How to Create Work Orders Using Copilot’s New Summarization Feature

In this article, we explore Copilot’s new work order summarization feature, which uses AI to process all the information placed within a work order in Dynamics 365, including any previous notes and calls, so that field service team members can quickly grasp key details and get to resolving the issue. We’ll review how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement users can get started.

It’s common for team members to struggle as they sort through the intricate details that go into every work order. Each job is different, and missing a key detail can be the difference between a satisfied customer and disgruntled clients who go to your competition for their next service. Taking the time to carefully review the details of each work order can consume precious minutes and hours, reducing productivity and your team’s overall output.

However, with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement’s Copilot summarization feature, you can use the power of generative AI to summarize your work orders. In this way, everyone who interacts with a work order can understand exactly what’s important and the details they need to consider while preparing the work and interacting with team members and customers.

What Is the Work Order Copilot Summarization Feature?

The Copilot work order summarization feature uses AI to summarize work orders, making them easy to understand at a glance without having to dig through each detail manually. Copilot reads all the information in the work order and then extracts the most important elements, including deadlines, tasks involved in the work, and specific things the customer has requested.

For example, suppose you work for a cloud IT services company, and a customer requests the installation of a new firewall in front of a specific segment of their network. You can have Copilot pull out the most important information from the work order, including:

• The kind of firewall they want
• Its minimum throughput requirements
• The segment it will protect
• The digital assets inside that segment when they want the work completed
• And whatever else the customer or a manager put inside the work order

Over the course of several jobs, Copilot can shave hours off your week — all while increasing the accuracy of the work your team performs.

While the elements Copilot surfaces are virtually unlimited, here’s a list of some of the more common details it may extract:

• Tasks. These may include each repair or installation you need to perform.
• Customer details. Copilot may outline details like customer and business names, location, and contact information.
• Timeframes for the work. You can see how much time your team has to perform the work, as well as breakdowns of timeframes for specific milestones if they’re included in the work order.
• Issues your team may encounter. There may be job-specific concerns, such as safety issues, technical requirements, or questions the customer has to answer, that Copilot can describe for you.
• Tools and materials. The system can provide information about the tools or materials specified in the work order.

How to Get Started With Copilot’s Summaries in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement

To get started, you first want to ensure you can access, activate and adopt this feature in Dynamics 365.

Your first step is to make sure you have the administrative access needed to enable AI-powered features in Dynamics 365. You then need to ensure you’re running the latest version of Dynamics 365 to ensure these features are available.

This may require performing a system update. Microsoft constantly issues updates with new features or adjustments to existing ones, so you want to be sure you have the most recent version.

You may also have to configure Dynamics 365 to use Copilot. To do this, you can navigate to your Customer Service Admin Center, then Agent Experience, then Productivity, then Manage (Copilot help pane and Summaries). You can then just check the required Copilot help pane settings and save.

Customize the Copilot Summarization Feature for Your Organization’s Needs

You have several options when it comes to customizing your Copilot features to meet your operation’s needs. For example, you can use customized templates to make sure your Copilot captures the most important information for your field service team members. You can also design your work order template to highlight job deadlines and the tools needed for each task. This way, you can ensure Copilot always describes the time frame and the tools required for each job.

Keep in mind the summary Copilot produces will only be as good as the data in your work orders. For instance, a work order may have a list of milestones that need to be completed in order. But if the work order doesn’t specify which item must be done first, second, third, and so on, Copilot may not accurately represent the order in its summary.

You don’t have to create new work orders to use Copilot’s summary function. Once you enable Copilot in your Dynamics 365 environment, you can also select it for existing work orders.

How to Encourage Adoption Among Team Members

To get everyone on board with this new feature, highlight how it makes their jobs easier and can earn the company more money. For example, you should emphasize:

• How Copilot helps ensure each team member doesn’t miss important tasks or job details.
• The way the summary can make it easier and faster to prepare for each job by grabbing the right tools and equipment ahead of time.
• How Copilot provides specific action items so workers can document the completion of each task and use this to verify the quality of their work. This way, they have artifacts to prove their competency during performance evaluations.

You may also consider incentivizing field service workers to use Copilot. You can do this by publicly recognizing those who incorporate it in their workflows and offering written commendation in their performance reviews.

Troubleshooting and Support

You may encounter some issues while using the summarization feature, especially because it’s relatively new.

One potential problem may be offline use. And given its dependency on Microsoft’s cloud-based generative AI engine, this may be an obstacle in the future, too. You can only generate summaries when connected to the internet.

Even if a field service worker has an internet connection, Copilot may have issues if their connection gets interrupted or slows significantly. If your workers are on the road in areas with weak internet service, they may even get incomplete summaries.

There’s also a chance you may get summaries that don’t reflect the actual details of the job. This is more likely to occur if the work order itself is incomplete or lacks specificity. Copilot summaries differ from other generative AI models, such as ChatGPT, in that they don’t make inferences. They are products of the data they see, and that’s it. While a GPT model may infer details about a situation, person, or set of behaviors in the text it analyzes, Copilot doesn’t do this. Therefore, you want to include as much detail in your work orders as possible.

The best way to overcome these issues is to train each team member to compare the summary with the work order details. Tell each team member you welcome their feedback, especially regarding inaccuracies in the summaries. A quick adjustment to the work order template can often produce clearer or more accurate summations.

To learn more about how to use Copilot in Dynamics 365, you can refer to Microsoft’s training resources.

The Copilot summarization feature can help your field service team better serve customers by giving them the details they need to address issues and meet job requirements — without manually reading through pages of data.

Start Using Copilot Summaries to Improve Performance and Save Time

By incorporating Copilot’s summarization features, you can increase efficiency and reduce errors that result in higher overhead and customer issues. Also, by saving your team valuable time, you free them up to focus on better serving your customers.

Even though field service operations depend heavily on human interactions, AI tools like Copilot can play a significant role. By boosting accuracy and reducing the amount of time it takes to perform administrative tasks, these tools make sure customers get what they want and your team members can spend more time strengthening relationships with clients.

For these reasons, you should continue to adopt features like Copilot’s summaries for work orders because they enable your field service workers to shift their focus from the work order to the customer’s needs.

Microsoft’s new AI-powered Copilot products are transforming the way we work. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by this powerful technology, don’t worry. As a certified Microsoft Solution Partner, we can guide you through, from use cases to training and adoption and everything in between. Contact us