A Quick Look Around

Most new ServiceDesk clients are anxious to peruse features. Go ahead, explore! Don't worry, there's nothing you can seriously hurt.

You may be most eager to see your on-screen DispatchMap. Hit your keyboard’s F5 button, and there it is: your own custom DispatchMap, showing a basic sketch of your service area.

It's not much to look at now because there's no data in it, but that's something we'll remedy soon.

Try hitting your keyboard’s arrow keys to pan your map. Press and hold the space bar to see your map in overview mode. Press and hold the Z key to see locations of your zip codes. Notice that the day you are viewing and quantity of jobs are listed in the title bar at top (you can hit your keyboard’s Page Down or Page Up keys to change the displayed day).

The Home key returns your view back to the position where your office is near the center. Similarly, if you hit your keyboard’s End key, the view moves to an area that lists each technician (at least, assuming you entered in some in the appropriate box of the Settings form). This area will show each job in list format under the technician to whom it’s assigned.

When you're done messing around in the DispatchMap, hit your keyboard’s Esc button.

The escape key is used often in ServiceDesk. Any time you wish to leave a form or your present mode in a form (or if you want to just back out of something), try hitting Esc. It's almost always functional and easier than grabbing the mouse to click the exit button.

On exiting from the DispatchMap you'll return to ServiceDesk's home screen, which consists of four Callsheets, displayed below the main menu. Notice that the Callsheets have fields for entering all the data that is pertinent to a service order: name, address, telephone numbers and even email for your paying customer, and separate such spaces for the service location in case it happens to be different (as it is, for example, with an OEM, Home-Warranty or other third-party payer job). There is a field for entering the kind of item that needs service, along with a similar space to enter the applicable brand. There is a space for entering an appointment date and time, and finally a very large space for describing the problem or request your customer wants addressed.

Don’t worry about the fact there are no spaces for model, serial and similar. These are done via a separate attachment, that you’ll read about later. You can add still more information via auxiliary forms that may be attached to each Callsheet. Specifically, you may add various kinds of notes, and detailed information concerning the machine being worked on, such model and serial numbers, purchase date, selling dealer, etc.

Notice that on the menu bar above there are twelve command buttons. These are arrayed in three banks of four each. This quantity and arrangement is very deliberate. If you look at your keyboard, you’ll see that (somewhat mirroring the buttons arrayed across ServiceDesk’s menu bar), it has 12 function keys arranged in a row just above the standard keys. This is on purpose, as it represents the 12 function keys most keyboards have.

ServiceDesk has far more than 12 major functions of course, you can access other functions with modifiers. For example F5 will open the DispatchMap, while ShiftF5 will open your Zone Scheduler.

If this sounds complicated, don’t worry; it actually works out as being quite simple in practice. And, we definitely do not expect you to make any effort to memorize what function keys are used for. You’ll find yourself accidentally memorizing as time goes by simply through repetition. Everything in ServiceDesk can be done either by keyboard keys, or by mouse clicks.

For initial learning, the mouse is often preferable for most actions. But, as time goes by, please try to notice the system prompts you as to what the keyboard action could have been instead. Little by little, you’ll find yourself remembering what the keyboard action could have been, and eventually you’ll decide to use it. The next time you will again, and soon it will be second nature.

With this we conclude our guidance (such as it is), on your “first look around.” Before proceeding to the next section, feel free to try whatever meets your fancy. Again, there's no real damage you can do at this point, so have fun.

While in your initial familiarization stage, you’ll be creating a bunch of what is essentially “fictional” data. Do it without worry. The more you feel free to try things and see what happens, the more you’ll be getting a grasp of how things work. Don’t worry about how much of this pretend stuff accumulates. It will be very easy to delete it when you’re ready to begin genuine operation.