Field service management systems

Field service management systems co-ordinate and organise work at customers sites, rather than on company premises.

These systems are often used in the construction trades, by electricians, heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) engineers, and plumbers. But field service management is important for all industries that provide a service away from their own base of operations. So this could include maintenance companies, landscaping, in-home beauty, personal trainers, social care and healthcare workers.

Field service management capabilities

To be included in this list, each system must include functionality to schedule and despatch workers to customers' sites.

Field service management software is often built around a specific industry or usage, so is likely to include end-to-end job management features, such as:

• Estimating
• Quoting
• Invoicing
• Stock (or inventory) management—especially for small consumables or spare parts

Similar categories

Many systems call themselves "Job management tools". We categorise these in different ways, depending on their features:

• Task management—organising internal work, like marketing campaigns or software development. Imagine To Do lists and Kanban boards.
• Job management—like task management, but for organising jobs for customers—so must include billing
• Field service management—like job management, but also including scheduling of jobs at the customers premises.
• Project management—organising (internal or customer) projects, including tracking project time and cost. So picture Gantt charts and scheduling.
• Professional services automation (PSA)—like project management, but for client engagements—so must include client billing