Jobs, visits and the diary four ways
A job can have as many visits as the work takes. Each visit is a day and a time at the site, with who is going. With Add another person, several go to one appointment, each in their own lane. A new time moves everybody on that appointment who is not yet on the way.
At a desk, Schedule offers every view below. Each has a link of its own that can be sent to somebody. A phone has Day, Week and Month.
- Day: your people down the side and the clock across. On the current day, a line marks the time now.
- Week: your people down the side and the seven days across.
- Month: a cell for each day with what is on it. Pressing a day opens it on the Day board.
- Everybody: the week as seven columns in one lane. Each visit shows its customer and who is going. Offered when the firm has two or more people.
Booking, moving and handing out work
Not booked sits under the board. It lists every open job with nothing booked, and how long each has waited. Pressing a job opens the booking sheet with that job in it. On the Day board, a job can also be dragged onto a person at an hour.
The New job and Book a visit sheets offer the next free times, worked out from the visit’s length, who is working and what each person already holds. On New job the length starts at what that kind of work Usually takes. Pressing a time fills the day, the start and the person, or keeps the people already chosen when several are going. Any of them can be typed over.
Drag a visit to another person, hour or day to move it. On the Day board, drag its end to change its length. Every drag can also be done from the keyboard. A visit booked with nobody on it waits in Unassigned until it is handed out.
Registrations checked on the schedule
Each kind of work can name the registrations it needs. In the gas pack, Boiler service asks for Gas Safe, and in the oil pack, Oil boiler service asks for OFTEC. Each of those is held by the person doing the work. In the electrical pack, Rewire asks for NICEIC or NAPIT, which register businesses, so your business’s own registration with either one covers it.
Book a visit, the New job sheet and the Day and Week boards say before saving when a registration the work needs is missing or has run out, and whether it is the person’s or your business’s. The booking is checked again as it is saved, and each time it is moved or handed to somebody else. Nothing is checked on site.
In Settings the firm picks Don’t check, Warn and allow or Refuse the booking. A new firm starts on Warn and allow, which lets the booking through and tells the office who is missing what. Each person’s registrations are kept on their record, and the business’s in Settings under Registrations. Renewals on Today lists every one that has run out or soon will.
Repeat work
Repeat this job books the same work again, from weekly to every six months, until a date up to a year ahead. Each repeat is a new job with one visit, invoiced on its own. Where the job has price lines, you tick which ones each repeat bills.
Book more adds dates. Change this and later moves the day, the time, the length or the person for the rest of the series. Stop from here calls the rest off. Neither changes a repeat that has started or been invoiced.
A repeat that lands on a bank holiday, on the person’s approved leave, outside their rota or on top of another booking is listed on the job with its date. None is refused. One confirmation goes out for the series rather than one per date, and its calendar file carries the dates.
Confirmations, reminders and the visit page
When a visit is booked, an email goes out in your business name, and a reminder the evening before. Each carries the visit as a calendar file, with links to Apple Maps and Google Maps. Both can be switched off for one customer or for the whole firm.
Each goes to one person, the first of these with an email address: the site’s Occupier, another of the customer’s contacts at that site, a contact tied to no site, then an accounts contact. Nobody at another of the customer’s sites is written to, and no archived contact. The email greets that person by name. With Send by text as well as email on, their mobile is texted too.
The email links to a page for the visit, headed with that person’s name. The page shows the date, the time and the address, and what the visit is for and who is coming where the office has said. There that person can add the visit to a calendar, or ask to move or cancel it with an optional note. The page needs no account and no app.
A request to move or cancel changes nothing on its own. Your administrators are told, and the office moves or cancels the visit on the board. A moved visit is confirmed again, and the page shows the new day.
Today, the day sheet and your hours
At a desk, Today is the firm’s day on the same board. Under the board are Unassigned and what waits on the office: To bill, Overdue, Stuck, Paperwork, Renewals and Quotes to chase. On a phone, Today is your own day, with On the way and On site on your next visit.
Print the day sheet puts each person’s day on paper, a page each. Email the day sheet sends one person their day as a PDF, subcontractors included.
Today, Schedule and the free times offered follow the Opening hours in Settings. Once anybody’s hours are on the Rota, the rota sets the hours instead. With neither, the hours are 08:00 to 17:30, Monday to Friday. The board names the bank holidays of your firm’s nation. Scotland’s include St Andrew’s Day and Northern Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day. Every day stays bookable.
