would be awesome. We'll want to be on the next 90 days. We'll want to be on the lookout for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We know how the application goes Don't get me started on that one. It's a lightweight application to try and hit that smaller market. The way that they were pricing is really we're giving the data model away for free and we're charging for the PCF component. Now that can be available globally, yes, but it must be transacted through app source. We don't want to do any of the billing off it, we're just letting that all go through there which is how, honestly, I think a lot of things are going to move anyway to be.
Speaker 2:you know that's another topic for another day how I feel where we're going with this whole thing, right.
Speaker 1:I want to get back to one thing, though. So we talked about RSO. Mark, have you played around with the preview scheduling optimization agent?
Speaker 3:I actually think they're quite cool. Again, the field service team are actually a fair play to Dan and the team. I mean as for some, I think I'm ever going to give him any credit for anything but and it is really good and it makes sense. I mean, I think we we're all aware of the fact that field service is going to go away from licenses. You're not going to be buying licenses anymore. You're going to be paying per job. Everything on the power platform is going to be a transactional thing. You're going to pay, paying per job. Everything on the power platform is going to be a transactional thing. You're going to pay per job. So with the operational agents, it means that you're going to be paying per job, scheduled or rescheduled. That that's the way things are going and I actually again think it lowers the bar to entry in the system because you're not having to buy the licenses. You could be a five user system and just by the number of jobs that you're scheduling, from what I can gather, that is going to be a minimum number of jobs that you have to transact per month. So if you schedule 50 jobs per month, you might have to buy a bucket, but it's still. I think it's a good model.
Speaker 3:Obviously, operational agents just know the way that they're working and the way that you can configure them, the configuration settings for them. If you've ever used RSO before, it is exactly the same, yeah. So I would say RSO is very much going to disappear, die and be set up off in flames. I've been told that, no, it's not. It's still going to disappear, die and be set off in flames. I've been told that, no, it's not, it's still going to be there for now. But I sorry that wasn't the words, it was continue selling it and there'll be a migration path.
Speaker 2:I think it was the exact words that I was yeah, I was going to say that you got an eyebrow raise from me on that one.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, and we've used it and I've been using the optimization agent in one of our environments here at Congro at X, and you know, besides the fact that right now, right, you can't do bulk updates of resources, it's one at a time it is a heck of a lot easier than configuring RSO yes, 100%, I mean, and it is so close to just being able to detect everyone on that view because, remember, when you create, when you're building out your rso, you're supplying your view of your and resources and your view of your jobs.
Speaker 3:That's part of the configuration, whereas if you can just go directly to the view and select the ones you want to schedule, it makes it so much easier. But, again, I do think people will forget that it's a cost per schedule and get shocked at the end of the month when they're rescheduling jobs every 25 minutes.
Speaker 2:All right. So I'm going to be the bad guy here, I'm going to throw this out there. So, if you're able to define what your end goal is, is it best resource matching? Is it time you know what is your goal? Some of these items where you can be built by yourself using whatever technology you may want to use, right, you can do linear programming, you can do learning, you can do well, you can even use Power Automate to map it. With the Azure function, you can do a thousand different ways to do it.
Speaker 2:Where do you think the org companies are going to really then be able to define the value, because some of these technologies are out there already and they can just jump in and use it. Where do you think Microsoft is going to go with hey, we built this nice little agent, it's automatically integrated into our component, our control versus hey, I can throw something from Syncfusion or hell. Hey, I can throw something from sync fusion, or hell, I can go call Mark, he has a PCF and I have my own. You know, endpoint, that I that can do the mathematics for my optimization already there. How are they going to compete? I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:well, this is a very philosophical question. Well, I'm surprised that you were able to do this one.
Speaker 2:So, and I think I am going to text you some thoughts I would say so.
Speaker 3:There's a few comments I have around this one microsoft and ai and I think ai in general is currently about five years. Our companies are. We have all these cool tools and all of the cool machine learning and all of the the ai and all of gpts that can do anything. Businesses don't know what they need and what they they can get from an ai thing, just like we had the digital transformations. I think in about three or four years everyone is going to be doing an ai transformation. I don't think anyone is anywhere near properly ready to do this right now. So what we're giving people is obviously Microsoft have got all of the back end AI machine learning, everything that's running in the background, realistically right. Copilot is just a graphical, nice interface for the back end.
Speaker 2:With actions being power, automate right. It just blows my mind that folks haven't gotten the difference between AI versus automation, but remember as well.
Speaker 3:Power Automate is just a nice graphical front end for a logic.
Speaker 3:That's all it is True, true, true. So, and the same with Customer Voice. Customer Voice is the same as something in the background as well, Kind of a little bit of what exactly it is. But Microsoft are really good at building out the infrastructure, the hardware and the large like the AI foundries, etc. But putting that nice graphical interface in the front of it and that's what's allowing people with a kind of low bar of entry to get into using it. That's what's allowing people with a low bar of entry to get into using it. I don't think that companies are ready for large-scale AI right now. One, their data is not in that place Nobody's data, because if people are making business decisions based on horrible data, then that company is not going to be there for two months longer. You still need to make sure People are going to spend years getting their data and their documentation and their processes right before they even touch AI. True that?
Speaker 2:drives me nuts. If your data is wonky, then your AI, because it's just going to reference your data. It's going to give you some wonky responses, because it's just going to reference your data. It's going to give you some wonky responses. So I do. When we were talking, when the AI bug, like you know, first really hit and folks were looking at it and they were, you know. One of my conversation point was how does your data look right? Are you sure that it's clear? Are you sure that it's accurate? And you know you can. Microsoft's done a great job through Azure AI Foundry, giving organizations the ability to kind of add in some of those guardrails to make it efficient. But again, the heart and soul of it is going to be the customer's data so.
Speaker 2:I think we spent a significant amount of time helping customers organize it. I think having good data stewards those areas are going to really add value. You said three years. I was a little bit more pessimistic, but I think we're going to move in the right organizations. I think we're in said three years. I was a little bit a little bit more pessimistic, but you know we'll, we'll. I think we're going to move in the right organizations. I think we're at the right, right place. I think organizations have had this oh my god, what have we gotten ourselves into? Moment and now and now it's like, okay, folks, you know, up in the process, you need to go and, like you know, I think we'll. I think we're going to be in a good spot, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll give you an example. We've got some customers who are co-pilot-only customers. One of them is a dairy company and what they've done is they have put in the UK legislation for dairy produce what standards everything has to meet. They've put in their own recipes what their best-selling recipes are, and they've asked co copilot to then build out additional recipes for them. Like that is a clever use of copilot. They have the way that is pretty good and so. So yeah, using things clever like that, that is a very used case.
Speaker 2:That's not something you'd run a whole business on, but quite clever all right, so moving into that space of clever use cases, so field service, get back into field service. Field service, we know it. It hit the ground with manion and just took off right. We know that that's the area in space that it just, really, quite frankly, dominates in very well. You, though, however, have had some very interesting field service use cases, allowing you to also leverage the Power Platform to extend it. You want to talk about some of the sport, how you use it in the sports medicine area.
Speaker 3:So there's a few different things. So, in terms of sports wise, we use facility booking. So you've got an AstroTurf football pitcher, you've got an astroturf football picture, you've got an ice rink that you want to book time on, and that can be done through scheduling, because you're just scheduling the facility, but kind of where I think you're going is around the collection of urine from samples for no I wasn't going to't going there.
Speaker 1:Well, we can go there.
Speaker 3:So I was working with an agency who I mean they're a US based company called Randox yeah, so Will will probably be drug tested enough. You'll probably know them. But what they do is they do workplace drug testing and again, it's just fundamental field service. They need a resource, which is a person collecting it, they need a facility, and that facility is a place where the tests are happening and the equipment is the tube. They then also do the send away of it and then they post the results back on power pages.
Speaker 3:So again, when you've got, you've got the need, you've got the requirement, you've got the resource, you've got the, the job which is actually doing it, it is fundamental field service. When you take your fields, the, your field service hat off and think it's scheduling, it's a person in a van, it's hvac. If you've got a job, you've got a person, you've got a job, you've got a person, you've got a need and you've got a customer. That is what field service is. I've got quite a lot of other unique use cases. I've even spent time with Microsoft sales team going through them with the field service team, just to explain that it's not just a man in a white van with a bag of tools. There's so many different things that can be done yeah, yeah, that was actually one of his.
Speaker 2:Just so you guys know we're not looking like we're creep boys. Mark's what is mark's uh session? Because mark does public speaking events and does a great job. One of the sessions was about how field service is more than a guy and a white man. So you know it.
Speaker 1:Just that's why yeah, that's why we're hysterically laughing over here.
Speaker 2:So you know, Mark, you also had a use case. So you know you made the intro for myself and Franco. So Franco is phenomenal, so shout out to Franco, one of the best ever did it with PowerPages. You also had a use case whoever does it, I'm sorry by that, franco. You also had a use case where athletes can go into it, kind of like a portal, and they can then adjust or bid or move to different teams, correct?
Speaker 3:So that's field service.
Speaker 2:Not field service, but we also.
Speaker 3:So my background before I got into IT, I was a professional soccer coach for ten years, so that was my background. We then built IP around sponsorship management and sports. So it's a sales process, but it's a unique one for the sports industry, where they're not selling physical items, they're selling sponsor boards, they're selling advertsverts, they're selling sponsor the goal at the new york. That's the sort of thing that they're doing. So so that's one part of it. But we also have a player management.
Speaker 3:So what not a lot of people don't realize is when, when clubs sign players, they sometimes give them houses, they give them cars, and there's no way of tracking that.
Speaker 3:So we've got a system, especially in Europe. In Europe, in ice hockey, basketball, there's a lot of imports, so each team has like 16 North American imports. That means 16 cars, that means 16 visas and contracts, et cetera. So we've got a system that allows you to register your players, assign them houses, take the reading of the gas when you go into the house and tell you how many miles you've got in the car when you get the car. But the portal side, if it allows them to log into the portal to supply their pay slips, to supply their passports, their driving licenses, etc. Then that's transferred or it's when it's saved, it goes straight into dataverse and then the admin team can pick up that information. Rather than scanning it in the office, putting it in a filing cabinet, losing it, misplacing the passport, it's all done digitally. So you have all of that to your fingertips that's yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty slick.
Speaker 1:You know, I know I wanted to get back real, real quick. I know we're almost out of time, but talk about all the different scheduling options that comes in so critical. In the healthcare industry. I've had so many demos and process. We don't schedule resources, we schedule patients to rooms, we doctors to patients, and this and you know all the different scheduling functions.
Speaker 1:And so I think to your point is, you know the flexibility of maybe it's not to schedule before, but maybe it's to your point. Maybe you're using different sorts of views and you're filtering things, or maybe you're using a different PCF control, or maybe you're contacting, you know, mark at Proximo. Look at their scheduling tools. So there's a lot of different things. But I think, from a implementation partner, we have to be careful of not to look inside the box but outside the box in terms of you know, listen, truly listen to what the customer is is asking for, and not necessarily fit them into that, that square peg into the round hole yeah, a hundred percent, because one of the things that I think a lot of people forget is you can just go on your work fund availability and it will bring back who's available.
Speaker 3:You don't always need a schedule board. Yeah, use a schedule assistant. You don't always need a schedule board. Yeah, you use a schedule assistant.
Speaker 2:You don't always need a schedule board to your point mark like this is where I I love. So this is where the microsoft hit the nail on the head. Right, that search resource ability api that the schedule assistant uses is open. You can do everything you want with the click of a button, just leveraging this api. Like it is, so powerful, people just sometimes just don't know about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's it. That is what I mean. Again, that's what you can look at. The API is there. It can be used for it to work within. So here's the trick. So I'm going to go when I because we came a cropper with this one we were looking at could we actually use the schedule board api for the pcf that we were building? To use the api for the schedule board, you still need either a customer service or a field service license correct because you don't get it so right.
Speaker 3:We had to. We had to build all that using some some interesting fetch queries. But yeah, it's you, that is one of the biggest things. You don't have to use the schedule board. But yeah, it's you, that is one of the biggest things. You don't have to use the schedule board. You can create a PCF button if you want. That goes away and finds it. So if you walk on to the portal, if you use the field service template power page, it's using the schedule board API as well to find the regular ability yes.
Speaker 3:So just utilizing that and it's not a difficult API, I mean, if you've been able to build on top of it that can assess the bar of where it is, and yeah, 100%, you got jokes.
Speaker 2:Hold on, you see, that was messed up, mark. You got jokes. All right, I got you. I'm going to get you for that one. Scott, did you have any other technical questions on that?
Speaker 1:No, no, no more technical questions.
Speaker 2:You mind if I take the ball real quick and just do something real crazy here. This is it. You go for it, juan. All right, so here's the deal. For folks who may not know Mark does so much for the community on the record and off the record. He is him and Ian are probably the kind of souls that I've met in my life. Now, to that point, mark, for folks who don't know, you and Ian have done so much for Scottish Summit. Do you want to talk about some of your community activities and why community is so important in our not just our industry but, heck, in our space? You want to go and talk about that for a bit?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So for me, the Microsoft platform is a very unique community. I've worked in different industries where if you're working on similar projects, you hate the person next to you who's doing that project from a different company. You don't like them. That that's how it is like. If you're a salesperson and you've got a friend who's a salesperson, you never talk about what you're doing, you don't discuss it, whereas I feel the microsoft community is open. Like I've spoke to people when we've been bidding on the same bit of work and like we've asked questions of each other like how would you do it? Like that it's there. The openness, the ability to help is just different from any other industry or community I've ever seen. So being able to to help people get into it. So I everyone, I mean.
Speaker 3:I think I make it quite obvious I am not really a fan of the MVP programme. I think it is not diverse and it is not inclusive. I have said this from day one, but one of the things I really wanted to do by being in the programme is help get it there. I call out quite often If you have ever seen me on LinkedIn and I am quite vocal on certain things and non apologetic for it? Because there's there is a lack of diversity, lack of inclusion within the whole community. So I spend a lot of time in the background and I say, well, a lot of people don't know this, I may not have quite a lot of people in the background when people are running events. They always come to me and ask questions about events. I can, I can give people advice around them and because I want to, to help people be able to get to the next stage where they can then start helping people get into the community, take the next steps, like the first ever scottish summit that we ran, we were told in sc, in Scotland there isn't a community. You'll not get more than 30 people at an event. That's genuinely what we were told. We got 300 to that first event. There was then a big disparity on male and female speakers.
Speaker 3:Our second Scottish summit event. We had more female speakers than male speakers at the event. So every time we've done something, but we were the first night of the event ever have a deaf keynote speech that was done in sign language. And again, that wasn't because we were trying to have demographic. That's because we knew a really good speaker who we thought had an empowering story and we wanted that person to be able to tell it, and so we're trying to break down doors and windows, because you usually go through the window to steal things from people, don't you? Well, so so so we we try to break down the barriers and give everyone the the ability to, to showcase what they can do, whether it be technical skills, whether it be social skills, whether it be marketing skills, whatever they've got that they not even necessarily feel that they're going to have value with. What they want to bring, and what they want to share is is being able to give people the opportunity and the platform to do that.
Speaker 3:So, like when I'm speaking, where have I been recently? I was at dynamics mines in portrose and slovenia, so I've done a panel session on how to get into public speaking. So, explaining, I had a panel of four different people explaining. These four different people took four different roads to get into the community and getting into speaking. Because the four different opinions, hopefully the people that were in the audience at that point. Hopefully one of these resonated with get into the community and getting into speaking because the four different opinions, hopefully the people that were in the audience at that point. Hopefully one of these resonated with them. Who are there as attendees to then maybe think well, actually, if somebody like that can do it and that's their background, then maybe I can do it. So so it's just hopefully giving people opportunity, courage, a little bit of thought to to be able to get out there and just take that next step.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah, I think when my second session, my first time speaking about anything technical, when I started hitting the road on this I think it was Scottish Summit and the funniest thing in the world is, mark. I didn't know how I got that session, I didn't know how large it was, it was virtual, it was during the pandemic, but it wasn't until afterwards when, you know, people came up and I started getting messages about certain things that I realized you know what I actually was part of and it always been eternally gratefully for for that. But it's folks like you surprised they allow you into Scotland.
Speaker 1:Well, no.
Speaker 2:I went last year for the first time, but that was. I had a weird travel experience. But you know, amazing event, it's a great event. And so, for those who don't know, this is the last time for 2026, right, that that you'll be throwing the hosting event no, I'm not listening.
Speaker 3:No, the last event, actually my, my last one, with me moving to norway, I thought you were going to do one more. No, there is going to be one more, but it's not going to be me. And well, I've got a question for you. Well, so when you were in person in scotland talking about field service with our mr van ballmer, and how did that session go?
Speaker 2:okay. So that was one of the most amazing sessions of my life and here's how it happened, right. So you, you, you know it's been an eye on stage and we initially start and it's, it's, it's, it's been being been right. So he's munching through the notes, it's so, and so in all of a sudden, the doors open up and you guys ever seen prince and purple rain with the smoke coming out of the back?
Speaker 2:you know it comes it comes, mark christie in this purple suit. No, it comes, mark christie. Mark gets on the stage and it turns into this awesome panel and for me it was living the dream. Man, it was ben, it was mark, and know, an hour can't capture all the things that Mark has done for field service and scheduling. But you know, folks got a good session because we're not just you know, we're not just, we don't just know each other, we're friends, we consider ourselves family, I consider Mark family, but you know, I, you know clearly I don't talk to him enough, but anyway, but it was just that great moment. For me it was like living the dream because I privately pinged Mark about things technically and so you know, ben is also one of the guys you all know, ben Vollmer. He's done a lot for field service. In fact he's just you know, he breeds field service.
Speaker 3:Do you know? The best thing he ever done for field service.
Speaker 2:Leave it.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly that One of the things so that session was really good. I love being with you, but one of the things that actually made that. My daughter was helping out at Scottish Summit so she actually came in and watched me. She never, she has no idea what the community is, what these events are and stuff. So my daughter actually came into the room and watched me up on stage. So that for me was like a huge, huge thing man, that is so cool man well, we gotta wrap, we gotta wrap it up guys.
Speaker 2:So I just wanted to say straight up, mark man, thank you so much for coming. My brother, we greatly appreciate it. Scott, you got anything you want to say, sir?
Speaker 1:No, I definitely appreciate your wisdom, your rifts towards Quad Love it, love it. But no, I appreciate everything that you do for one the community and the field service and the platform. So, mark, it's been a true pleasure having you on today, so I appreciate you taking the time during your end of day, on a Friday, no less.
Speaker 3:I just thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you everyone for listening and we'll see you next time. Thank you, thank you.
