GeoOP’s brand spanking new Scheduler is such a major improvement on its predecessor that it has fast become the go-to tool for our service company customers.

To access the new Scheduler, log in to your account, click on JOBS and then SCHEDULE. Once there you will see all your jobs (Assigned and Unassigned) down the left hand side, your staff to the right of this and then their schedules.

The best way to see the power of this feature is to tick “Hide Assigned Jobs” (from left hand side) so you can see which jobs haven’t been allocated yet. Now only unassigned jobs will show. (You can easily uncheck the box if you need to see all the jobs in your system.)

Now this is the really fun part. Everyone we know loves “Drag and Drop” because it is so quick and easy. In fact, it’s so easy that our mascot dog, Max, can do it. Okay we can’t back that up, but you get the idea.

From the left hand panel, simply click on a job (and hold your mouse down) and then drag it to the staff member ‘s schedule (on the right hand side) that you want to perform the job. Make sure to hover over the day and time the job needs to be done before releasing your mouse. Voila, just like magic, the job is dispatched to that staff member’s smartphone. And don’t worry if you drop it in the wrong place; simply click and drag it to where you want it to go.  

This cuts down so much time and stress that we should be sending you our Christmas wish lists!

Now what happens if someone is sick and his or her workload still needs to be handled? Previously you’d have to phone a whole lot of people to see what their schedule was like and then allocate the job(s) to them. Talk about time consuming and frustrating!

Now you have two options. You either use GeoOP’s SMS/Email function to notify the clients that their jobs have had to be postponed, OR you could simply drag and drop those jobs to the staff members who have free time to perform those jobs. And you know which staff they are because their schedules are right in front of you. Simply drag and drop the jobs to them and the jobs are dispatched to their smartphones. Done and dusted! You’re welcome J.

Here are some more tips for you. Double-clicking on a job in the scheduler lets you edit the job. Mousing over the job on the schedule gives you a preview of the job. Clicking the scheduler full screen view (icon top-right of screen) makes the scheduler go, you guessed it, full screen. This is perfect if you have a smaller monitor.

 

 

How many times have your customers called asking when they can expect to see your staff, or when their job is going to be completed? We’re guessing it’s a pretty big number. This time-zapping activity eats into staff hours and makes for a less productive team.

Well we’ve just launched another time saving feature, with an extra packed customer service addition, to put an end to all these calls and running around. 

From the client screen you can email your client a read only view of their jobs. This lets your customers know who is coming and when they’re coming to do their job(s). You can email your clients their job calendar from the EMAIL SCHEDULE button under the Client screen. Now keeping customers up to date is quick and painless. 

Log in to your account now and navigate to your Clients screen to see this in action. 

 

There are some industries where workers will do a job for someone, but the bill needs to be paid by someone else. A typical example is the property maintenance industry where the job is located at a tenant’s address but the bill needs to be sent to the landlord or the property management company.

To cater to this type of set up, GeoOP has created Separate Billing Client. This is an option that can be turned on in the Company Settings screen of GeoOP’s dashboard.  Once activated, this lets you create a job for someone but send the bill somewhere else.

Separate Billing Client is handy when you have clients with multiple sites. You simply load the sites as individual clients—say ACME-site1, ACME-site2, etc—and each time you create a job for one of these sites, you can send the bill to the right site. If this is a feature that suits your industry, log in to your account, click on Company Settings (top-right of screen) and scroll to the bottom of screen. Click the check box next to “Allow Separate Billing Client”. Then go to Clients to set them up. Presto, you’re done. Nice and easy, just like GeoOP.

 

Wouldn’t it be great to have your company’s entire parts list at the fingertips of your mobile workforce?

Get excited because now you can import your Parts into GeoOP from Xero. This means your parts will be easily accessible by your team when they are on jobs that need parts. Your team simply add the parts using the “Add Parts” button from the job edit screen or via “Add Parts” in the iPhone app (Job detail view then press Job notes), and presto, they’ll be added to the job just like magic.

Think about the old way to source part numbers, order them and add them to an invoice. Feel the pain? Talk about time consuming! The benefit of Parts import is now adding parts to a job are done with a few clicks of a button. This makes work quicker, easier and more profitable.

To import your company’s parts simply log in to your Dashboard, navigate to Jobs, then Parts and click on the blue “Import Parts” button (on right). You’ll then see Xero’s log in screen. Log in there and follow the easy instructions from there. 

CSV parts imports is up next. Stay tuned.

 

The updates are coming thick and fast from the team at GeoOP, and we’re really excited about this one. This time we’re releasing version 2.0 of Xero and Freshbooks Integrations as well as a completely overhauled Invoicing user interface.

Our new Invoicing interface is a lot cleaner and more intuitive for users to use. And because people feel more comfortable interacting with beautiful design, we’ve done our best to make using this section a great experience.

This update extends far beyond beauty. From the Jobs Invoicing screen you can now tick which jobs you wish to send across to Freshbooks, Xero or save as a CSV file. You’ve got the option to create one invoice per job or one invoice per client.

A tick box system lets you invoice Parts for a job before the rest of the job is finished or invoiced. This is handy for jobs with long lead times, or you need to meet specific payment terms with your suppliers.

And finally you can edit or delete line items in the invoice screen (but new items must be added from the actual Job).

With this update you potentially save hours each day worth of data entry and invoicing time, duplicate data entries are a thing of the past, and with the click of a button everything is done for you, super-Flash Gordon-fast!

If you haven’t checked out our new look and new features, log in to your GeoOP dashboard now and navigate your way to Jobs, then Invoicing. Enjoy.

 

As part of rolling out our brand spanking new GeoOP, we’re pleased to announce the launch of User Roles and Permissions.

With User Roles you can assign custom roles for every team member. Whether you have Senior Plumbers, Vets, Installers, Junior Technicians, Special Agents or whatever job role working for you, you can create their own User Role. Once you’ve set that User Role, it’ll be in your system to assign to other staff with the same User Role in future.

Every User Role can have its own charge out rates, which is accessed by the worker by clicking the “charge time” button from within a job, or by using the “Add Labor” function in the GeoOP iPhone app.

Customized billable rates make doing work a breeze.

Add as many or as little charges to the system as you like. You can set charges for different hourly rates, after-hours rates, or even set up flat rate charges for pre-defined activities, like a satellite install if you were an installation company. In that case, you might create a role called “Installer” and then add a flat rate job charge called “Satellite install”. Easy, the job is allocated to the installer who then knows it’s a flat rate job and can get on with doing the work.

Alternatively you might have a standard call out fee so your dispatcher can add this charge to each job and then leave it to the assigned worker to add anythign extra to the job once he or she is on site.

User Roles is perfect for GeoOP customers who have different rates for different clients. The rates you set can be applied system-wide for all your clients, or you can specify which clients receive different charge rates. When your staff log in to a client’s job, either from the online system or in the field using their iPhone, and click the “charge time” button, only the rates applicable to that worker and that client will be available for selection. Users with the role of administrator can of course bypass this system and simply enter any type of charge they like.

Can you imagine the amount of time and hassle you’ll save by not having to manually check contracted charge out rates before billing? This is powerful stuff!

Combine Permissions to User Roles and you’ve got an extra gear.

Combine Permissions with User Roles and your whole team will be working even smarter with a streamlined process from job start to invoicing.

Permissions are assigned to the User Roles you create. As a default setting, staff can see their own jobs, but you can also set their permissions to view things like your customer databases and set their ability to create new jobs. You can even set permissions to allow staff to see or not see assigned jobs.

Talk about making life easy on the office!

How User roles and permissions can be used in creative way.

GeoOP’s roles and permissions settings are so powerful that you can even create a new role for your key customers and give them very restricted  access to GeoOP. A good example is property management. if your major client is a property management company then use GeoOP to put your customer service head and shoulders above the rest. Here is how you do it:

1. Create a new role called “Property Manager” and select the permission settings called “Only see jobs they created” and “Create Jobs, clients, Edit all Clients”

2. Create a new user on GeoOP and assign them the role of “Property Manager”

3. Give the login details to the property management company

4. Give the property management a company a 10 minute training session on GeoOP

5. The Property Managers will now be able to create jobs in your GeoOP account and monitor them through to completion without having to bug your stuff very 5 minutes.

Possible benefits:

Customer service (without taking on more staff) - The property managers will now have complete visibility of each job from start through to completion.  

Invoice More - Photos taken on site of the work done will be accessible by the property managers as soon as they are taken from one of GeoOP mobile apps. Perhaps this enable the property managers to invoice tenants for another 100k of repairs each week, month or year? 

Finish Jobs Faster - You will be able to use GeoOP’s SMS feature to text tenants before you go on site to confirm a time or perhaps request a photo of the broken item. As everyone has camera phones these days the image they provide may mean that only one trip is required instead of two as you can take the required part with you first time. 

Less Stuff Ups - Thanks to GeoOP’s mobile apps you can access a clients previous job history on site. Not only that but you can even view clients notes which might include warnings about dogs or access instructions.

Works across all platforms

 Whatever your team use to access GeoOP, Permissions work across all these platforms. For example, if you block User Role “Junior Plumber” from seeing your customer database, they will be blocked on their iPhone, Android and Online. That’s because GeoOP’s universal login works across all devices that access GeoOP.

Working across all platforms is really handy, especially when a field worker loses or breaks their phone – all their data is still accessible from anywhere with another mobile device or Internet-connected computer.

User Roles and Permissions, customized to work how you work.

Adding Charges to a job using  GeoOP is two-way. The job dispatcher can pre-load the job with its standard charges; then once the job was completed, if there was nothing else to add, the mobile worker can close the job off ready for invoicing. Alternatively, Additional charges can be added by choosing the pre-defined rate for the task/product in the system. These charges can be added either by our mobile app or from GeoOP online. 

Permissions can even allow your mobile worker to bill the job once it’s completed, or they could leave this for the office to handle. The choice is yours. Like all things, GeoOP lets you work the way you like to work.

To see the power of User Roles and Permissions in action, log in to your company account as as an administrator and get started. If you have any questions please visit our online Help pages.

GeoOP, the job dispatch, GPS tracking and mobile workforce management system is featured in a really informative article at ShoestringVenture. 

Learn more about how GeoOP helps businesses to be more streamlined and profitable, as well as the thought processes behind the company and our future.

http://shoestringventure.com/2011/07/01/geoop-powers-mobile-workforces-to-make-them-more-productive-and-profitable/

 

Student Volunteer Army leader Sam Johnson has returned to Christchurch on Monday after spending two weeks in Tokyo and the tsunami-ravaged northern city of Ishinomaki, where he helped with the cleanup and organising a Japanese version of Christchurch's student volunteer army.

Please read this article here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4986898/Japan-to-use-Christchurch-volunteer-model

 

Thanks to Mark Webster of Mac Planet in NZ Herald for this article including GeoOP, the world's best mobile workforce and job management tool (so we have been told numerous times) :).

Read article here.

 

 

 

One of the promises of GPS tracking is the ability to allocate a job to the closest field worker. The problem with this is that distance is only one part of the equation. For this promise to be realised, the field worker’s schedule needs to be taken into account as well. After all, you might have an employee across the road from your newest job but if his day is booked out then he may as well be in Alaska.

 

Our newest GeoOP feature is called Geo-Scheduling and whilst it’s a bit of a process to communicate how it works, the beauty of it is just how simple it is to use once you know the basics.

 

Lets start with the “Assign to Staff” drop down menu in the Add and Edit Job screen. You will notice that some of your staff have green, orange or red coloured dots next to

their name.

Green dot means your worker is completely free for the time, date and duration of the job you are creating. Changing the time, date or duration for the job will update the colour of the dots instantly. So if for example, you have the job down for 7 hours, then most of your staff will most likely have red dots indicating a complete time clash with another job or jobs. If you change it to 4 hours then instantly you’ll see some of your staff turn green or orange, indicating that they are either completely free (green) or only have a partial time clash (orange). That’s pretty cool right!

 

Now that's half of this new feature. This rest involves the familiar map on the Add and Edit job pages and it requires that you have tracking turned on for your iPhone and Android equipped field staff. If you take a close look at the map you will see up to 5 symbols.

Job Location - click to see address

Assigned Employee - click to see who the job is assigned to and their schedule

Free Employee - click to see that worker’s schedule

Busy Employee - click to see that worker’s schedule

Partially Busy Employee - click to see that worker’s schedule

The coloured dots are the ones we are most interested in as they show where all your staff are in relation to the location of the job. But as we said at the start, this isn’t enough info as we also need to know their schedule. Simply click on the coloured dots for a breakdown of their schedule (+/- 40 hours) from time and date of the job you are trying to allocate.

This is just the first on many great new scheduling features we have planned for GeoOP. Check back here soon for our next great new feature.