Welcome to Release 12.1 of the Oracle Field Service User Guide.
This guide is designed for users, administrators, and implementers, of the Oracle Field Service application. It assumes that you have a working knowledge of the principles and customary practices of your business area, along with specific application knowledge of the Oracle Field Service suite of products.
See Related Information Sources for more Oracle E-Business Suite product information.
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This chapter provides an overview of the Oracle Field Service Suite and integrated applications, and then describes how these integrated applications can be used to automate Field Service business processes.
Requests for field service, whether for planned work generated by a preventive maintenance program, or as the result of customer calls for break/fix issues, trigger a sequence of integrated business processes. These processes are described at a high level in the introductory chapter to this User Guide titled: "Understanding Field Service".
The scope for this chapter picks up at a point where several steps involving upstream integrated applications have already been completed. At this stage, one or more service requests have been entered through a TeleService Service Request, or iSupport Customer Contact Center, or have been generated by a preventive maintenance program. The requests have been screened for entitlement, and priority. The service problems have been described, and it has been determined that Field Service technician visits are necessary.
This chapter describes how skills are assigned to tasks, task templates, and technicians.
This chapter describes the functionality of he Schedule Tasks window
This chapter describes how to use the Dispatch Center window to monitor field service activities and modify schedules as necessary to react to unplanned events.
This chapter describes how to manage field service technician trips.
This chapter explains an optional feature on how to render and invoke Maps from the Field Service Dispatch Center. If you have registered with Google Maps, you can invoke and use Google Maps from the Dispatch Center. Alternatively, you can use eLocation Maps provided by Oracle Field Service to perform the same tasks that you can with Google Maps.
This chapter explains how Field Service technicians use the Field Service Technician Portal (Dashboard) to change task assignment status, view service request details, and create parts requirements.
Field Service technicians use the Debrief module to view their task assignment details, accept or reject assignments, update task statuses, capture travel related information, and report on material, labor time, and expenses for their individual task assignments. Data gathered is used for generating customer invoices, updating the installed base, and maintaining the service vehicle trunk stock.
Field Service managers use Debrief to capture, access, and update debrief information on behalf of Field Service technicians. For more information, see Overview: Administrator Portal Dashboard.
This chapter provides procedures for performing Debrief using the Field Service Technician Portal (Dashboard).
The Administrator Portal is implemented as a separate menu under the Field Service Administrator Portal Responsibility. The Administrator Portal replaces and extends Oracle Application Windows Enterprise Debrief functionality. The portal provides Field Service managers and administrators with the ability to review and correct field technician debrief reports.
For more information on performing debrief, see Understanding Debrief Procedures.
You can choose from many sources of information, including online documentation, training, and support services, to increase your knowledge and understanding of Oracle Field Service.
The Oracle Integration Repository is a compilation of information about the service endpoints exposed by the Oracle E-Business Suite of applications. It provides a complete catalog of Oracle E-Business Suite's business service interfaces. The tool lets users easily discover and deploy the appropriate business service interface for integration with any system, application, or business partner.
The Oracle Integration Repository is shipped as part of the E-Business Suite. As your instance is patched, the repository is automatically updated with content appropriate for the precise revisions of interfaces in your environment.
All Oracle E-Business Suite documentation is available online (HTML or PDF).
PDF - See the Oracle E-Business Suite Documentation Library for current PDF documentation for your product with each release. The Oracle E-Business Suite Documentation Library is also available on My Oracle Support and is updated frequently
Online Help - Online help patches (HTML) are available on My Oracle Support.
Release Notes - For information about changes in this release, including new features, known issues, and other details, see the release notes for the relevant product, available on My Oracle Support.
Oracle Electronic Technical Reference Manual - The Oracle Electronic Technical Reference Manual (eTRM) contains database diagrams and a detailed description of database tables, forms, reports, and programs for each Oracle E-Business Suite product. This information helps you convert data from your existing applications and integrate Oracle E-Business Suite data with non-Oracle applications, and write custom reports for Oracle E-Business Suite products. The Oracle eTRM is available on My Oracle Support.
This guide explains how to navigate, enter data, query, and run reports using the user interface (UI) of Oracle E-Business Suite. This guide also includes information on setting user profiles, as well as running and reviewing concurrent programs.
You can access this guide online by choosing "Getting Started with Oracle Applications" from any Oracle E-Business Suite product help file.
Oracle Advanced Scheduler enables you to create optimized schedules for assigning tasks to qualified field service technicians. It enables you to define constraints and parameters such as overtime allowed, proximity to the customer site, resource skill, spare part availability, and customer preference of resource and use these to calculate operational costs and provide the most efficient service.
This guide enables you to install and implement Oracle Spares Management, Oracle Advanced Scheduler, Oracle Inventory, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Service Contracts, Oracle Depot Repair, and Oracle Complex Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul for Preventive Maintenance. Integration with these applications is necessary to automate field service activities. In addition, you define codes to justify material, labor, and expense, define billing types and associate these with service activity codes and inventory items, and define skills and skill levels of field technicians. You can also define time-based and usage-based preventive maintenance programs, and forecast usage rates.
This guide describes how to create and manage mobile users, implement the wireless option, and set up the interapplication bar to conveniently navigate between applications to perform diagnostic testing. This enables mobile users to periodically synchronize their mobile computer devices with the enterprise system in order to download new Oracle Mobile Field Service data and upload changes that they have made in their applications. For example, the technician can access and update the material debrief at a customer site for materials installed and returned in the task. When out of wireless coverage, technicians can continue to perform tasks using the voice interface or phone.
Oracle Mobile Field Service offers both connected browser-based solution and a disconnected solution that enables field service technicians to service their customers in a fully automated way. With the service request, field service technicians automatically receive the customer service history and customer install base information. For replacement parts, they can access the robust spare parts management feature of Oracle Mobile Field Service. After completing their tasks, they report labor, materials, and expenses and this information is sent back to the service organization at electronic speed so that an invoice can be given to the customer in a timely manner.
This guide describes the tools and features provided by Oracle Spares Management that field service technicians can use to maintain personal and warehouse inventories, locate parts not available in the normal supply chain, create requirements and orders for parts, track order status, and successfully execute internal and external repair. You can learn how to create planning loops that coordinate planning and execution activities across multiple locations, and control the total inventory across all subinventories in the loop.
This documentation set provides maintenance and patching information for the Oracle E-Business Suite DBA. Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance Procedures provides a description of the strategies, related tasks, and troubleshooting activities that will help ensure the continued smooth running of an Oracle E-Business Suite system. Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance Utilities describes the Oracle E-Business Suite utilities that are supplied with Oracle E-Business Suite and used to maintain the application file system and database. It also provides a detailed description of the numerous options available to meet specific operational requirements. Oracle E-Business Suite Patching Procedures explains how to patch an Oracle E-Business Suite system, covering the key concepts and strategies. Also included are recommendations for optimizing typical patching operations and reducing downtime.
This guide explains how to define periodic and event alerts to monitor the status of your Oracle E-Business Suite data.
This book is intended for all those planning to deploy Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, or contemplating significant changes to a configuration. After describing the Oracle E-Business Suite architecture and technology stack, it focuses on strategic topics, giving a broad outline of the actions needed to achieve a particular goal, plus the installation and configuration choices that may be available.
This manual describes how to implement the CRM Technology Foundation (JTT) and use its System Administrator Console.
This guide contains the coding standards followed by the Oracle E-Business Suite development staff. It describes the Oracle Application Object Library components needed to implement the Oracle E-Business Suite user interface described in the Oracle E-Business Suite User Interface Standards for Forms-Based Products. It also provides information to help you build your custom Oracle Forms Developer forms so that they integrate with Oracle E-Business Suite. In addition, this guide has information for customizations in features such as concurrent programs, flexfields, messages, and logging.
This book is intended for use by anyone who is responsible for installing or upgrading Oracle E-Business Suite. It provides instructions for running Rapid Install either to carry out a fresh installation of Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, or as part of an upgrade from Release 11i to Release 12. The book also describes the steps needed to install the technology stack components only, for the special situations where this is applicable.
This documentation set provides planning and reference information for the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration contains information on system configuration steps, including defining concurrent programs and managers, enabling Oracle Applications Manager features, and setting up printers and online help. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance provides information for frequent tasks such as monitoring your system with Oracle Applications Manager, administering Oracle E-Business Suite Secure Enterprise Search, managing concurrent managers and reports, using diagnostic utilities including logging, managing profile options, and using alerts. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security describes User Management, data security, function security, auditing, and security configurations.
This guide contains the user interface (UI) standards followed by the Oracle E-Business Suite development staff. It describes the UI for the Oracle E-Business Suite products and tells you how to apply this UI to the design of an application built by using Oracle Forms.
This guide provides flexfields planning, setup and reference information for the Oracle E-Business Suite implementation team, as well as for users responsible for the ongoing maintenance of Oracle E-Business Suite product data. This guide also provides information on creating custom reports on flexfields data.
This guide describes how to set up multiple organizations and the relationships among them in a single installation of an Oracle E-Business Suite product such that transactions flow smoothly through and among organizations that can be ledgers, business groups, legal entities, operating units, or inventory organizations. You can use this guide to assign operating units to a security profile and assign this profile to responsibilities such that a user can access data for multiple operation units from a single responsibility. In addition, this guide describes how to set up reporting to generate reports at different levels and for different contexts. Reporting levels can be ledger or operating unit while reporting context is a named entity in the selected reporting level.
This guide contains the user interface (UI) standards followed by the Oracle Applications development staff. It describes the UI for the Oracle Applications products and tells you how to apply this UI to the design of an application built by using Oracle Forms.
This guide contains information on implementing, administering, and developing diagnostics tests for Oracle E-Business Suite using the Oracle Diagnostics Framework.
This guide explains the details of how integration repository administrators can manage and administer the entire service enablement process based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) for both native packaged public integration interfaces and composite services - BPEL type. It also describes how to invoke Web services from Oracle E-Business Suite by working with Oracle Workflow Business Event System, manage Web service security, and monitor SOAP messages.
This guide describes how users can browse and view the integration interface definitions and services that reside in Oracle Integration Repository.
This guide explains how to complete the setup steps necessary for any Oracle E-Business Suite product that includes workflow-enabled processes. It also describes how to manage workflow processes and business events using Oracle Applications Manager, how to monitor the progress of runtime workflow processes, and how to administer notifications sent to workflow users.
This guide explains how to define new workflow business processes and customize existing workflow processes embedded in Oracle E-Business Suite. It also describes how to define and customize business events and event subscriptions.
This guide describes how Oracle E-Business Suite users can view and respond to workflow notifications and monitor the progress of their workflow processes.
Oracle offers a complete set of training courses to help you master your product and reach full productivity quickly. These courses are organized into functional learning paths, so you take only those courses appropriate to your job or area of responsibility.
You have a choice of educational environments. You can attend courses offered by Oracle University at any of our many Education Centers, you can arrange for our trainers to teach at your facility, or you can use Oracle Learning Network (OLN), Oracle University’s online education utility. In addition, Oracle training professionals can tailor standard courses or develop custom courses to meet your needs. For example, you may want to use your organization structure, terminology, and data as examples in a customized training session delivered at your own facility.
From on-site support to central support, our team of experienced professionals provides the help and information you need to keep your product working for you. This team includes your Technical Representative, Account Manager, and Oracle’s large staff of consultants and support specialists with expertise in your business area, managing an Oracle server, and your hardware and software environment.
Oracle STRONGLY RECOMMENDS that you never use SQL*Plus, Oracle Data Browser, database triggers, or any other tool to modify Oracle E-Business Suite data unless otherwise instructed.
Oracle provides powerful tools you can use to create, store, change, retrieve, and maintain information in an Oracle database. But if you use Oracle tools such as SQL*Plus to modify Oracle E-Business Suite data, you risk destroying the integrity of your data and you lose the ability to audit changes to your data.
Because Oracle E-Business Suite tables are interrelated, any change you make using an Oracle E-Business Suite form can update many tables at once. But when you modify Oracle E-Business Suite data using anything other than Oracle E-Business Suite, you may change a row in one table without making corresponding changes in related tables. If your tables get out of synchronization with each other, you risk retrieving erroneous information and you risk unpredictable results throughout Oracle E-Business Suite.
When you use Oracle E-Business Suite to modify your data, Oracle E-Business Suite automatically checks that your changes are valid. Oracle E-Business Suite also keeps track of who changes information. If you enter information into database tables using database tools, you may store invalid information. You also lose the ability to track who has changed your information because SQL*Plus and other database tools do not keep a record of changes.