Salesforce Scheduler vs. Field Service Lightning – Choosing the Right Salesforce Scheduling Tool

Salesforce Scheduler and Field Service Lightning are two breakthrough solutions offered by Salesforce, the world’s #1 CRM. Scheduler, formerly known as Lightning Scheduler, is a native appointment scheduling tool that enables businesses to manage virtual and in-person appointments. It empowers customers, prospects, and partners to schedule appointments with service resources across different channels.

On the other hand, Salesforce Field Service, formerly known as Field Service Lightning, is a comprehensive solution to streamline and optimize field service operations.

So, the primary difference between Scheduler and Field Service is that Scheduler primarily focuses on scheduling appointments. On the flip side, Salesforce Field Service covers core field service functions, such as scheduling.

This article aims to provide detailed differences between these two Salesforce solutions and help you understand their use cases.

What is Salesforce Scheduler? 

Salesforce Scheduler is a Salesforce appointment scheduling tool seamlessly integrated into the CRM platform. It provides you with the tools and developer resources required to simplify appointment scheduling in Salesforce. By scheduling customer appointments virtually or in person with the right person at the right time, you can deliver personalized experiences to customers.

Besides scheduling appointments, customers, partners, or employees can use Salesforce Scheduler to reschedule appointments, modify service resources, or cancel appointments. They can schedule appointments based on certain factors, such as resource capacity, hours of operation, or room availability.
Service resources are created by organizations based on their employees’ skills, expertise, and knowledge. This ensures that customers get the most suitable and knowledgeable team members.

Salesforce Scheduler is suitable for every type and size of business. It comes as an add-on for Salesforce Enterprise, Unlimited, and Performance editions of Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Communities, Financial Services Cloud, Manufacturing Cloud, Health Cloud, and Consumer Goods Cloud.

Note: Scheduler is not available with Salesforce Field Service.

What is Salesforce Field Service Lightning? 

Salesforce Field Service Lightning is a solution available in Salesforce that allows you to optimize and streamline field service operations. These include scheduling, dispatching, work order management, inventory management, real-time collaboration, and asset management.

Field service refers to any work performed on your product by a technician or field worker at a customer’s location and not at a company’s site. The best example of field service is a technician visiting your home to set up a TV or WiFi connection.

Salesforce Field Service offers all the tools you need to manage scheduling, work orders, and mobile workforce. You can do the following activities with Field Service:

• Create records of field service workers, agents, and dispatchers with details about their skills, location, and availability
• Set up multilevel service territories that represent regions where mobile workers can provide the service
• Track the location and status of inventory, warehouses, customer sites, and service vehicles
• Standard your field service by creating maintenance plans and templates
• Keep customers informed about the service by generating and sharing service reports

More interestingly, you get a Field Service mobile app that lets you keep track of field service operations on the fly. Field service workers can use this app to update work status, get customer signatures, and connect with dispatchers right from mobile devices.

Field Service’s core features and a mobile app are accessible in Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer Editions.

Salesforce Scheduler vs Field Service Lightning

Before moving on to discussing differences, let us have a look at a few similarities between these Salesforce tools.

Similarities Between Salesforce Scheduler and Field Service Lightning

Salesforce Scheduler and Field Service Lightning both have advanced scheduling capabilities. The following are some common features:

• Scheduling appointments
• Rescheduling or canceling appointments
• Scheduling system administration

In addition, these two solutions use a few of the same objects in their data models: 

• Service Resources
• Skills
• Service Territories
• Locations
• Operating Hours
• Work Types

Differences Between Salesforce Scheduler and Field Service Lightning

Let us now move on to the differences between them.

1. Scalability 

The Salesforce Scheduler is ideal for companies with no complex scheduling needs and a small team of resources. It comes with a simple, user-friendly interface, allowing you to schedule, reschedule, or cancel appointments, manage resource allocation, and keep track of tasks. If your business has a small team of resources to manage or requires a simple scheduling process with minimal customization, using Salesforce Scheduler would be a prudent decision.

On the flip side, Field Service is a better option for organizations with a large number of resources and complex scheduling and dispatching needs. It is highly scalable and flexible, allowing for the management of a large team and the streamlining of field service operations with multiple locations and dependencies.

2. Automation 

We are all aware of Salesforce’s automation capabilities. So, both Salesforce Scheduler and Field Service support automated scheduling. However, Field Service comes with advanced scheduling capabilities. It supports automated scheduling based on customer preferences and predictive maintenance scheduling. On the other hand, Scheduler supports basic automation for scheduling and assigning tasks.

3. Integration 

When it comes to integration, Field Service is ultimately more powerful than Scheduler. Field Service offers deeper integration with other Salesforce tools, such as Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, etc. This ensures seamless data sharing throughout the customer lifecycle. In addition, you can manage your company’s sales, customer service, and field operations from a single platform. Meanwhile, Scheduler does not offer the same depth of integration as Field Service.

4. Mobile App 

Field Service Lightning provides a dedicated mobile app that enables field workers to access their schedules, gain customer information, and update work status and hours from their mobile devices. Also, you can keep track of every operation going on throughout a customer’s lifecycle from your smartphone.

Salesforce Scheduler does not offer a mobile app to schedule and manage appointments and assign tasks.

Conclusion 

Salesforce Scheduler and Field Service Lightning are powerful Salesforce solutions that work on the same data model but have different use cases. Scheduler is used to simply schedule, reschedule, and cancel appointments, whereas Field Service is a comprehensive solution for scheduling and dispatching, inventory management, asset management, and work order management.

Also, it is important to remember that Scheduler can be used by any industry vertical. Conversely, Field Service is specially designed for organizations with field service operations.

Do you want to unlock operational efficiency and provide exceptional field service to customers? If yes, look no further than Ksolves! We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with 12+ years of experience delivering personalized Salesforce solutions. Our certified Salesforce professionals take pride in understanding client requirements and delivering tailored digital experiences. So, if you are looking for a customized Salesforce Field Service Lightning solution, Ksolves is here to help you with its Salesforce Lightning Services.

We hope this article was helpful in understanding the differences between Salesforce Scheduler and Field Service Lightning.