Implementation Planning
About 5% of the CIS-FSM exam — see all 4 domains.
The smallest domain. It is about the discipline around an implementation rather than the product features:
- Understanding the Now Create methodology and standard implementation phases.
- Gathering requirements for work order types, state flows, skills, territories, and integrations before build.
- Planning data: stockrooms, assets/install base, skills-to-agent mapping, group structures.
- Sequencing plugin activation (base FSM first, then feature plugins) and managing dependencies.
- Planning the CSM integration, mobile rollout, and SLA definitions as part of scoping.
Watch item: official Now Create artifacts and the exact CIS-FSM implementation methodology content were not fully extractable from primary sources; treat methodology specifics as supplementary and confirm via Now Create.
Sample questions from this domain
Three of the 15 in this domain, with the reasoning. The full set is in the question bank.
During FSM implementation planning, why is it important to gather the customer's existing foundation data early?
- A. Foundation data such as locations, accounts, and assets is mainly a reporting input, so it can be loaded after go-live once work orders exist
- B. Foundation data such as sites and customer locations can be created by agents in the mobile app during their first visits, so early loading adds little value
- C. Foundation data such as locations, accounts, contacts, and assets underpins assignment and scheduling and must be loaded before processes can work ✓
- D. Foundation data is added when Field Service Management is activated with the demo data plugin, so only open work orders need to be gathered
Why: Foundation data such as locations, accounts, contacts, and assets underpins assignment and scheduling, so it must be gathered, planned, and loaded before field service processes can work; for example, auto-assignment fails when a task has no valid location. Treating it as a reporting input to load after go-live leaves the first work orders without the records they reference. Relying on agents to create sites during visits means tasks cannot be located or matched to agents before the visit. The Field Service Management Demo Data plugin adds sample medical and telecommunication records, not the customer's own accounts and locations.
An implementer is scoping an FSM project. Which activity belongs to the requirements-gathering phase rather than build?
- A. Configuring auto-assignment criteria for skills and geolocation
- B. Loading locations, skills, and stockrooms into the production instance
- C. Building work order templates and task templates for each service type
- D. Documenting the customer's field service processes and personas ✓
Why: Documenting the customer's field service processes and personas (dispatchers, qualifiers, field agents, customers) is requirements gathering, and it comes before build because every later configuration depends on it. Configuring auto-assignment criteria such as skills and geolocation, building work order and task templates, and loading locations, skills, and stockrooms into production are build and deployment activities that carry out those requirements.
Which two considerations are most important when planning an FSM scheduling approach? (Choose two)
- A. The number of time recording categories agents will log time against
- B. The geographic distribution and territories of agents ✓
- C. Whether the customer needs manual dispatch, auto-assignment, or optimization ✓
- D. Which Smart Assessment questionnaires agents complete before closing a task
- E. The rate types and labor rate cards used to cost agent time
Why: A scheduling approach hinges on the dispatch model (manual dispatch in Dispatcher Workspace, auto-assignment, Dynamic Scheduling, or Schedule Optimization) and on where agents work, since territories and geographic distribution drive travel and agent eligibility. Time recording categories classify time after the work is done, and rate types and labor rate cards hold the cost rates applied to that time. Smart Assessment questionnaires guide what agents capture on a task; none of these decides how tasks are matched to agents.