Job Scheduling (including Group Jobs or Job Groups)

Overview of Job Creation

There are a number of ways to create a job on JobWatch

1. By clicking on one of the Jobs icons in Schedule
2. Double-clicking on a Resource in the Schedule tab – which automatically fills in Resource information
3. Double-clicking on a Resource in the Schedule tab at a specific Date and Time on the timeline – which automatically fills the time, date and resource information
4. Clicking on the customer on the CRM and selecting ‘new job’, followed by your choice of method – which automatically fills in customer details
5. Creating jobs against Equipment in the Stock & Equipment tab
6. Creating a job in Maps by navigating: Map → Search box → Contact → Contact name/Address → New Job/Quick Job
7. The search Anything Box (top right of the screen). To add a job here, type in the contact name, press return and click on New Job or New group job – either will pre-populate the contact information

Creating a Job in the Schedule Tab

A. New Job

Clicking on the ‘New Job’ icon will open a new popup window:

1. Any stock or equipment to be associated with this job can be added here.
2. Any constraints that have been set against the job i.e. is a skill or time frame required for the job to be done
3. Any worksheets linked to the job will appear here
4. This is the overview of the job ie customer details, what the job will be, the Resource and the schedule
5. Any attachments (specific instructions or manuals) can be added here
6. All financial documents for the job will appear here
7. Name of the customer/site where the job will take place (Address will auto fill from the CRM) by selecting the + sign at the end, the office can create a customer if they don’t exist on the system
8. The location where the job will take place
9. The primary Person at the site where the job is taking place
10. The name of the primary Person at the Head Office/Parent (if the customer has one)
11. Is it a Single job or a Multiple job? Choose either a single job or multiple jobs scheduled under one job reference i.e. multiple jobs performed on the same asset for the same customer.  If you choose the multiple jobs option, the tab options will change and you will now have a ‘Jobs’ tab – use this to add multiple jobs under the one reference.
12. The name of the Job Contractor if one is being used
13. Contractor Job Type – please note that this is a conditional field which only appears if there is a Job Contractor being used (13 above)
14. Job reference
15. Order number (this can be mandatory depending on Job Type Settings)
16. What type of job is being done
17. Choose which ‘WorkSheet’(s) you want to attach to the job. Note that once you have selected a job type, any worksheets associated with that job will automatically be selected.  You can choose to add more.  Worksheets selected for the job will now appear in the ‘WorkSheets’ tab.  Worksheets can be set-up to be completed at a specific time (for example before a job can start, before it can be scheduled or once the job is complete) and/or by specific users (for example, by the back-office or by the resource doing the job).
18. What is the Job Category
19. Contract number if applicable.
20. Date the job will take place (not mandatory to create the job)
21. Time the job will take place (if a date has been selected, the time must be populated)
22. Job duration will automatically populate the settings from the job set up but can be manually amended
23. Who is going to do the job.  Once the Resource is set, an additional field will open allowing you to select assistants if you wish:
    
    The job will appear on an assistant’s schedule in a ‘faded’ form
24. Which vehicle is the resource driving
25. Details for the job
26. An alert can be sent to the selected person at the contact when your resource is a set distance away from the location (i.e. on his/her way to the job). The distance can be changed manually. This feature can be enabled/disabled on a job by job basis.
    • Message: Edit the message you wish to send in the ‘Message’ box. The time shown in the blue box is the variable that will show the time of arrival when the alert is sent.
    • Send to: Choose to send the ETA alert either by text message or email; this will auto-populate if the information is already within the CRM. You can add multiple email addresses or mobile numbers in the Send to box. Note that mobile numbers must be entered with their international dialling code, e.g. +447XXXXXXXXX. Note that using text message costs 5p/text.

If the job is Saved but a date or Resource has not been selected, the job will appear on the side menu under ‘Unscheduled Jobs’.

If a job category (18) has been selected, then the job will appear under that category but will otherwise default to ‘Uncategorised’. Once a decision has been made on the date/time of the job, it can be dragged across to the appropriate Resource and will then appear in the timeline.

B. Quick Job

As the name suggests, the fastest method of creating a job is through the ‘Quick Job’ option.  This is perfect when you are in a hurry and want to schedule a job with a minimum of detail:

1. Where will the job be taking place
2. What type of job is it – choose a job type from the dropdown menu
3. When does the job need to be done (either ASAP or the date and time can be selected)
4. Who will do the job
5. If unsure of who can do the job, the Scheduling Assistant will show availability as above
6. Notes for the job
7. Multiple quick jobs can be raised and grouped (ideal if doing multiple tasks for a job)

C. New Group Job

Adding jobs using this icon is a way of informing the JobWatch system that the individual jobs created within it should be regarded as a group. Since the jobs are individually raised and priced, it is easy to add, alter or delete them as required, without affecting the integrity of the overall grouping.

Whereas with the Job Group Template you might create a template job cluster which is typical for the kind of work that your business handles, here jobs are added individually, allowing you to tailor them for a specific customer.  You can also make use of the Linked Job feature with or without recurrence and recurrence patterns, making it perfect for repeat jobs for a customer.

Clicking on the icon will open the form below:

As soon as you begin to type in the contact information, the form will begin to self-populate with the additional information, drawn from your CRM.

Continue to fill in the form as usual but when you get to the field, Jobs in group are linked, new options will appear if you check the box.

Add a date, time and resource.  The resource that you select will be the same for all jobs within the group, as that is a feature of Linked Jobs.

By default no recurrence is set but by clicking Edit a new popup will open, Recurrence of job group.  Here you can choose the number and date of recurrences and usefully tie it in with agreed Contract timings.  You can also set decisions around Linked job group settings.  An example is shown below:

A completed example would look like this:

For a more detailed explanation of how this works, please read the dedicated Linked Jobs article.

Next, move onto the Jobs tab and begin to add jobs, either manually, through +Add a job button or import them via +Import job:

Between each job added you will receive a reminder of the effect on the group, meaning that if jobs are added to the group at a later date, or are amended, the user will know that they are part of a linked group:

Once you have add a new job to a linked group, you will notice that the resource populates with the name of the person/vehicle carrying out all jobs within this group and that a symbol will appear on the right hand side, indicating that it is part of a linked group:

To learn more about Group Jobs, please read the dedicated Group Jobs article.

D. Job Group Template

The ‘Job group template’ icon allows you to set up individual jobs, grouped together against a single group template, aka, ‘group jobs or ‘job groups”.   Whereas ‘New group jobs’ are useful for things like projects or for jobs that are not regularly repeated as a group for multiple customers, Job Group Templates are perfect for situations where job groupings are typically combined eg a site clear up job (Job 1) might regularly be coupled with a job disposing of the collected waste (Job 2).  When this icon is pressed and the template is selected, all the jobs included in it will automatically appear.

As a bonus, when importing you have additional options:

1. Contact Job Groups – this option allows import by using either your own Job Group Template or one which you have downloaded from our Help Centre.
2. Contact Job Group Rates – these enable the import of multiple line items by providing both the contact and job group references as well as the line item charges.

Matching export options are also available.

Begin by setting up a Job Group Template in the back office. Navigate: My Account → Administration → [side menu] Schedule → Job group templates → Add

Once we have successfully set up the Job group template’s back office, we can move on to the Schedule.

1. To begin, Navigate:  Schedule →  [icon] Job group template
2. A ‘New jobs…’ popup window will have opened.  Fields (1) and (2) are mandatory and must be completed, whilst a reference number and order number are optional. If the ‘Job group ref.’ is left blank, the system will create one automatically if set up to do so:

You will find that once you have made a selection from the ‘Group template’ field, the jobs which you associated with the project in the Administration stage will automatically appear in a ‘Template jobs’ section, as shown outlined below.  Note that the comments in bold between the 2 sections will vary depending on the configuration you selected in Administration:

3.   If you wish to schedule the jobs right away, input (1) dates and (2) times for each of the jobs (as shown above) then click (3) ‘Create job group’ to continue, eg:

If you do not enter a resource, date and time, the jobs will be created but will appear in the side menu under ‘unscheduled jobs’.

4. A popup will have now opened:

If you click ‘Yes’ then the following window will open:

The above is essentially the job group hub and will include all information relating to the jobs within the template, including everything from attachments and activity stages, to notes, messages and flags.  You will see that each of the jobs is displayed, together with all of the information we have input which pertains to them. The Duration field on the far right shows both the time for each job and the cumulative working time for the entire group of jobs.

Using this section of the job group you can easily find exactly what you are looking for through the many filter options, a useful feature on large, complex projects which include a large number of jobs.

You will note that the first column is made up of checkboxes.  Ticking all, some or any of these will cause a new icon to appear ‘Selected jobs‘

The number shown next to the icon is the number of jobs which have been selected.

Click on the icon and a new dropdown list of options will appear which can be carried out on the selected jobs, leaving the other jobs in the group unchanged:

• Unallocate – this will move the selected jobs back to the the ‘unscheduled jobs’ menu.
• Cancel – you will be asked to confirm that you wish to cancel the selected jobs and to provide a reason for cancellation.  You will have the option to keep a record of the cancelled jobs
• Reassign – will allow you to change the resource who will carry out the jobs.  Note you can only reassign jobs where the date and time have already been set
• Schedule – where any jobs within the group have not been scheduled or where they have been unallocated, you can schedule them here. You will then be asked to refresh your page to update the jobs
• Apply group recurrence – this allows you to set recurrences for the group of jobs specified eg for regular collection-delivery routines.
• Edit – this allows users to edit a number of different fields for the selected jobs in one action
• Edit prices – You can edit or add any line items associated with these jobs

Note that the Financial tab will show all the line items associated with the entire group of jobs (a sum of the line items of each of the component parts) and a copy of all Financial documents raised in relation to each job associated with it.

5. Click to Save.  You will see that all of the jobs now appear against the resources in the Schedule

Recurring Job Group Template

Ever wish that you were able to create a recurrent series, including variable job types, within your job group template?

When creating a Job Group Template there is the option ‘jobs in group are recurring‘, informing the system that there is an irregular pattern that will recur periodically, x number of times.  You can additionally opt to link the jobs if preferred. Finally, these can be imported en masse within jobs and at a contract level, if required.

So when might this be used?  If, for example, you have the following recurring job group template for Darlington International:

Service Type A: Site Survey, Service & Machine Run Test (160 minutes) with a 3-month interval.

Service Type A: Site Survey, Service & Machine Run Test (160 minutes) with a 3-month interval.

Service Type B: Site Survey, Machine Inspection, Service & Machine Run Test (265 minutes) with a 6-month interval.

No Service: no work is carried out at this interval because Service Type B requires a 6- month interval.

Setting this up as a recurring job group template would ensure that this pattern is scheduled as a repeat for x number of times, as per the contract, without the need to repeatedly input it.

Additional Places to Create Jobs

As mentioned in the overview, there are a number of other places (outside of the Schedule tab) where Jobs can be created.  Here are the most popular alternatives:

1. Creating a Job in CRM

Jobs can be added in CRM by either navigating:

CRM → Contact name → New job  OR

CRM → Contact name → Edit → Jobs tab → ‘+’ New job

Since the CRM contains your JobWatch address book,  it auto-populates the Contact’s details on the New Job form.

2. Creating a job in Maps

Jobs can be created in Maps by navigating: Map → Search box → Contact → Contact name/Address → New Job/Quick Job:

If you select ‘Contact Name’ JobWatch pulls all the information for that contact from your CRM and automatically populates your Job form. Where you have selected ‘Address’ it fills in the address on the Quick Job form.

3. Creating a job in Search Anything Box

The Search Anything Box can be found at the top right of the screen. Jobs can be easily added from here as follows:

1. Type in the contact name
2. Press return
3. Click on New Job

4. Creating a job in Stock & Equipment

It is possible to create a new job by clicking on a piece of equipment.

Navigate: Stock & Equipment → Equipment → Select equipment → New job:

Creating a Job from a Device

Jobs can also be created from the JobWatch app where the back office have configured the settings to allow this:

Self-Allocate Unscheduled Jobs

There are occasions when you have a resource at a site and it would be useful if they were able to carry out additional, unscheduled jobs at the same time.

Where permissions are in place, resources can search for unallocated jobs, taking into account resource restrictions, such as location and skills.

Mandatory Worksheets on Job Group Templates

When using the ‘Job group template’ icon, any included jobs using a Job Type which has a worksheet with mandatory questions which must be completed by the back office, either ‘Before creating’ or ‘Before scheduling’, will be unable to save until those Worksheets are completed:

Response to Custom Fields

If any jobs within the group have Custom fields against them, when you click to save the group, you will be asked to complete any which have mandatory custom fields.

For example,  if a Job Custom field has been set up for the Job type Design Consultation (Navigate: My Account →Administration → [side menu] Schedule → Job custom fields):

and a new project group is created which includes that job:

then a popup window will open asking you to complete the mandatory fields:

Once these are completed, you can save the group as usual.

Job Hints

Job Hints offer you the opportunity to maximise your resources by advising you when a new job could tie in with other locally scheduled jobs and will appear on both scheduled and unscheduled jobs where there is sufficient data in the system:

Adding Stock and Equipment & Creating a System

If you already know which items of Stock &/or Equipment will be needed on a job, then these can be added by clicking on the ‘Stock & Equipment’ tab of the ‘New Job’ popup, toggling between Planned/Actual and Stock/Equipment/Either and then Saved:

Alternatively, if this is a type of job which regularly requires the same items of Stock & Equipment, it is possible to create a stock System in the back office, which means that those items will auto-populate this tab. To do this there are 3 steps:

• Step 1 – Create a System
  Navigate: Stock & Equipment → [left hand menu] Systems → Create a system + This will open a pop-up window allowing you to create a new System. Once you have clicked Save, another window will open prompting you to add equipment items to the system (use serial numbers to locate items):

• Step 2 – Edit a Job Type
  Navigate: My Account → Administration →[side menu] Schedule → Job types → Add and tick the checkbox next to ‘Systems’ entitled ‘Use systems with equipment’ and then Save:

• Step 3 – Add a System to a Job
  Now navigate: Schedule → New Job.  Fill in the form as usual. Once you have entered the job type associated with the System you have created, you will find that an additional ‘Systems’ field appears.  Click on the ‘+’ at the right side of that field and add the required System name.  Once the System is added, you will find in the ‘Stock & Equipment’ tab that the equipment items associated with the system have been automatically added:

Set Time Constraints for Jobs

To set up a time constraint for a job it must be first set up in the back office as a constraint against the specific Job Type.  Navigate: My Account → Administration → [side menu] Schedule → Add/Edit Job Type

If a job remains unscheduled and there is a constraint against it, you will be able to view it in the side menu:

Setting a Recurrence Against a Job or Group of Jobs

Once the date and time have been set, when viewing the job you will now see that you have the option to set a recurrence:

You can now decide on the intervals you wish to set up between recurrences.  Options are Daily, Weekly, Monthly or on a specific date each month:

Please note: When setting a recurrence for anything exceeding the weekly option, do bear in mind that if the date on which the job takes place differs from the date of recurrences,  the system will search for the next matching date, which might result in a job taking place more than once in a month initially, or else extending for a month longer than expected:

i.e., using our examples above, the initial job is set for the 4th of the month but the recurrences are set for the 1st. Ideally, both should match and be set for either the 4th or the 1st of the month.

Scenario 1- If the job and recurrence dates match and there are 6 recurrences scheduled:

• The first job will take place on the 4th June
• There will be 5 recurrences taking place on the 4th of the month, July-November ie 6 jobs in total.

Scenario 2 – If the job remains scheduled for 4th June, the recurrences remain scheduled for the 1st and there are 6 planned recurrences:

• The first job will take place on the 4th of June
• There will be 6 recurrences taking place on the 1st of the month July-December ie 7 jobs in total

When setting up recurrences, you are also able to select whether you would like the job to recur to Unscheduled jobs or to the same Resource, as well as whether you wish additional adjustments, eg if a job is rearranged to a different day, the change is copied to the entire series.

Troubleshooting Recurrences

If the recurrences are not displaying as expected on your Schedule, check the settings on the back office are set to show recurrences. Navigate My Account → Administration → [Quick links] General Account Settings:

Recurrences can also be set for jobs within a group:

Since the addition of Recurrence Patterns allows you to save your most commonly used recurrences and apply them without having to recreate them, they can so be set up in the back office and applied at an earlier stage through a Contract. Navigate: My account > Administration > [side menu] Schedule> Recurrence patterns:

The dropdown list on a Contract’s Job tab allows users to filter by Recurrence Patterns.

Scheduling Assistant

If the User selects ‘Save and schedule’ after creating a job, the system will load the Scheduling assistant (this will also be available to any jobs that are Unscheduled):

A new popup window will now open:

The assistant will now interrogate the information input when the New job was created (Illustration 1), looking for any constraints. If any are found, then the assistant will apply them as defaults in the relevant category.

1. Is the scheduling priority that of a resource eg a gas safe certified engineer, or a vehicle eg a fork-lift truck
2. Which resource/vehicle group is required for the job
3. Any specific skills that the resource needs to have
4. When does the resource/vehicle need to be available from – date and time. If no time constraints are found, the assistant defaults to a seven day period from the time of scheduling.
5. Is the job to be done by a specific resource
6. What attributes are required (Vehicle)
7. The latest date by which the job needs to be done (see (4))
8. If no time has been specified, the assistant will default to Anytime. Morning is 00:00 – 12:00 and Afternoon is 12:00 – 24:00.
9. The assistant will search for available job slots where the above criteria are met and will then provide a list:

When searching for available slots, the assistant considers any applicable constraints and allows for them.  For example, it will allow adequate time for a resource to travel from the previous to the next location whilst conforming with traffic regulations.  The assistant will also take into account constraints such as shift patterns and locations and add a buffer to allow for traffic where relevant.

1. Name of the resource available
2. When the resource can start the job
3. The distance between their journey start and the job location. Please note, when the additional job takes place on the existing site, or on the route already planned, the total will appear as zero.
4. The length of time it will take the resource to arrive at the job location.
5. The cost of the job when carried out by that resource (this data is pulled through from the settings in the Administration section). It is calculated as follows: ((resource’s hourly cost x planned driving time to and from the job) + (resource’s hourly cost x  the planned time of the job) + (distance travelled to and from the job x the planned vehicle’s cost per mile)).

Please note that if you navigate: My account➔ Administration➔ (Quick link) General account settings➔ Schedule,  the following fields are editable:

• Minimum free time between jobs for scheduling assistant (minutes)
• Number of minutes late authorised
• % extra time to add to a journey when scheduling jobs

Customisable Options for Schedule All

A series of checkboxes on the batch schedule popup allow you to decide which jobs should or should not be scheduled when a constraint has not been met.  If a constraint box is ticked against a specific constraint and that constraint is not met, then the job(s) it applies to will not be scheduled.  The 5 constraints are:

• Time-based constraint (start before, after, contact access hours)
• Vehicle constraint (specific vehicle or group)
• Resource constraint (specific resource or group)
• Skills and attribute constraint
• Resource max distance

Note that all options will be ticked by default.

Further advantages of using the Scheduling assistant

1. Where the cost data is available, the assistant will order the options, ranking them in ascending order from lowest cost through to the highest cost.
2. In our Illustration 1 example, the data is ordered alphabetically but could also be ordered by start time of job, or by extra distance in miles/minutes ascending or descending.
3. Any resource with a scheduled absence during the search period will automatically be removed from the results, removing the risk of a resource being assigned work during planned leave.
4. When in the jobs list view. a User can apply a number of filters to find a list of jobs. Once they have their list of jobs they can hit the ‘More’ option at the bottom of the filters in the list view and then choose to ‘Schedule all’ jobs.
5. Using the ‘Schedule all’ option allows up to 1000 jobs to be scheduled at one time, in the order and with the constraints that the user has set.  If a job in that list has already been scheduled, it will not be rescheduled, preventing double-booking or confusion.
6. When allocating slots for all unscheduled jobs, the assistant will always prioritise the user’s constraints.  Where all constraints cannot be met within a valid slot, the assistant will automatically schedule based on the ranked importance of the constraint.
7. Once a user has found their preferred slot to schedule they can then click on the slot and choose to schedule, the job is then assigned to the resource/vehicle at the time specified.
8. Use of the assistant can provide very real benefits, as seen below:

For further information on using the Scheduling Assistant, please read the separate document:

[download 1]

Scheduling Jobs over 24hrs

The maximum time a job can be scheduled for in JobWatch is 24 hrs. If a job is going to extend over a number of days, then the recommended option is to set it up using the  ‘Multiple jobs’ field in the ‘New job’ window:

When selecting Multiple Jobs, you must always add at least one Job prior to saving. You can do this either by creating a new job or by importing an existing job using the Job reference:

Once a job has been added, you can now set a recurrence:

This will automatically add the other jobs into the Schedule:

Additional Actions from the List View

The column of checkboxes to the right of jobs allow you to carry out further actions.  When the checkbox of one or more jobs is ticked, an additional icon will appear both beneath the displayed page of jobs and at the bottom of the filter list, which will enable those additional functions.  You will notice that the number of selected jobs is also displayed next to the icon:

When the Select all checkbox is ticked, you will be asked if you wish to include all the filtered jobs or just the ones on the current page:

Additionally:

• Whilst editing jobs, a prompt will now display the number of jobs sites which those jobs relate to.
• When reassigning jobs the user can now clear the date field, ensuring that the date/time doesn’t change from when originally created.  A display will show ‘the jobs will be reassigned with the previous date/time being used’.
• The ‘Edit Pricing’ feature appears on both multiple jobs and on contracts.  This allows users to add, edit or replace line items on the selected jobs.

Removing a Job from the Group

NB If you would like to remove a job from the group without deleting it at any stage, this is easily achievable:

Editing the Job Site and Adding Stops

On occasion, you may need to change the Job site for a specific job but not for the customer in general.  You might also need to add Stops in on the way, eg to pick up some parts for the job.

1. Select the Job and Click View
2. Select the 3 line (burger) menu to the right of the Job Site field
3. Choose to change the Stop duration and/or the address. The Address can be changed manually by selecting ‘Address’ or by changing the ‘Contact’ if the new Job site is already in your CRM.
4. Click to Save.
5. The order of waypoints (stops) can be altered by clicking on the 3 line (burger) menu and selecting ‘Move up’.

Duplicate a cancelled job

It is possible to duplicate a cancelled job from the job list in order to recreate a brand-new job with the same details.

To duplicate a cancelled job, navigate: Schedule → Display → List → [filter] Job Status → Cancelled →  select job → Duplicate

Email Confirmation

Once a job has been created and appears on the schedule, in most instances you will then wish to confirm the appointment with the customer.  This can be achieved as follows:

1. Click on the job on the Schedule
2. Click on “Email Confirmation” on the popup window:
3. A new window will now open, allowing you to fully customise the confirmation email being sent. The system will automatically default to a job confirmation template but you can manually amend the email or choose a different template if you prefer.  Similarly, the contact’s email address will auto-populate with that of the contact’s Primary Person but you can add in other persons from the contact should you wish to, or even cc in other email addresses:
4. You can also opt to include a tracking link so that the customer can track the resource en route to the job.  This is done by clicking on the Keywords icon, then the Jobs tab and selecting the Keyword Tracking link:
5. As shown below, the confirmation email received by the customer includes a link (1) which will allow them to confirm the job time/date as well as any additional notes they may wish to add. The email also includes a calendar attachment (2), which allows the customer to automatically add the appointment to their Outlook calendar:

   

   

6. The customer will now confirm via the link:

   

   

7. Now that the job has been confirmed, two things will happen:
   a) The resource allocated to the job will receive an email advising them that the job has now been confirmed by the customer.
   b) The job will now appear with a green outline on your schedule (prior to being confirmed, it has a red outline).

   

   

Keeping the Date and Time When Unscheduling Jobs

When unscheduling a job you can select whether or not you wish to retain the date and time on which it was originally scheduled.

Navigate:  My Account → Administration → [side menu] Account → Account settings → Schedule section:

1. Above we have ticked yes and therefore if we take a scheduled job:

then click to Save, it will appear on the schedule:

If we then drag it across to ‘Unscheduled jobs’ and view it, the time and date have been retained but the resource removed:

2. However, if we tick no:

and the same process is followed the result of following the process above results in the Unscheduled job looking like this:

i.e. the date will now show the current date and the time will be blank.

“Bad” Scheduling

When creating or editing a job in your schedule, if a ‘bad’, i.e. unsuitable, slot is picked, a message will be displayed to alert the user providing that you have set up the prompt in the back office. To set it up, navigate: My Account → Administration → Account → (scroll down to) Schedule section → (tick box for) “Show a confirmation prompt when scheduling a job for a resource or a vehicle not available”:

Cancelling Jobs

Cancelling Multiple Jobs

JobWatch gives you the option to cancel more than one job at a time by using the “Cancel all jobs” function. Navigate: Schedule → [side menu] Display → List:

Use the (1) filters to find the jobs which you want to cancel and then (2) click the ‘More’ icon.  A popup will now open and you should click on the ‘Cancel all jobs’ option:

A popup will now appear asking you to confirm the deletion of these jobs:

If you wish to proceed, click ‘Yes’.

***PLEASE NOTE THAT ONCE THIS ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN IT CANNOT BE UNDONE BY BIGCHANGE – THEREFORE PLEASE BE 100% CERTAIN THAT YOU WANT TO CANCEL THE JOBS SHOWN***

Cancelling a Job

To cancel a job:

1. Click on the job on the Schedule (or in the Unscheduled side menu) and select ‘View’.
2. Choose the ‘Cancel’ (bin) icon from the selection at the bottom of the popup window
3.  A new popup window will now open asking you to confirm that you want to cancel the job, asking for a ‘Reason for cancelling’ and asking if you would like to keep a record of the cancelled job.  If you still want to proceed, click  ‘Yes’.

***PLEASE NOTE THAT ONCE THIS ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN IT CANNOT BE UNDONE BY BIGCHANGE – THEREFORE PLEASE BE 100% CERTAIN THAT YOU WANT TO CANCEL THE JOBS SHOWN***

You can also cancel jobs from the Jobs tab on the CRM

There is a back-office permission field associated with this capability, with defaults set to Administrator and Manager roles only.

Navigate: My Account > Administration > Web Users > Roles:

Viewing Cancelled Jobs

Whilst cancelled jobs cannot be reinstated, they can still be viewed.  Navigate: Schedule → [side menu] Display → List → [field] Job status

Select ‘Cancelled’ and the date parameters you wish to view.  If you are looking for a specific job, job type, reference, etc you can also add this information in the usual way  to further reduce your list and narrow down the information provided.

You will now see a list of the cancelled jobs.

Duplicating Cancelled Jobs

Should you wish to create a job with the same details as one which has been cancelled

You can now duplicate a cancelled job from the job list in order to recreate a brand-new job with the same details as the cancelled job.

To duplicate a cancelled job, click on the cancelled job in your job list and you will be given the option to ‘Duplicate’ it.

A pop-up will then appear with all the details of the cancelled job, allowing you to easily schedule it as a new job.

Follow On Jobs

The fantastic ‘Automation’ feature allows you to programme a series of jobs based upon conditional branching responses.  On the Detail tab of a Job you will already be used to completing both the Positive and Negative Results fields.  When set up appropriately in the back office, these responses can be used to trigger an automatic job, or series of jobs, until the desired outcome is reached.

Below is a video giving a high-level overview of the feature, with more detailed instructions beneath.

Step 1 – Creating Job Types

Begin in the back office by navigating:

My Account → Administration → [side menu] Schedule → Job Types

Complete the fields on the Detail tab as usual:

You can either use an existing job type that is set up, or create a new one. The above image shows results that could necessitate a new Job being created, in practice a new job would be triggered in this scenario on a negative result ie ‘Additional parts required’ and ‘Replacement boiler needed’.

Please note that although the additional Jobs above were for Negative results, Automation for Follow On Jobs can also be used for Positive results, if appropriate to the Job Type selected. For example, if used in a sales appointment scenario, a Positive result could be ‘Opportunity Over 500’ results in an automated follow on Job Type of ‘Corporate Sales Follow Up’.

Step 2 – Adding a WorkSheet and Custom Fields

If you are using an existing job type, you can jump to step 3.

Once you have created your Job Types you may typically wish to add one or more WorkSheets to attach to the Job Type. To do this, navigate:

My Account → Administration → [side menu] Schedule → Worksheets → Add/Edit

For more detailed information on creating a WorkSheet, please read the dedicated article.  When you have finished, your WorkSheet will look something like this:

Now return to Job Types and attribute your WorkSheet to the appropriate Job Type:

Custom Fields can be added by navigating:

My Account → Administration → [side menu] Schedule → Job Custom Fields → Job Type → Add/Edit

Step 3 – Adding Automation

Once the previous steps have been completed, you can set up the trigger points for Automation.  Navigate:

My Account → Administration → [side menu] Schedule → Job Types → [tab] Automation and then click the ‘Add’ icon:

Section A – allows you to set up the scenario in which the Automation for the follow on Job would be triggered.  You will note that all fields are mandatory

Section B – Field mapping. This is the information from the original Job which you would wish to be copied across to all follow on jobs, eg Contact information, constraints, etc All fields are mandatory and most have yes/no answers.

Section C – Manual mapping allows you to add in additional information which wasn’t relevant to the original Job which triggered the Automation

1. Options are ‘Completed’ or ‘Completed with issues’
2. The selections available from the dropdown list are the Positive (Completed) and Negative (Completed with issues) results which you input on the Detail tab of the Job Type.  eg if a Boiler Service was unsuccessful because it requires a total replacement, you would select ‘Replacement boiler needed’ as the Comment.
3. Choose the Job you wish to automatically create eg if ‘Replacement boiler needed’ was the Comment, you would select ‘Boiler Installation’ as the automatic follow on Job.
4. Do you wish the original and follow on Job(s) to be grouped together yes/no.
5. The new Job can immediately be placed on the Schedule against the triggering Resource, with or without their assistant, or go into Unallocated on the side menu.
6. There are two options:
   1. Taken from new job type – this is the current behaviour and will remain the default value
   2. Taken from triggering job type and add suffix after reference (eg: -001) – this option will use the original job reference and add a suffix to differentiate it from the original job.

   

7. Select whether this should appear under the Job Contact or a Parent Contact
8. Do you want the original Job description to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
9. Do you want the original Invoice items to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
10. Do you want the Planned Stock, Actual Stock, or no Stock & Equipment to be copied over to the new Job.
11. Do you want the original Job group to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
12. Do you want the original Sales Opportunity to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
13. Do you want the original Skill Constraints to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
14. Do you want the original Vehicle Constraints to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
15. Do you want the original Time Constraints to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
16. Do you want the original Attachments to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
17. Do you want the original Flag to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
18. Do you want the original Custom Fields to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
19. Do you want the original WorkSheets to be copied over to the new Job, yes/no?
20. Mapping options for dependent fields will be determined by your selection in ‘Fields type’ and on the responses which you set up in the back office/Resource notes.  For ‘Original job’ the ‘Field type’ options are: For the ‘New job’ they are:

In order to easily identify which jobs have been created by the automation, the job reference for the job that triggered it is included in the comment under the activity tab.

Job Scheduling: Recording of a Live Tutorial

Default Job Contacts and Secondary Persons

Edit Assistant Activity

Follow On Jobs

Job Recurrence Series Hint & Creation Settings

Recurrence of Jobs in a Group

Recurrence Patterns

Recurring Job Group Templates

Select and Action Multiple Jobs