Coresystems invested the last two years in developing a complete new tool for planning and dispatching activities to Field Service Technicians, enriching functionality and usability and based on the latest technology, compared to the old Resource Planner.
Furthermore Microsoft ® decided to end supporting Silverlight 5 (on which the RP is built on) on 10.12.2021. Additional information are available under https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/search?alpha=Silverlight%205 and https://www.microsoft.com/getsilverlight/locale/en-us/html/installation-win-SL5.html
In light of this, Coresystems did set the mainstream support end date of Resource Planner as 30th of June 2019. Starting from the 1st July 2019 the resource planner application will not be accessible anymore via Internet and any onPremise instance will not be able to communicate to the cloud anymore. Therefore we recommend you to plan by time your migration to the new Workforce Management.
Functionality Comparison Table
The following table resumes the coverage of functionalities as per today
| Functionality | Workforce Management | Resource Planner |
| Plan without sync | ✓ | - |
| Integration with Worktime Patterns | ✓ | - |
| UDF (Custom field) support | ✓ | - |
| Changelog | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reserved Material | ✓ | ✓ |
| Checklist integration | ✓ | - |
| Default Material | ✓ (1) | ✓ |
| Workflow Step display | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reservations | ✓ | ✓ |
| Travel Time display | ✓ | ✓ |
| Overdue activity display | ✓ | ✓ |
| Assignment grouping | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reassigning of activities | ✓ | ✓ |
| Unassigning of activities | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cancelling of activities | ✓ | - |
| Leader on site | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sorting of technician | - (2) | ✓ |
| Recurring activities | - (3) | ✓ |
| Display multiple equipment | ✓ | ✓ |
| Closing an activity | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced activity list | ✓ | - |
| Best matching technician | ✓ | - |
| Time&Material Journal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Screen configuration support | ✓ | - |
| Duplicating of activities | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dispatching activities across multiple companies | - (4) | ✓ |
| Printing Service Order | - (5) | ✓ |
| Grouping activities by Service Call | ✓ | ✓ |
✓ : Supported
- : Not supported
(1) Default material scenario can be covered with the usage of Business Rules
(2) Currently, in case scenarios are defined with the old resource planner, it's possible to select them in the "Planning Horizon" settings. A better sorting functionality is currently under development
(3) Recurring activities have been deprecated and are not supported as standard functionality in workforce management
(4) This functionality will be covered via the Crowd application before the end of mainstream support date (30th June 2019) and is therefore excluded by the Workforce Management standard functionality
(5) This functionality will be covered in Workforce Management before the end of mainstream support date (30th June 2019).
Where can I have more information about the functionalities and how to use Workforce Management?
Please refer to https://docs.coresystems.net/modules/workforce-management.html for detailed information
What are the system requirements to use Workforce Management?
System requirements are updated regularly under https://docs.coresystems.net/system-requirements.html
What are the guidelines to perform a migration?
In standard configurations (no customized connector, no special version of Resource Planner) you should be able to migrate smoothly to the new Workforce Management.
Preparation
In order to start using the solution, login to apps.coresystems.net and navigate to Workforce Management -> Settings -> General settings. Ensure that the "Service Call Mappings" are defined as in Resource Planner or adjust if needed.
Ensure that elastic search is active, logging in in your admin portal, then navigate to your account -> company -> FTS Job and click on "Index Company". After the indexing is complete you are ready to use the new Workforce Management.
Usage
We recommend to complete previously planned activities with the old Resource Planner and any new activity coming in with Workforce Management. We strongly recommend not to mix between Resource Planner and Workforce Management for a given activity: If you start planning a certain activity with the Resource Planner then complete the process with the Resource Planner and if you start planning an activity with Workforce Management then complete the process with the Workforce Management.
How do I request support if something is not working as expected?
In case you experience problems during the migration we recommend to open a ticket at helpdesk.coresystems.ch with header [MIGRATION RP] followed by the subject.
A team of experts will be dedicated to analyse any issue reported and provide the needed support. Common questions and feedback will be provided in form of FAQ on this page. Subscribe to it in case you would like to get notified on this topic.
We wish you a successful migration to the new Workforce Management!
Your Coresystems FSM AG team
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