Announcing OFS-Maintenance Cloud Accelerator

Introducing the Oracle Field Service and Maintenance Cloud accelerator to empower businesses to optimize their asset maintenance. We are announcing an out-of-the-box solution that streamlines the scheduling and execution of asset maintenance work, designed to cater to various service models including preventative, predictive, corrective and urgent work in both field and depot repair scenarios. From assigning the right mobile resource to the job to providing real-time support in the field, this accelerator helps replace inefficient manual processes and embraces the power of automation and intelligence.

With this accelerator, work orders created in Maintenance Cloud are seamlessly integrated with Field Service. Field Service schedules and assigns these activities to the most suitable mobile resources via automated routing plans and optimization strategies. Mobile resources also get instant access to all of the required activity details, allowing them to execute their work precisely, as defined by a company's business rules. Resources use the same application to handle the asset execution work, including part installations and de-installations, all while accurately tracking resource, labor and material consumption. Relevant captured data and work completion statuses are updated in Maintenance Cloud to ensure data accuracy and consistency.

The following key use cases are supported by the OFS and Maintenance Cloud accelerator:

1. Work Order - Activity data flow

As part of this workflow, the accelerator creates activities in Field Service based on the work orders definition in Maintenance Cloud. A maintenance work order can contain multiple operations, and each operation can have multiple resources. Based on the operation-resource information, an activity will be created in Field Service. If the operation is defined without any resource, the activity will be created based on the operation-level information. The activities created in Field Service will be linked to each other based on the operation and resource sequence defined.

2. Activity - Work Order data flow

Once the activity is scheduled in Field Service, the activity start date, end date, time and technician information will get updated back to the work order. Once an activity is assigned to a technician, the technician can start working on the job and complete it using the OFS mobile app. Upon completion of the activity in Field Service, the accelerator automatically updates the labor hours (activity duration) and inventory items consumed by the technician for the activity back to the work order.

3. On-hand inventory data synchronization from Maintenance Cloud to Field Service

The Fusion Inventory Management system is considered as the primary system for managing the inventory items associated with the asset.  The accelerator will ensure the availability of inventory items in Field Service by updating the items from the Fusion Inventory organization to the Field Service resource pool. The inventory items, available in the Field Service resource pool, are used for scheduling and execution of the activity.  The accelerator updates the on-hand inventory quantities defined in the Inventory organization or sub-inventory level within Inventory Management to the Field Service resource pool.

4. Master data synchronization from Maintenance Cloud to Field Service

The accelerator considers Maintenance Cloud to be the master system for defining all the master data associated with a work order. The accelerator will update the master definitions from Maintenance Cloud to Field Service and map that into appropriate Field Service entities as described below:

  1. Standard Operations defined in Maintenance Cloud are updated as activity types in Field Service.
  2. Organizations defined in Maintenance Cloud are mapped as a Field Service resources. The best practice is to create this as the parent bucket.
  3. Work centers defined in Maintenance Cloud are mapped as work zones in Field Service. 
  4. Resources defined in Maintenance Cloud are mapped as work skills in Field Service.
  5. Resource instances defined in Maintenance Cloud are mapped as field technicians in Field Service.

5. Asset Meter reading

As part of the meter reading data flow, accelerator gets the latest meter reading from asset meter configured. This value can be shown in an activity so that technicians or dispatchers will be able to see the data and take appropriate actions while working on the activity.  Similarly, data updated by Field Service users gets updates in the asset meter automatically.

For the detailed information on feature description and data field mapping, refer to the documentation here: OFS-Maintenance Cloud Accelerator Book

  • Optimize your asset maintenance operations effectively with the help of the Maintenance Cloud and Field Service accelerator
  • Better usability experience for the maintenance field workforce with the help of the OFS mobile app
  • The accelerator requires minimum setup configurations to kickstart the workflows

Steps to Enable

The OFS-Maintenance Cloud Accelerator is available in the OIC Store. For the detailed information, refer to the detailed documentation here

Tips And Considerations

Create activity flow from OFS to Maintenance

  • While creating a new activity via the book appointment option, be sure you always configure a different appointment number or keep the appointment number empty for the new activity.
  • The 'Add new resource' option selected while creating a new activity from Field Service will create a new resource under the operation of the parent reference work order mapped in the activity. 

Follow-up activity from OFS upon cancellation

While cancelling an activity in OFS, you can only use the 'newWO' creation action from OFS.

Mapping descriptive Flex Fields in Maintenance Cloud

The accelerator supports adding descriptive flex fields at Work Order, Operation, Operation resource, Operation transaction, Resource Transaction and Asset levels, in addition to the standard fields. Please be sure to configure the DFF fields in OFS as 'string' datatype for the accelerator to work as expected.

You can add extension groups at appropriate invokes and map the required fields using data stitch.

Please refer here to learn more about extension groups in OIC under Manage Accelerator Projects: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/application-integration/integrations-user/manage-project.html#GUID-BD7207BB-19D8-42D1-8D9E-7FC4D50E1B57

Access Requirements

The OFS-Maintenance Cloud accelerator is available in the OIC Store