ServiceDesk 4.7.63 Update 11/18/13

More and more companies are pre-screening their jobs to assure a likelihood the tech will have all needed parts with him on the first trip.  In many instances this means ordering parts before ever going out.  In some instances the appointment has already been made, and you may find -- upon going to order a pre-screened part -- its arrival is not expected until after the appointment date.  To cope with this dynamic means doing several things:

1. As you order each such part, you must look to see if there is an appointment already pending, and, if so, whether the expected arrival on the part squares well with that appointment date.

2. If the anticipated arrival on the part is not sufficiently soon for the appointment, you must call the customer, explain the situation, and ask to cancel the present appointment.

3. You must then actually do the appointment cancellation within ServiceDesk.

4. You must reschedule for a new appointment date (either at the time, or later when the part arrives).

Another factor arises from the fact that ServiceBench is now often including pre-screen part suggestions in its dispatches.  The SBDL program places these into a Callsheet's ExtraNotes (which are of course transferred to the resulting JobRecord), meaning (to take good advantage):

1. You must make a special effort to be on the lookout for these notes, and, upon finding them, you must make significant effort to process accordingly. 

We have done several things to aid your work, in meeting these imperatives:

1. We have changed the F8 form's right-click on job reference action.  Formerly, this would quick-link to the underlying Parts-Request record.  It now instead direct-links to parent JobRecord.

1. This is to make it much more rapid and intuitive to see all the details as offered by the underlying Job. 

2. If there is a pending appointment for any job that underlies an F8 PartsProcess item, a ToolTip will appear for that item as you float your mousepointer over either it's left-most reference area, or over the DateExpected area.  The ToolTip's color will be green if there is no apparent conflict between the ExpectedDate and appointment date, or red if there is a conflict:

1. This is to make it so you don't even have to check the underlying JobRecord, so as to know about pending appointments -- and so you have a more obvious visual reminder if in fact there's an issue.

2. When you insert an expected date in an F8 item's ExpectedDate box,  the system will behind-the-scenes check to see if there is a conflicting appointment.  If it finds a conflict, it will present you with the following dialog box:

1. At least the above is what you'll see if the underlying JobRecord has no email address for the customer.  If it has one, you'll see this instead:

1. Either way, so long as you are appropriately populating that ExpectedDate box, you don't have to be deliberately watching.  The system will volitionally inform you of a conflict between expected part arrival and appointment, regardless. 

2. In the latter case above (i.e., where the JobRecord includes an email address for the customer), you'll notice the first option offers to cancel the appointment for you, plus email the customer with notice of the cancellation, and to include within the email a hyperlink on which the customer is asked to click, for the purpose of scheduling a new appointment (this one, of course, needing to be after the expected arrival date of the part).  To do all of the above is as easy as picking that selection.  You need do no separate work to achieve the actual cancellation within ServiceDesk (it's taken care of for you, and appropriately documented within the JobRecord's narrative history, too).  You need do no separate work to inform the customer.  Very likely, you need do no separate work even to get the job re-scheduled, for the customer will likely do it via the email-included hyperlink. 

3. The feature as just described involves our new CyberOffice scenario -- specifically, an invitation for the customer to re-schedule a new appointment, via online interface, when the existing one is cancelled.  We're labeling this one Scenario 12.   It's pretty simple.  When the customer clicks on the email-provided hyperlink, it takes him or her to the scheduling machinery as embedded within your website as part of the CyberOffice system (for this transaction it is particularly configured to refrain from offering any dates that precede the day after you expect to have the part).  When the new appointment is made, it plugs automatically back into ServiceDesk, just as do other appointments. 

4. As you can see, the second option in the above dialog offers to do all that was just discussed, but does not include a hyperlink to accommodate immediate re-scheduling by the customer.  If you are not yet using CyberOffice, you can fully use this option regardless.  Or, in some instances, you may prefer to use it if you simply do not want to re-schedule until after the part arrives. 

5. Regarding pre-screen information that comes from ServiceBench in an SBDL-inserted dispatch, ServiceDesk will now look for such items when you do the Job/Sale transition from Callsheet to JobRecord.  If it sees such an item, it will present you with this dialog:

1. With your consent in this dialog, ServiceDesk then opens the underlying ExtraNotes.  As you can see here, when you float you mousepointer over the portion that describes the "PRE-ID" item, a ToolTip informs you of a wonderful new shortcut:

1. Just as the yellow ToolTip invites, you may do a simple Ctrl-Click on the "PRE-ID" text.  In response, the system will open a PartsRequest-creation window for you, where you can then instantly initiate the process.  We feel this should make it so you no longer need to engage in the deliberate effort to go looking for these "PRE-ID" notes, and it facilitates more easily going from the PRE-ID'd item to the actual order creation. 

The CyberOffice system incorporates a variety of emails that are generated by either ServiceDesk or SD-Cyberlink to automate (or in some instances semi-automate) communication with your customers.  In each instance, we have formulated text for these emails that we judge as suitable for the purpose.  Occasionally, people want their text to be different, so we have long provided the ability to setup for use of your own custom text in substitution for our "pre-canned" variety.  But, this customization ability has extended only to some emails, not all.  This release adds several to the list of emails that may be customized. 

Emails that have long been customizable include: (1) acknowledgment of an initial order-request as sent by SD-CyberLink; (2) acknowledgement of confirmations, as sent by SD-CyberLink; (3) request to confirm appointment with provided hyperlink (so the customer can confirm online), as sent by ServiceDesk; and (4) request to confirm appointment by email reply or return call, as sent by ServiceDesk. 

With this release we add to our "customizable" list the following: (5) emails as sent by ServiceDesk to request initial scheduling on a job (typically involved when service was ordered by a third-party-payer) and with provided hyperlink (so the consumer can do such scheduling online); (6) email as sent by ServiceDesk, as per above, but without provided hyperlink (meaning the consumer must respond by calling the office to schedule); (7) emails as sent by ServiceDesk to inform parts have arrived, with hyperink-provided for the customer to schedule a new appointment; and (8) emails as sent by ServiceDesk to inform parts have arrived, but without a hyperlink (meaning the consumer must respond by calling the office to schedule). 

In addition to the above, the two new email scenarios (as discussed in the section above) also have their emails setup as customizable: (9) emails as sent by ServiceDesk to inform of appointment cancellation, with request to reschedule via provided hyperlink; and (10) emails as sent by ServiceDesk to inform of appointment cancellation, with description of intent to re-contact for scheduling after the parts arrive.

The CyberOffice Handbook has been updated to better describe, overall, how to create and implement your own customized text (it has very nice tables now, shows you the default text, etc.).  Besides that general improvement, if of course has details as needed for each of the newly customizable contexts:

http://rossware.net/MiniManuals/CyberOfficeHandBook.pdf

To go directly to the topic, please see pages 18 through 23 of the above-referenced document. 

If you do not know what a "Hlpng"-type appointment is, you should.  They are for where you need to send one or more added techs to the same appointment.  The primary/lead tech should be assigned the appointment as per normal.  Any other tech that you want to send simultaneously should also get an appointment, but with a tiny twist.  In place of the customer's name, you should place the precise text "Hlpng" (an obvious abbreviation for the word "Helping").  Typically, you'll follow with a space and then a name or abbreviation-for the tech who's lead on the appointment (as in "Hlpng GR"). 

These "Hlpng"-type appointments have been a fixture in ServiceDesk since virtually the beginning, and work great.  Both ServiceDesk and SD-Mobile know to treat appointments in an appropriately-different fashion, when seeing that "Hlpng" expression in lieu of the customer's name. 

Recently, though, a user pointed out one place where we'd not programmed to sensibly account for the difference.  He told me when a customer cancels an appointment via the CyberOffice confirmation process, it's only the main appointment that's cancelled.  Any potentially-appurtenant "Hlpng" items remain un-cancelled.  On investigation, I found it was worse than that.  ServiceDesk itself was not screening to avoid extra confirmation requests when "Hlpng"-type appointments were involved.  In consequence, the customer could receive a confirmation request on the main appointment, plus further request for any "Hlpng"-type appointment add-ons. 

And it wasn't merely an issue on cancellations.  Ideally, the consumer should be able to confirm or reschedule on the main appointment only, and have any of those actions transfer to all "Hlpng"-type appurtenant appointments (i.e., it was not a concern solely within cancellations).  This likewise was not being done.  Clearly, a fix was needed. 

This release does all of that.  ServiceDesk will now refrain from sending confirmation requests on "Hlpng"-type appointments.  More than that, in conjunction with the main appointment it will upload new data to the online CyberOffice data.  This new data will indicate the identity of any "Hlpng"-type appointments as associated with the main one.  With such data present, the SD-CyberLink utility can now see what appointments are appurtenant, and -- whatever action the user does on the main appointment (whether confirming, cancelling or re-scheduling) -- it can apply the same result to all (this requires an update to SD-CyberLink as well, Ver.  4.5.33 and above will have this improvement).

It's possible you don't know about this feature.  If it's your office's practice to leave many or most appointments at "all-day" status until working out each tech's route the day before, and if it's further your offices's practice to then convert appointments from all-day to smaller time-frames (so the customer can be informed and not have to plan on potentially waiting at home all day), this feature is for you.   

In a nutshell, with a simple action in the DispatchMap (a Ctrl-Click on the tech's name at top of his list of jobs) this feature inserts time-frames for you, using sensible logic according to parameters you specify.  It is very much easier and quicker than doing it manually. 

Until this release, however, there was a limitation.  The feature was designed with expectation it would be working with a list of appointments that all began with all-day status.  Thus, if you had some in the list that were already specified for a smaller time-frame, it would balk. 

This release addresses that.  Now, you may optionally tell the system to simply bypass any appointments that already have a time-frame. 

Several months back we added a feature in SBDL whereby it optionally uploads appointment changes to ServiceBench.  This seems to have had an unintended consequence -- in particular, such consequences would potentially arise if yours is an office that engages in the every-afternoon ritual as above-described (i.e., changing tomorrow's appointments from all-day to smaller time-frames as you get the routes worked out).   What was evidently happening is as follows:

Say, around 3 or 4:00 in the afternoon, you assign time-frames to a bunch of jobs that were formerly all-day.  SBDL dutifully uploads these changes.  ServiceBench's machinery then sees the changes, and, accordingly, changes its tally of which availability category each was tallied against.  They were tallied against All-Days.  Now they are tallied against either Morning or afternoon.  Until the next update cycle, this opens up vacancies (formerly filled) in the All-Day category, and suddenly you get a rush of new dispatches as pushed through that momentary opening. 

Ver. 4.5.51 of SBDL (available for update now) patches that vulnerability.