Mobile technology has come a long way and is changing the way we do business. Enterprises across the globe are undergoing a shift in business operations. Companies with field operations, in various industries, are witnessing a push to embrace mobile technology to automate various parts and aspects of their business.
If you’re a field-service business, time and speed is money. Having the right workflow automation solution is the key to success. With all the tech building blocks firmly in place and with increasing maturation and affordability of key technologies like mobile apps, devices, sensors and cloud technology, the field operations, and automation is easier than ever to imagine. Companies of all sizes, including medium and small businesses, can quickly and easily implement a robust field automation solution.
Automation using Configurable Rules Engine
Here are some of the things a modern field automation solution can help you do:
Visibility into field Operations
It’s not possible to always be aware of what’s happening out on the field. A modern workflow automation tool like allGeo not only helps you stay on top of activities in the field but also automate your operations with IFTTT(If-this-then-that) rules engine.
The rules can be configured to react to real world events (involving people, places and time) to send out alerts via email, text or voice calls. These real-time alerts & notification can help automate your operations by providing your office team with just-in-time exception notifications and comprehensive audit logs.
Automating Time and Attendance
Most mobile businesses lose an average of 6.1% in payroll “slippage” (inaccurate and fraudulent claims) every year, and this number doesn’t even include mileage! A mobile app-based solution to track time and attendance can definitely help cut down on payroll costs.
While there are many apps in the market that can help track time, all fall short when it comes to adding value to the overall field operations and to your employees.
In an increasingly sensor-driven world, a modern workforce management tool not only helps track time and attendance for payroll but also helps automate operations and workflow with automatic event-triggered actions. Any matured platform will provide a highly configurable automation stack with plenty of possibilities. Here’s some of the automation that you could bring to your field operations:
Geofence time tracking
Setup customer sites geofences to automatically track time and attendance when employees enter/exit customer sites (aka job sites).
Notification, Reminders, and Alerts
Automate reminders to employees based on their activity/inactivity.
Automate field communication
Use arrivals/departures as events and trigger an alert(s) to operations/dispatch teams to assign the next job.
ETA and Distance
Trigger a notification to back-office/dispatch teams when an employee is running late with respect to the next job. This helps foresee any delays. All the stakeholders, including the customer, can be automatically notified with real-time ETA and distance remaining.
Automate Team Communication
Send notifications/reminders to employees upon arrival/departure.
These are just some of the many possibilities with IoT, sensor driver workforce automation solutions.
Service Workflow Automation
Your business requires your employees to carry out multiple activities in the field that are related to your service business. These activities can be as simple as filling up forms or requesting a signature from the customer. A modern mobility solution not only helps your team go paperless but automates your entire business workflow, adding value in the overall field service organization.
With allGeo, you can also easily set up more complex rules to mimic your business flow of activities your employees need to perform.
Say your employees are required to manage a large facility and collect status information on each of their job activities within the facility, or a group of facilities (job-sites). Rules can also be set up to automatically verify and validate information collected via QR/BAR code for your employees.
Any exception and/or completion can be handled instantly in real-time. This way your back-office and operations/dispatch teams are automatically in-sync with field employees without having to make an effort (no phone/text, etc.).
So to sum things up, a modern technology in a modern world, driven by sensors connected via the internet, offers great opportunities for companies with field operations to largely automate their field workflow without breaking a sweat. There has not been a better time to adopt and embrace technology which will lead the way towards an efficient, well-oiled operations machinery with happy employees and customers.