Scheduler Workflow

[ScuderiaBenny]

Hey guys,
I am new on here and we just recently installed 7.0.3. Thank you very much for the hard work and improvements as I feel this scheduler is light years ahead of what we had recently.

We really look forward to the color coded scheduling feature as many people have stated is coming. I did read through the majority of the feedback thread and saw one thing that was brought up, but didn't see much for responses to. That would be about adding a labor button to go along with the canned jobs on the bottom of any individual appointment. As of now, we are adding in customer's concerns under the comments section and then having to retype those as labor descriptions once the repair order has been started. It would be handy to be able to type in down there and have them transfer directly to labor items as the canned jobs and comments do.

Thoughts on that? Keep up the good work guys!

[Silky7]

Hey guys,
I am new on here and we just recently installed 7.0.3. Thank you very much for the hard work and improvements as I feel this scheduler is light years ahead of what we had recently.

We really look forward to the color coded scheduling feature as many people have stated is coming. I did read through the majority of the feedback thread and saw one thing that was brought up, but didn't see much for responses to. That would be about adding a labor button to go along with the canned jobs on the bottom of any individual appointment. As of now, we are adding in customer's concerns under the comments section and then having to retype those as labor descriptions once the repair order has been started. It would be handy to be able to type in down there and have them transfer directly to labor items as the canned jobs and comments do.

Thoughts on that? Keep up the good work guys!

I believe the plan is to implement Symptoms on the appointment next. Thanks for your feedback though. It is always helpful to our Product Management when deciding on what should be worked on next.

[Bill Coniam]

I believe the plan is to implement Symptoms on the appointment next. Thanks for your feedback though. It is always helpful to our Product Management when deciding on what should be worked on next.

Why would you need to add those functions to the appointment scheduler- when creating an estimate or repair order (like we've done for decades) has all of that already? Like we're reinventing the wheel ?

[ScuderiaBenny]

I believe the plan is to implement Symptoms on the appointment next. Thanks for your feedback though. It is always helpful to our Product Management when deciding on what should be worked on next.

Why would you need to add those functions to the appointment scheduler- when creating an estimate or repair order (like we've done for decades) has all of that already? Like we're reinventing the wheel ?

Let us say that I am talking with a customer and creating a new appointment within the scheduler. He is telling me a list of the things that he would like looked at. Right now what I am doing is typing all of those things in the comments section of the appointment window and adding any canned jobs (i.e. an oil change) in the lower section of that window as well. What I would like added is a labor button by the "add" canned job button to type in those things that the customer would like looked at there rather than in the comments section. This way I don't have to retype those when I open an R.O. as labor items since right now they are added as notes, which show up on the bottom of a tech. worksheet for instance. Hope that makes more sense Bill.

[artadot]

I'll throw in my 2 cents. Getting used to the scheduler, but, like others, I'm finding a few quirks that are making it a little difficult.

1. When scheduling, it asks for a vehicle input. This is fine, however, many times, I don't yet have the customers vehicle or the information. Usually, I then cancel and create the appointment. Several times after doing this, the program creates a new blank vehicle under the customer screen. Then when I create an R.O. and select the correct vehicle, it leaves a blank vehicle stored. Then when I go to print my tech worksheet, there is no vehicle information printed even though I have the correct vehicle with VIN on the R.O.



Dan

We ran into the same problem, now if we forget to ask which vehicle the customer is bringing in or if it is a new vehicle we just select any of the customer's vehicles, when they come in we verify which vehicle and then change it on the r/o.

[Silky7]

I'll throw in my 2 cents. Getting used to the scheduler, but, like others, I'm finding a few quirks that are making it a little difficult.

1. When scheduling, it asks for a vehicle input. This is fine, however, many times, I don't yet have the customers vehicle or the information. Usually, I then cancel and create the appointment. Several times after doing this, the program creates a new blank vehicle under the customer screen. Then when I create an R.O. and select the correct vehicle, it leaves a blank vehicle stored. Then when I go to print my tech worksheet, there is no vehicle information printed even though I have the correct vehicle with VIN on the R.O.



Dan

We ran into the same problem, now if we forget to ask which vehicle the customer is bringing in or if it is a new vehicle we just select any of the customer's vehicles, when they come in we verify which vehicle and then change it on the r/o.

This issue has been identified to be addressed in a future release. For now I can tell you you can work around this by starting as an estimate. If started in the EST phase, the vehicle will appear correctly when changed to the RO phase.

[motley06]

I believe the plan is to implement Symptoms on the appointment next. Thanks for your feedback though. It is always helpful to our Product Management when deciding on what should be worked on next.

Why would you need to add those functions to the appointment scheduler- when creating an estimate or repair order (like we've done for decades) has all of that already? Like we're reinventing the wheel ?

Let us say that I am talking with a customer and creating a new appointment within the scheduler. He is telling me a list of the things that he would like looked at. Right now what I am doing is typing all of those things in the comments section of the appointment window and adding any canned jobs (i.e. an oil change) in the lower section of that window as well. What I would like added is a labor button by the "add" canned job button to type in those things that the customer would like looked at there rather than in the comments section. This way I don't have to retype those when I open an R.O. as labor items since right now they are added as notes, which show up on the bottom of a tech. worksheet for instance. Hope that makes more sense Bill.

This would be handy, too. I do the exact same thing you're doing, and I've probably checked 3 times now to see if I was just overlooking a button somewhere to add labor lines.

[BERGMANS1]

I believe the plan is to implement Symptoms on the appointment next. Thanks for your feedback though. It is always helpful to our Product Management when deciding on what should be worked on next.

Why would you need to add those functions to the appointment scheduler- when creating an estimate or repair order (like we've done for decades) has all of that already? Like we're reinventing the wheel ?

Let us say that I am talking with a customer and creating a new appointment within the scheduler. He is telling me a list of the things that he would like looked at. Right now what I am doing is typing all of those things in the comments section of the appointment window and adding any canned jobs (i.e. an oil change) in the lower section of that window as well. What I would like added is a labor button by the "add" canned job button to type in those things that the customer would like looked at there rather than in the comments section. This way I don't have to retype those when I open an R.O. as labor items since right now they are added as notes, which show up on the bottom of a tech. worksheet for instance. Hope that makes more sense Bill.

We do appointments a different way to work around this issue. When a customer calls, I go into his sub estimates. Everything the customer is coming in for goes into sub est 1. When the customer comes in, I just transfer sub est 1 to the repair order and call it a day.

[imburnsey]

Can't legibly read more than 4 techs incoming work.
Jobs overlap each other and cannot view what is coming in.
If multiple appointments for the same time, you do not get a description of each appointment. Sometimes you only see a partial name. This is especially true if a client has an end time within an hour of their arrival.
Who has their office personnel assign a tech? Techs don't get assigned until work load in a day progresses.
Toggling between views, it won't remember your settings for technicians.
Why is this not an intuitive upgrade?
Why can I not visibly see a list view of 20 cars coming in during the same day? Most who drop off in the morning? Imagine even having 10 vehicles scheduled to drop off at 8 am. The view is not recognizable.

[timbre4]

I believe the plan is to implement Symptoms on the appointment next. Thanks for your feedback though. It is always helpful to our Product Management when deciding on what should be worked on next.

Why would you need to add those functions to the appointment scheduler- when creating an estimate or repair order (like we've done for decades) has all of that already? Like we're reinventing the wheel ?

I'd wager that at the onset it's at least even money that a shop is not entirely sure what the work is going to be to check out the customer's vehicle complaint. Symptoms are perfect for these unknowns because it includes time, description of the issue and consistent pricing.

[ricmorin]

Can't legibly read more than 4 techs incoming work.
Jobs overlap each other and cannot view what is coming in.
If multiple appointments for the same time, you do not get a description of each appointment. Sometimes you only see a partial name. This is especially true if a client has an end time within an hour of their arrival.
Who has their office personnel assign a tech? Techs don't get assigned until work load in a day progresses.
Toggling between views, it won't remember your settings for technicians.
Why is this not an intuitive upgrade?
Why can I not visibly see a list view of 20 cars coming in during the same day? Most who drop off in the morning? Imagine even having 10 vehicles scheduled to drop off at 8 am. The view is not recognizable.

I agree with most of your comments. There are basically 2 types of appointments. It's either a drop-off or a wait. The new scheduler is seems to be designed around waiting appointments. There should be an accommodation for drop=offs and handling those for a better visual representation. This accommodation will satisfy most of your concerns.

In actuality, I know many shops who schedule the tech in advance. Mine is one of them. If you're really into labor asset management and making the most of your techs, you will want to do this. Each tech has their own skill sets and office personnel should know them. Assigning this in advance ensures that the diagnostic guy doesn't get 12 hours of work and the tire guy 2.

[ricmorin]

It's been a rough adjustment, but it's getting better.

When it comes down to it, there are really two sides to every appointment in our industry. The customer side where you have a start time and end time. Then there is the shop side where you juggle the cars between waiting appointments and drop-offs. The scheduler can handle the waiting appointment well since the two sides are the same. Once we deviate from that, which is the bulk of our work, things get a bit messy. Add CRM into the mix and it worsens. The perfect solution is a program that can handle both.

It may have been difficult to have foreseen this complexity during the planning stages of the program.

[murraymotive]

It's been a rough adjustment, but it's getting better.

When it comes down to it, there are really two sides to every appointment in our industry. The customer side where you have a start time and end time. Then there is the shop side where you juggle the cars between waiting appointments and drop-offs. The scheduler can handle the waiting appointment well since the two sides are the same. Once we deviate from that, which is the bulk of our work, things get a bit messy. Add CRM into the mix and it worsens. The perfect solution is a program that can handle both.

It may have been difficult to have foreseen this complexity during the planning stages of the program.

I respect your optimism. Let's keep our eyes on the prize.

[timbre4]

We did meet today and this included discussion about improving the larger shop schedule loading situation. Will post more about this as it is made available to me.

BTW - The security issue hit just as 7.0.5 was to start going out; everything in 7.0.5 was then bundled with the security fixes to go out as 7.0.7.
With this now largely out of the way, we can get back to business once again.