Customize the work order form

Article
06/26/2024

While setting up Field Service for your organization, you might have to customize the forms that back office workers like dispatchers, service managers, and other roles use to view important information and document their work. IT administrators might customize Field Service forms so users can capture information unique to your business or industry and to ensure the form layout matches your business processes.

Customizing forms properly is important for maximizing performance. Form customizations can affect the time it takes for forms to load and save changes. Proper form customization can improve usability, making it easier for users to view and update information.

This article explains how to customize the work order form, though the steps can be used to customize any Field Service web form.

Note

To customize the work order form for the mobile app, go to edit the booking and work order form.

1. Understand the default work order form

Before customizing the work order form, make sure you understand the default work order form included with Field Service. Understanding the existing fields and recommended process flow helps you determine what changes to make to the form. Using the default fields and processes is recommended for better performance, usability, and upgradability.

Go to Field Service > Work Orders and select an existing record or create a new one.

The work order form is optimized for the following standard work order process.

A work order is created manually, from a converted case, via an IoT alert, from an agreement schedule, or via an integration. Newly created work orders have a system status equal to Unscheduled by default.
Work order details are entered like the account, work order type, location, products, services, service tasks, and any other information that is important.
The work order is scheduled to one or more resources ("frontline workers") and the system status automatically becomes Scheduled.
The frontline worker views the scheduled work order on their mobile app and travels to the customer location to perform the required work. The system status becomes In Progress. The frontline worker updates information like when they arrived on site, service tasks completed, and services and products billed.
The frontline worker completes the work order and the system status becomes Completed.
The back office manager or dispatcher views the completed work order and verifies the work is completed and the necessary data is captured. If everything is finished, the status is changed to Posted.

For more information, go to Field Service work order process.

View and understand the default fields and determine which ones can be used for your business.

Screenshot of Field Service work order showing products and services.

Critical fields

The following fields are critical to the Field Service work order process and are required. If your organization doesn't plan to use these fields, then you might want to consider using another entity table or creating an entirely new one.

Work Order Number
System Status
Service Account
Billing Account
Price List
Work Order Type
Work Location
Address
Latitude
Longitude

The following subgrids are also critical to the Field Service work order process and are highly recommended.

Bookable Resource Booking ("Bookings")
Service Tasks
Products
Services

For more information, go to Field Service architecture and create a work order.

2. Make a list of needed and unneeded fields

Make a list of default work order fields that are relevant to your business process and another list of unneeded fields. Make sure to add the critical fields to the list of needed fields as they're required.

3. Create new fields as needed

Create new fields if the default work order form is missing fields that you need.

For more information on best practices, go to How to create and edit Field Service columns (fields).

Note

Use caution when editing default fields, and never delete default fields.

4. Begin customizing the work order form

Sign in to https://make.powerapps.com.
Select Tables. Search for and select Work Order. Under Data experiences, select Forms.
Find the main Work Order form.

While we recommend using the main Work Order form, there are some scenarios where you might want to create a new form.

In the following tabbed sections, we explain the pros and cons of using the existing work order forms and creating a new one.

Existing form (recommended)
New custom form

Using the existing form is better for scenarios where your organization doesn't want to make many changes to the layout or fields. It's also better for organizations that generally want to use the default work order process.

Pros

Recommended - The existing work order form is recommended by Microsoft.
Receives updates - The existing work order form receives updates for performance and new features.
Better supportability - When you use the work order form included with Field Service, it's easier for support teams to diagnose and resolve issues.

Cons

Less customizable - By agreeing to use the existing work order form, you agree to make fewer changes to the form.
Need to test upgrades - The existing work order form receives updates as much as twice per year. Test new updates in a sandbox environment and ensure they don't disrupt your users. For more information, see the article: Merge form customizations.

Some scenarios might call for a custom work order form. The top reasons you might need to create a custom work order form include:

You have a unique work order process and are unable to use the standard work order process included with Dynamics 365 Field Service. Or you need to add many custom fields (greater than 100).
You decide it's not feasible for all roles to use the same work order form, even while using security roles and field security profiles to limit information. You also need to create different forms for different user personas.

Pros

Shielded from UI updates - A new custom form doesn't receive updates to the user interface meaning the layout and fields displayed on the form. Lack of updates can be beneficial if you have specific processes and form layouts.
More edits - You're free to make more changes to the form to fit your unique work order process.

Cons

No updates - Your custom work order form doesn't receive updates from Microsoft. It's static.
Maintenance costs - If Microsoft releases work order features that your organization wants to adopt, you have to manually customize your forms to include those features. This costs time and money.
Risk of slow performance and errors - Evidence shows that custom forms tend to have slower performance and more errors because of the risk of violating form design best practices. Review the risks and best practices at the end of this article.

Create a custom work order form

Sign in to https://make.powerapps.com.
Select Tables. Search for and select Work Order. Under Data experiences, select Forms.
Select New form > Main form.

You can also start from a copy of the default form if you made changes there.

5. Hide form tabs, sections, and fields

The next step is to hide unwanted tabs, sections, and fields. We recommend that you hide rather than remove items because it reduces the chances of errors and makes it easier to add them again later on if needed. Hide before rearranging or adding fields. Don't hide critical fields. If your organization doesn't plan to use these fields then you might want to consider creating an entirely new entity table.

Hide unwanted tabs

Tabs run horizontal across the top of the form. Hide tabs that you don't need. You can't hide the summary tab.

Screenshot of Power Apps showing the hide options for tabs.

Hide unwanted sections

Sections are areas within tabs. Hide sections you don't need. If there's only one field in a section you need, move the field to another section and then hide the unneeded section.

Hide unwanted fields

Hide fields that aren't needed, except critical fields.

There's an easy and supported way to remove all price-related fields (for example, Price List, Total Amount, and others) from the work order, work order product, and work order service forms.

Sign in to the Field Service app and select the Settings area.
Select Field Service Settings. Select the Work Order / Booking tab and set Calculate Price to No. For more information, go to Work Order / Booking Settings.

There's an easy and supported way to remove all tax-related fields (such as Taxable) from the work order, work order product, and work order service forms.

In the Settings area of the Field Service app, select Field Service Settings.
Select the Work Order / Booking tab and set Calculate Tax to No. For more information, go to Work Order / Booking Settings.

6. Add your custom fields to the form

If you created custom fields (columns) earlier, add them to the form. For the best outcome, we recommend following these guidelines:

Add new custom fields into a new form section (required)
Add new custom fields into a new form tab (highly recommended but not required).
Don't add new custom fields to the first form tab unless necessary as it slows form load times. In particular, avoid adding subgrids and lookup fields to the first form tab because they can significantly slow load times.

Add your custom fields into a new form tab (recommended)

For example, we have a custom field called "Source." It's a choice-type field to select how the work order was originated (for instance, phone, email, IoT alert, or agreement). We want to add this new custom field onto the work order form.

In Power Apps, go to the work order form editor.
Select Component at the top, then select 1-, 2-, or a 3-column tab.
Rename the tab based on your business process.

New sections are automatically created when a new form tab is created.
Add your custom fields in the new sections in the new tab. You can add new tabs and new sections as needed.

Add your custom fields into a new section

In scenarios where you need custom fields in an existing tab, create a new section within an existing tab and add your custom fields in the section.

Note

Don't add new custom fields into existing sections. You must create new sections. Also, avoid adding new sections and custom fields into the first form tab (named the summary tab by default), as it can lead to slower load times.

For example, we created a new section in the work order General tab and we want to add custom fields in this new section.

Screenshot of Power Apps work order form editor showing the new section.

For more information on editing forms, go to creating and editing forms and follow form design best practices.

7. Test your forms with tools

Run Performance Insights to see how app and form performance is affected by things like browsers, network performance, data queries, and more.

Use the monitoring tool to understand the root cause of why forms might be loading slowly. For more information, go to Use Monitor to troubleshoot model-driven app form behavior.

Form scripts

The work order form includes form script libraries. Don't edit or remove any out-of-the-box form libraries.

Many organizations run code scripts on load, on change, and on save of the form to perform validations and run processes. Form scripts can greatly affect form performance like load times. For more information, go to Write scripts to implement complex business logic in Field Service for best practices, including run solution checker to test scripts for issues.

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Customize the work order form