ServiceDesk 2.8.223 Update 9/25/21

The F5 DispatchMap has long featured an optional little pie chart display which at-a-glance indicates the percent of capacity presently booked on any particular date. Conveniently, it even changes color to indicate when there is still plenty of open capacity (green), when it's getting close to fully booked (yellow), and when booking is at or over full indicated capacity:

It's a nice little feature, in regard to providing an instant and intuitive sense of how full is your total booking on any given date.

In the DispatchMap section that lists each's techs roster, you might similarly get a sense of how fully booked is any particular tech simply by eyeballing how many items are in his list. Plus, if one or more of his stops have a designated JobCount of greater than 1, the system will explicitly indicate any such total JobCount value as is presently in his route.

Generally speaking, this works well if you have a good sense, in regard to each of your techs, for how much they can handle. It does not work so well if you have so many techs that it's impossible to keep yourself familiar with the capacity of each, and if such capacities vary significantly from one tech to the next.

For the above reason, we've now added a little "Percent-of-Capacity-Used" tape as part of the display in each tech's roster:

If you are using any of the automated routing-sequence-optimization engines from ServiceDesk's F5 DispatchMap (Shift/Ctrl-Click on a tech's name at top his roster to get options), it's possible you'll sometimes find, after the result is displayed, that you'd like it be done in reverse order, as compared to what the optimization engine produced.

Until now, if you wanted to reverse the sequence, you had to do it by manually dragging and dropping each item in the list: a tedious process at best!

Now, in the same options box where you may choose, among other things, routing-sequence-optimizations as above-described (i.e., accessed via Shift/Ctrl-Click on a tech's name at the top of his list), there is a new "Reverse sequence" option:

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Usage speaks for itself.

Many years ago we added a feature in the F5 DispatchMap that allows you to graphically see the locations of jobs that presently need scheduled and/or where the customer has requested a sooner appointment. Here's the CheatSheet section that guides in how to invoke that option:

Anyway, because the display format of the displayed items consists of circle shapes with textual reference inside (and because the "needing-to-be-scheduled" variety are orange), many have called these items "pumpkins," and some call it the "pumpkins display:"

Display with "pumpkins" should now be faster

At any rate, though these pumpkins are a great feature, if yours is a large operation and you have a ton of currently-pending jobs, it's possible your pumpkins have been slow to display. It's because there is a lot or processing behind-the-scenes, and, even with today's computing systems, heavy processing loads can still take time.

Regardless, we found some ways to overhaul the processing so as to make it more efficient. We believe you'll find these displays are now about 50 percent faster.

For a very long time, we've offered a variety of methods by which you can, as described here and via semi-automation, send customers invitations to schedule.

More recently, we offered a means (announced here, with how-to documentation here) by which you can create your own communication templates.

Turns out some of our clients wanted to use their own communication templates as basis to send requests (SMS or email) to customers, asking them to schedule.

We've now accommodated for that, as likewise described here.

(Next up, incidentally, we plan to enable so that you can employ user-defined communication templates as basis by which to send your customers invitations to online bill-pay.)

A lot of ServiceDesk venues feature a box where you can put in notes that are relevant to the item displayed. For some reason, we had never until now offered a "Notes" box in the Shift-F12 UnitInfo interface.

It's there now:

In the Ctrl-F9 Funds-Control interface, a common function is preparing money items, that you've received, for deposit to your bank. This is certainly a function you'll use directly in the case checks received. In the case of bankcard transactions, by contrast, it is more of a "pseudo-preparation" process, since items go to the bank automatically, and you use a facsimile of the deposit-preparation process as means to verify that each expected bankcard transaction was indeed processed.

Anyway, it's possible that in the applicable interface you'll be looking at a significantly long list of transactions, and, in corresponding information from your credit card processor, you're looking at a similarly long list. Given this, it might involve significant effort as you seek to "eyeball match" items between the two lists (in particular, for the sake of verifying and checking off from one to the other).

Since the beginning, ServiceDesk has offered you the option to type in a check number or payer's name, at which point it shows you any match, and asks for you confirmation it's indeed the item (if there's only one match), or to choose which item if there is more than one match.

Regardless, depending on how you get information from your bankcard processing company, such transactions as are listed in its report may or may not have such payer names and/or transaction numbers as can be matched to items in the ServiceDesk list. If not, you're left to tedious "eyeball matching," which is no fun.

For such reason, we've now added a third "type-in "option. Since many bankcard company reports provide the reference number that was created as part of running the transaction, and since that reference number may have been created as the ServiceDesk JobRecord-ID, you may now optionally type-in that ServiceDesk JobRecord-ID, as target in the list for ServiceDesk to find and show to you:

As announced here, last April we introduced a new and improved, Gen-3 SD-Backup program.

In this matter of super-high importance (security of your data), it provided a massive set of improvements and and enhancements compared to Gen-2.

Regardless, we did not just release and forget. Rather, we've continued with further improvements, including:

• You may now selectively exclude folders for inclusion in the Level-2 backups. FYI, Layer-1 backups are only concerned with contents in your NetData folder. That folder contains, by far, your most crucial data. However, in the event of some calamity, there is much data in other folders that you'd regret losing. Layer-2 is designed to be more exhaustive in that it additionally backs up those other folders. However, some users have accumulated so much data in such other folders as to make the time taken, for a Level-2 backup, rather extreme, and, in general, much of the involved data would be hardly missed, regardless. That's why we've made it so you can now exclude particular such folders, depending on your preference.

• To aid you in your judgment, we've also made it so there is a reading that shows you, in respect to each such folder, what is the data load within it.

• To access the option for these exclusions, just click on the question-mark button in the Level-2 section, then pick the indicated option:

• Originally, the DeepArchv folder was not among those that were even potentially included in the Level-2 backup. As you can see above, it's now included -- as both a standard inclusion, and as an item that may be excluded, if desired.

• You may now force immediate backups in Level-1, and in any of its categories, by right-clicking on the tab that describes the category.

• You may set the SD-Backup program in the multiple-business-mode that allows each of multiple instances to remember the particular business instance (and instance settings) that it is for.

• RSS users are now permitted to include hourly backups (we'd omitted this before with thinking that, because of other backup systems provided as part of the RSS system, it was a little superfluous; some of our users persuaded otherwise).

Historically, our DispatchLink utility programs (in particular, SBDL and SPDL, connecting to ServiceBench and ServicePower, respectively) limited their uploading of availability information to just two weeks out.

A couple of years back, we were asked to add, into SBDL, uploading for weeks 3&4 so as to accommodate automatic zeroing of holidays, and we did so. This was a much simplified uploading, as compared to what's involved in working to manage availability for weeks 1&2, which involves an almost endless array of complications and is very, very detailed and sophisticated.

The simplified uploading for weeks 3&4 worked just fine until the ramifications of COVID-19 caused many servicers to find themselves already being fully booked, in at least portions of weeks 3&4. Given this, the simplified uploading started encountering issues. In a piece meal approach, we added first one element of further functionality, then the next, but it remained simplified compared to the weeks 1&2 uploading. Alas, it also remained inadequate to some servicers' needs.

For such reason, we did a major re-write of applicable program code so that, in Ver. 5.0.56 of SB-DispatchLink and forward, the availability uploading for weeks 3&4 uses the same, all-bells-and-whistles code and sophistication as does the uploading for weeks 1&2.

There is only one significant difference remaining. For weeks 1&2, the system goes by capacities as laid out for actual calendar dates in your Shift-F5 ZonePlanner interface. Because we do not in that ZonePlanner have actual date setups for beyond two weeks, the weeks 3&4 availability uploads go by whatever you've set as your default capacities. In practice, this should not be an issue. If you're contemplating a date in weeks 3&4 that's going to have a lessened-from-default-capacity capacity, simply make an entry in the F6 ScheduleList form that blocks out the lessened capacity there.

Because of mistiming in our publication of entries, there's a good chance you missed reading the installment (nominally dated 7/27/21) that precedes this one. We suggest you have a look to assure you're familiar with items announced there.