5 Ways You Can Better Manage Your Field Operations

Introduction

Field service management is more than just service tickets these days. A successful team is one that is proactive, this means that your field teams need to be connected with their resources and system of record at all times. That’s why the number of companies that use mobile workflows to manage their field operations is growing rapidly.

Leveraging Mobile Technology

Mobile technology is a great way to improve your field operations. The rise of smartphones and tablets has given us the ability to access information, capture data, and better manage workflows from anywhere on the planet. This flexibility has been a game changer for businesses that rely on mobile workers—and it could be for yours too.

• Use mobile technology to access and capture data in real time as you work in the field. You can use this information to enhance visibility and providing service faster and more efficiently than ever before.

• Mobile devices allow workers to monitor their own progress more closely, reducing bottlenecks caused by miscommunication or unforeseen circumstances like inclement weather conditions.

Know Exactly Where Everything Is

One of the most important things you can do to better manage your field operations is to know exactly where everything is. This may sound like an obvious point, but it’s surprising how often this simple concept gets overlooked. In addition to a fleet management system that tracks your vehicles and equipment, you should also use GPS tracking systems for employees and asset components.

A good example is solar company that uses a fleet management system to track its entire fleet and workforce through the course of their workday—from start to finish—so they can see exactly where everyone was at any given time during work hours in real time.

Track Travel Time

One of the most important pieces of data that you can track is travel time. After all, this is the time spent between jobs, and it's often a significant portion of your total day. If you're trying to manage field operations, it's crucial that you know how much time each employee spends traveling between jobs so they can be paid accordingly and accurately report hours worked.

Working with an app that tracks travel time will help ensure employees aren't being paid for more hours than they actually work—which will lead to better compliance with labor laws, fewer mistakes on invoices and reports, less overhead due to payroll errors (and therefore more money in your pocket), and happier employees who feel like they're treated fairly by their employer.

There are several tools available for managing field service management: mobile apps or paper logs or online forms; manual entries into spreadsheets by hand or automated inputs from GPS devices mounted on vehicles.

Manage Project Progress in Real-Time

You need to track progress in real time. Whether you're a manager, executive or board member, it's critical to stay on top of the progress of your field operations.

There are several ways you can do this:

• Integrate data from your field operations with other systems to gain insights about what's happening in the field and how it relates to other parts of your business.

Use data to measure and improve performance. Monitoring the performance of field operations is one of the most important ways you can keep tabs on your business. You'll be able to see how effective your operations are, which will help you identify areas for improvement and make decisions that will drive results.

Delete Simplify Automate

• Compile all the information about your field service in one place. This can be done by using a field service management app that integrates with your back-office systems and allows you to easily retrieve data as well as manage workorders and other interactions.

• Identify which metrics are important for measuring success, such as cost or time to resolution, then create dashboards that display these key indicators in real-time so that you're always aware of how your organization is performing on each one of them.

• Put together a framework for each type of activity happening within your organization so employees have clear guidelines on what's expected from them when carrying out tasks related to field operations management; this includes everything from defining roles & responsibilities between teams members through effective communication methods within teams themselves."

• Create standardized procedures for common workflows in the system of record.

• Automate manual tasks wherever possible, including creating work orders, assigning technicians, automated timekeeping via GPS technology, updating status reports with photos once they finish work orders - essentially anything that doesn't require human intervention!

Conclusion

Field service management is a key component of any business that maintains a product or service. In order to optimize it, you must first understand what the most important factors are. The five suggestions outlined here may not seem like much, but they can make all the difference when used together or even individually. So give them some thought and see if they can help improve your management processes!