Field service management software tied to your equipment records

The DoliPlus field service management software organises your visits, installations and maintenance work, and links straight to the equipment you look after:

• appointments booked on a general planning board or on each technician calendar;
• equipment records holding parts changed, readings, measurements and alerts;
• calendars synchronised live with Google, on iOS and Android, with built-in geolocation;
• technical documents, part ordering and multi-warehouse stock reachable during the visit;
• jobs attached to a service contract or a sales order, ready for invoicing.

As a result, your technicians carry everything they need into the field. DoliPlus is the enhanced cloud edition of Dolibarr, the open-source ERP & CRM used across Europe.

What the module is for

The module handles your visits for installations, works or maintenance. Above all, it rests on a highly customisable equipment base, built with your own forms.

In practice, the equipment record holds the parts changed, the measurements, the readings and the alerts. You then schedule your appointments on a general planning board or on each technician calendar.

Besides, those calendars synchronise live with Google, on iOS and Android smartphones. You therefore benefit from built-in geolocation. Moreover, every appointment carries what matters: address, contact, phone number and instructions.

Fully mobile-friendly, DoliPlus also gives you access, during the visit, to technical documentation, part ordering and multi-warehouse stock.

Finally, jobs attach to a service contract or a sales order. Statuses mark out their life cycle. Paired with the support ticket module, the software even carries over the request the customer expressed.

Using your field service management software

Create the job

You create the job directly from the customer record or from the Ticket module.

A contract or an order is required

A job rests on a service contract or a sales order. You may combine both — a contract plus an order outside the contract, for instance. That step therefore prepares the invoicing.

Moreover, a maintenance service attached to the contract links a piece of equipment to the customer. That service then describes the work sold and its particular terms.

Contacts and addresses

The Contacts tab lets you select the site address, the person on site and the appointment contact.

Booking the appointment

On the general planning board, a colour code identifies the statuses and makes a busy schedule manageable. Moreover, a map locates your jobs.

Depending on your trade and the distance involved, securing the appointment is sometimes essential. To do so, follow this process:

1. identify the contact who organises the appointment at the customer site;
2. put a provisional appointment on the general planning board;
3. produce a pre-filled confirmation, ready to send by email;
4. on their reply, move the status to “appointment confirmed” to assign it to a technician.

Recurring or preventive maintenance

You also schedule future jobs in advance, from the “Planning” tab of the record. To create an appointment, click the white square on the highlighted line.

A dialogue box then lets you adjust the appointment settings. Then, clicking the square again, you can edit it, duplicate it onto another date or another technician, or delete it.

Note that the colour key is repeated on every page of the planning board. The first colour stands for the status, the next for the general state.

Managing your equipment base

The module includes equipment management. You reach it at any time from the Equipment tab of the company record. Depending on your settings, further tables join it:

• the options and products associated with the equipment;
• the parts changed during jobs;
• specific tables, such as copier page counters.

Stock

For products tied to an order, a view of warehouses and purchase orders helps you prepare the equipment. That view stays compatible with the purchase stock tab of the StockPlus module. Moreover, a status marks this step out.

Two ways to steer the purchases a job triggers

Two options complete this stock view: opposite each order or quote line of the job, they add what you need to trigger the purchase of the missing product — according to the way you work.

• Link to an existing purchase order: a dropdown lists the purchase orders already open for that same product. As soon as you pick one, DoliPlus remembers the link — the reference, date and status of the purchase order then show directly on the job record.
• Create or complete the purchase order directly: you choose the supplier and the quantity, DoliPlus works out the price and the VAT, then creates the purchase order in one click — or completes a draft order already open for that supplier if there is one.

The two options do not stack: you switch on the one that matches your organisation, never both at once.

Once the purchase order is created, it shows clearly on your goods receipt screen — including when it comes from a quote, and not only from a sales order.

To go further on the purchases tied to your jobs: the purchase order in DoliPlus, stock management and receiving goods on mobile.

Documents and the document space

Field service work usually comes with documents, before and after the visit. The document space was therefore designed to leave you autonomous once the initial setup is done.

In practice, signed documents — acceptance reports, job sheets — are scanned then filed in the document space by drag and drop. Better still, the DoliPlusMobi app spares you that step: it captures the signature and places it straight into the document.

Build a document from an Excel template

You upload your Excel templates through Tools → Template management → Document models. Then you declare them in the module to make them editable inside the job.

Substitution variables

Your templates carry tags between curly brackets. DoliPlus then replaces them with the right data, as Excel, PDF or both.

Careful: type these variables on the keyboard rather than copying them. Indeed, invisible characters can stop the substitution from working.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the variables available.

Global information — {Divers-…}

• {Divers-dateinter}: job date;
• {Divers-adresseproprio}: owner address;
• {Divers-adressepose}: installation address;
• {Divers-technicien}: technician name;
• {Divers-n°inter}: job number;
• {Divers-note_public} / {Divers-note_private}: notes from the record;
• {Divers-description}: description from the record;
• {Divers-contrat}: references of the linked contracts;
• {Divers-signature_client} / {Divers-signature_intervenant}: signatures.

The custom fields (group IN) of the “Planning” tab are carried over like this: {Divers-name_of_the_custom_field}.

Form and equipment information

For the job form, the syntax is {Intervention-name_of_the_variable}. For the equipment base it is {Parc-name_of_the_variable}, for example:

• {Parc-Desig}: associated service;
• {Parc-MarqueArt}: brand;
• {Parc-NumSerie}: serial number;
• {Parc-Localisation}: installation site.

Order and company information

Finally, you carry linked data over with {Inter-…} (order), {Commande-…} (custom fields of the order) and {Tiers-…} (fields of the company).

Repeating tables

To list equipment or consumed parts, wrap the area between the delimiters [!– BEGIN row.lines –] and [!– END row.lines –].

Signing documents

An option adds a “Signature” tab for the people visited. DoliPlus then stores a self-adjusting image in the document space.

Likewise, your field staff record their signatures or initials. Those are then used when producing acceptance reports.

Invoicing

A status lets the technician tell the invoicing team that the job is over. The team then picks the file up, according to the contracts involved.

Tie your equipment to service contracts

You associate a service with one or several pieces of equipment, inside your service contracts.

The service then defines the type of work — an annual maintenance with part replacement, for instance. In the Equipment view of the company, the associated contracts stay immediately visible.

Consequently, when you create a job on a piece of equipment, that association is carried over automatically. Your jobs are therefore tied to a commercial contract. You can even launch a job straight from the contract.

Clone a piece of equipment

To record a large equipment base, the cloning function saves you time. You reach it from the equipment view, on the company record.

During that operation, DoliPlus adds a temporary tag to the serial number to avoid duplicates. You then simply reopen the record to adjust the equipment.

Setting the module up

Job statuses

Depending on your trade, you customise the statuses through the dictionary, in the administration console.

Custom fields

The fields of the equipment base and of the job form stay customisable, usually without coding, through the Myfield module. Group IN applies to the “Planning” tab, and group OUT to the “Job” tab.

For the copier counter sub-module, see this chapter.

The DoliPlusMobi app for field service

Finally, for entry in the field on a phone, see this chapter.