Solving the Inventory Struggle in Field Service Lightning

Salesforce Field Service Lightning (FSL) is designed for any business that has a fleet of people in the field — deliveries, repairs, installation, etc. FSL streamlines the process for resources in the field through numerous different features. For example, FSL permits field service resources to finish work orders while staying on the job site, enables supervisors to see and manage work from either a Gantt graph or map view, and accurate time recommendations for clients (on the basis of existing schedules and travel time), etc. All of these features and more are granting a more streamlined process for field service resources and success for businesses. However, due to the increase in customers/prospects that had already implemented FSL or were evaluating FSL, Ascent Solutions understood that comprehensive inventory management capability was not available. Our new app, AscentIOM addresses this gap directly.

AscentIOM is a reflection of our mission to bring enterprise-class solutions to the SMB space. FSL functionality is generally designed to help large enterprises manage field service teams but there is no reason why an SMB sized company cannot take advantage of that feature set. AscentIOM was built to address key areas such as comprehensive inventory management that include replenishment, asset management, order execution/management, and time/materials tracking to be in sync with financials.

At Dreamforce 2019, it was announced that Asset Management and some basic inventory functions are on the roadmap for the FSL product line. We look forward to seeing how that will shape up and are confident that the functionality in AscentIOM will be complementary to those upcoming features. The major value that should be understood about AscentIOM is that the basis for its development was years of experience working with customers in the manufacturing and distribution space that perform field repairs and service. These customers always expected robust inventory/order management capabilities in our solutions and so we had to deliver. You can say that “AscentIOM grew up on this platform” from a back office functionality perspective. If you are looking to gain enterprise level, competitive advantage in running your field service operations then our mission is aligned to your goals.

Akbar Rafiuddin is Chief Technology Officer at Ascent Solutions.