I am wondering if anyone is using the Field Service Module for internal service activities (not physically dispatching technicians into the field). We are on a journey to improve our service department through removing waste in the process. The CRM module (CASE>RMA>JOB>SO) is a lot to maintain and waste of time doing admin work. Wondering if the Field Service Module is a viable option. Thanks!
Welcome @bamborn !!
If you are talking about Epicor’s Field Service (and not the one they recently purchased), the answer is probably not. 
I implemented the module about 8 years ago in E10, and it was an adventure. First off, Epicor does not even know how the module works (not an exaggeration). I had the business process laid out and was looking for a consultant to help implement it. There were no “Epicor” consultants who knew it so I got a 3rd party consultant through Epicor. That consultant broke my environment as she used the help document to train us. Literally reading word for word from the Epicor documentation. 
After getting rid of her, I insisted on Epicor resources only. There were no cosultants available to do it, but I did end up getting some remote time with the lone consultant who supposedly knew it. Also, I did get some remote help from the supposed product manager. Neither one of them could answer the majority of my questions and I got a lot of “I think that might work, why don’t you try it”.
In the end, I took about a week where I told everyone in the company to leave me alone and dove in. I was able to get the module to work for our needs and it did everything we needed. If the part was under warranty, the system knew and zeroed out all of the cost. It would post the labor and material to a specific GL. If it was not under warranty, the service tech would build a method for the repair and then we could get an estimated cost to go back to the customer with. All labor and materials used in the estimate were higher than actual. So, we were able to get a margin out of it.
Big caveat here is that your flow does not really change.
If the service is initiated from a Case, you still have to do an RMA to get the part in, it becomes a Service Job instead of a Mfg Job, and you still need an SO to ship it back (although, I can’t remember if the SO was created from the service job).
So, long story short. The Field Service module is a viable option, you just might not get what you are actually looking for out of it.
Hi John, thanks for providing that insight! Scary that if we go this route we might not have Epicor Support with knowledge of how to address issues or provide direction to be successful…
Our business is 100% make to order (some days it feels like engineer to order - lol) and our service department is onsite. All products are shipped back to our facility for repair, update/upgrades (most common), troubleshooting, etc. when/if needed.
We were thinking one of the perks of field service would be that we don’t need to electronically take ownership of the product eliminating the RMA & SO creation steps. This is because my understanding of the module is that in theory your technicians are driving to the customer sites to troubleshoot and fix the unit(s) in the field. If they cannot do so in the field, the module has a create RMA option for physical return. We theoretically would not use this option either.
For shipment back to customer we would utilize a miscellaneous shipment for record keeping. A known hurdle is that traceability might be challenging from receipt to shipment of product through our facility. However, traceability of what work was done (labor, materials, cost, notes, etc.) on the device would be captured through the service job. We think we could also better manage our technicians work load through scheduling within the field service module. We would need to figure out how we track the returned material (is it in our facility & where).
All this being said from your expertise with Field Service deployment, are we better off streamlining our current processes using Cases? We use cases today, because it nicely marries up the RMA, Service Job, and Sales Order with the product returned. But maybe we are even overcomplicating the use of all of these…
I am a huge business risk averse person. What I am about to say greatly depends on how much it would cost your company to replace whatever parts a customer sends back and the quantity you may have at a time. Also, this is not directed at you. 
I have heard this excuse a lot and it goes right up my 
sideways!!
As a company, what will you do if your building burns down? Receiving something back from a customer means that you are now responsible for that part. If one of your technicians drops it, drives it over with a forktruck, etc.; it is on the company dime. If the building burns down, you want to know what WAS in the building for your insurance. It is very difficult to tell the insurance company that we had 15 parts in for service but we never did anything to recognize that because we were lazy, so please just take our word that we need another $100,000 to remake them. That will go over like a fart in church.
Now, what are the chances of that happening? Absolutely infinitesimal!! But is it a risk the company is willing to take? Again, this depends on how much the company would be out in a disaster. But saying the “extra” transactions are useless and only create “unnecessary” work is short-sighted. There should be a business reason for every action a company does.
Deep breath
Again, that was not directed at you. I know that the chances of a disaster happening are slimmer than slim, but it does happen, and I always think of the hourly workers that would be out of a job if one did happen. I go back to what is the risk to the company and does it need to be mitigated. Am I a little over the top? Absolutely!!
As to your question and not my neurotic thoughts. You could definitely look at automating some of your transactions off of the case. You could use a function to create the transactions that are needed for the process. If you are serial tracked, the nice thing about using the system is that it captures all of the transactions that happen under the serial number. You could probably replicate the Field Service module using Case, the only thing I can think of that you would lose is automating margin on material used in the job (although there might be a way to do that too).
I know I did not provide a good answer, but there is too much I don’t know about your business to really advise.
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