What Can't the Administration Screens Do?
The Administration part of the ABM Service menu has three screens, Database, Sign-in and Customer sign-ins, and only ABM user number 1 sees them. This page answers the "can I …?" questions whose honest answer is no, or "not here": for each one it says who does it instead, where, or the nearest thing ABM Service does offer.
Can I add office staff, change their passwords or remove someone who has left?
No. The Administration screens in ABM Service do not add, remove or change the people who work in the office. Those people are ABM users, and they come from ABM's own user list, kept in ABM's control database: whoever looks after ABM at your company adds a person there, sets or changes their password, gives them your company, and removes them when they leave. That includes you: user 1's own password and name are changed in ABM's own user list too.
The People list on the Sign-in screen, under Administration in the ABM Service menu, only reads that list. It shows each ABM user's name and whether they have set up an authenticator app, with Reset for somebody who has lost their phone. There is no box on it for a name, a password or a new person.
When something about a person's ABM user is wrong, the ABM Service sign-in page says so in the same terms, for example "This user has no password yet. Whoever looks after ABM can set one in ABM’s own user list." or "ABM has not given this user this company. Whoever looks after ABM can, in ABM’s own user list." Nothing on the Administration screens fixes either message; the change is made in ABM, and then the person signs in as usual.
A person removed from ABM's list can no longer sign in, but if they set up an authenticator app they stay on the People list, shown as "User" and their ABM user number and marked ABM no longer lists this user, so that it can still be reset. A web sign-in they already had open is not ended by removing them, and there is no button to sign one person out: it keeps working until it has gone unused for 30 days. To cut them off today, ask whoever looks after your ABM Service server to restart it, which signs everybody out of ABM Service over the web. Resetting their authenticator with Reset does not sign them out.
Can I decide what each office user may see or do, or make someone else the administrator?
No. ABM Service has no permissions for office staff. Every ABM user who can sign in to your company gets the same Home, Customers, Calls and Scheduler screens and can do the same things on them. The one difference is the Administration part of the menu, which only ABM user number 1 has.
The only choice about office staff is made in ABM's own user list, by whoever looks after ABM at your company: whether a person is on it, and which companies they have. A person who is not given your company cannot sign in to it at all.
The six permissions on the Customer sign-ins screen, such as Log a call and See balances, are for customers on the Customer portal only. They do not affect anybody in the office.
The Administration screens cannot be handed to another person either. The system administrator is always ABM user number 1 on every site, and there is no setting, role or permission that gives the Administration menu to anybody else. If somebody else is to do the job, they sign in as user 1; if user 1's details need changing, that is done in ABM's own user list. Anybody else who opens an administration page, for example from a link you sent, sees This page is for the system administrator and nothing on it can be read or changed.
Can I sign somebody out, or change how long people stay signed in?
There is no sign-out button for other people and no setting for how long a sign-in lasts. A web sign-in to ABM Service stays open until it has gone unused for 30 days, and every use starts the 30 days again. Changing the authenticator setting on the Sign-in screen signs nobody out, and neither does Reset beside a person's name.
- Somebody in the office, such as a person who has left — have them removed from ABM's own user list so they cannot sign in again. A web sign-in they already had open is not ended by that. To end it today, ask whoever looks after your ABM Service server to restart it: a restart signs everybody out of ABM Service over the web, and they all sign in again.
- One customer — open their sign-in on the People tab of the Customer sign-ins screen and untick Access granted, then press Save. Any browser they are signed in on stops working within a minute. Saving any change to their sign-in, or setting their password with Set the password, also signs them out, but lets them straight back in.
- Every customer — Save the defaults on the Defaults tab signs every customer out of the Customer portal. They can sign in again at once.
Can I make only some people use an authenticator app, or make the desktop app or customers use one?
No. The Authenticator app setting on the Sign-in screen, under Administration in the ABM Service menu, is one choice for the whole company: Off, Optional or Required. There is no way to require it for some people and not others. The nearest thing is Optional: anybody may set one up from Authenticator in their own menu, and only people who did are asked for a code.
The setting applies only to signing in over the web. The Sign-in screen says so itself: "It applies to the web only — the desktop application is unchanged." The ABM Service desktop app never asks for a code, whatever the setting.
Customers on the Customer portal are never asked for a code either. They sign in with their email address and password, and there is no setting that adds a second step for them.
Your own authenticator cannot be reset from the Sign-in screen: your row on the People list has no Reset, and the screen says "Your own is not reset from here. If you lose your phone, whoever looks after this server can clear it for you." This is deliberate, so that the one account able to clear everybody's cannot clear its own from a browser somebody else could reach. Until it is cleared, the ABM Service desktop app still lets you in without a code.
Can ABM Service e-mail me, or e-mail my customers?
No. ABM Service does not send e-mail at all, to you, to your staff or to your customers. In particular:
- Creating a customer sign-in with Add someone sends no invitation. Tell the customer yourself that their sign-in is ready and which email address it uses; they then choose Set your password on the Customer portal's sign-in page.
- Setting a customer's password with Set the password does not send it to them. Tell them what it is.
- You are not told by e-mail when a customer uses Forgot password, sets their first password, or logs a call.
- There is no e-mail about recommended database changes. The reminders are on screen and only user 1 sees them: the banner at the top of your ABM Service screens, a message shown once for each new version, and the count beside Database in the menu.
To keep an eye on customers instead, read the line under each name on the People tab of the Customer sign-ins screen. It says Not registered — they have never set a password, Registered, never signed in, Last signed in on and a date, Access is switched off, or Inactive — password was reset on and a date. That last one means access is switched off and the password has been reset since: most often a customer who used Forgot password and is waiting for you, but it looks the same when you set their password with Set the password and switched their access off yourself. It does not say who reset the password or why access is off, so confirm with the customer that they asked, and that their access should come back, before you tick Access granted on their sign-in and press Save.
A call a customer logs on the Customer portal arrives on the Calls list in ABM Service like any other new call, so the office sees it there.
Can I see a customer's password, or set rules for passwords?
No. A customer's password is kept only in a scrambled form that cannot be turned back into the password, so nobody can look it up: not you, not the Customer sign-ins screen and not your support team. If a customer has forgotten it, set a new one: open their sign-in on the People tab, type it in New password and And again under Set their password, press Set the password, and tell them what it is.
There are no password rules to set. The only rule, for every customer, is that a new password must be at least 8 characters. Passwords never expire, and there is no setting for capitals, numbers or symbols. Passwords for office staff are not on the Administration screens at all: they are ABM passwords, set in ABM's own user list.
Customers cannot change their own password, email address or name from inside the Customer portal; it has no page for that. A customer who wants a new password either asks you, or uses Forgot password on the Customer portal's sign-in page, which switches their access off until you tick Access granted again. A new email address or name is changed by you: open their sign-in, change Email or Name, and press Save. Their password stays the same. The one time a customer types their own name is when they first choose Set your password: what they type in Your name there replaces the Name on their sign-in.
Can I export, print or import the lists on the administration screens?
No. None of the three screens under Administration in the ABM Service menu, Database, Sign-in and Customer sign-ins, has an export, a download, a print button or an import. Nothing on them can be sent to Excel or another spreadsheet.
- Customer sign-ins — the People tab shows at most 200 lines at a time, followed by how many more there are. Type part of a name or email address in Search by name or email to find the rest. New sign-ins are made one at a time with Add someone; there is no way to load a list of customers from a file. If your company used the old web portal, its sign-ins were brought over automatically when the database was updated, so they are already on the list.
- Database — History shows the latest 100 changes applied or attempted from the Database screen, newest first, on screen only.
- Sign-in — the People list says who has set up an authenticator app, on screen only.
Can I change many customer sign-ins at once, or switch the Customer portal off?
No. On the Customer sign-ins screen each sign-in is opened, changed and saved on its own; there is no way to tick several and change them together. The Defaults tab is the nearest thing:
- Call statuses and Call types on the Defaults tab reach every sign-in whose own are left As the defaults.
- Do not show calls logged before applies to every customer, whatever their own sign-in says.
- What a new sign-in may do reaches a sign-in's permissions only when that sign-in says "These come from the site’s Defaults, where this sign-in has none of its own — so a change there reaches them." A sign-in created with Add someone has its own permissions from the start. To give one the site's settings, open it, press Copy from defaults and then Save.
Pressing Save the defaults signs every customer out, so they meet the change when they sign in again.
There is no switch that closes the Customer portal for everybody. To stop customers signing in, untick Access granted on each sign-in and press Save; it can be ticked again later. There is also no setting for the Customer portal's name, logo, colours or welcome wording: its menu always calls it Customer portal.
Can I see the Customer portal as a customer sees it, or who changed a sign-in?
No. The Customer sign-ins screen has no way to open the Customer portal as a particular customer, and it keeps no record of what a customer did there or of who changed a sign-in and when. Neither does the Sign-in screen for the authenticator setting. Only the Database screen has a History.
What you can check instead:
- Which accounts a sign-in reaches — open the sign-in and press Preview under Advanced; it lists the customer accounts the sign-in will see, and how many.
- When they last signed in — the line under their name on the People tab says Last signed in on and a date.
- What they logged — calls a customer logs on the Customer portal are on the Calls list in ABM Service.
If you need to look at the Customer portal with a customer's settings, you can create a separate sign-in with Add someone for an email address of your own, give it the same customer accounts, ticks and call statuses and types, press Create the sign-in, open it again to give it a password with Set the password, and sign in with it in a different browser. Leave Log a call and Edit their calls unticked so nothing is changed on the customer's account by mistake, and Delete the sign-in when you have finished.
Can I undo a change on the administration screens?
No. None of the three screens under Administration in the ABM Service menu has an undo button, and none keeps an earlier version of a setting to go back to. What each kind of change means:
- Applying database changes on the Database screen cannot be undone there. The screen only offers Remove for an index this version no longer uses. Your software supplier's support team can remove every index ABM Service added, if that is ever needed; the changes only ever affect speed, never your data.
- Delete on a customer sign-in cannot be undone. To give that person access again, create a new sign-in with Add someone, and they set a new password. A sign-in that has logged calls cannot be deleted at all; untick Access granted instead, which can be ticked again later.
- Reset of somebody's authenticator on the Sign-in screen cannot be undone. With the setting on Required they are asked to set one up again at their next sign-in; with Optional they sign in with their password alone until they set one up again from Authenticator in their own menu.
- The authenticator setting, a customer sign-in's Save and Save the defaults are changed back by setting them again by hand. Saving the defaults a second time signs every customer out a second time.
Can I pick which database changes to apply, or schedule them for tonight?
No to both. On the Database screen, under Administration in the ABM Service menu, Apply always includes every Add and Repair that is waiting; you cannot leave one of them out. The only lines you choose are the optional Remove lines, which are included only when you tick Remove it too. To make fewer changes now, select Stop after this one while they run: the change in progress finishes, nothing after it starts, and Apply the remaining carries on later.
There is no way to schedule the changes, and ABM Service never applies them by itself. They are applied while you have the Database screen open, one after another. Leaving the Database screen works like Stop after this one, so stay on it until the heading says they are all applied. Choose a quiet moment yourself, such as early in the morning, because each table is locked for a few seconds while its change is made.
Can I back up the database, change server settings or update ABM Service from here?
No. The Administration screens in ABM Service do none of these:
- Backing up or restoring the database — ABM Service has no backup or restore anywhere. That is done by whoever looks after SQL Server at your company. The recommended changes on the Database screen change indexes only, never your data.
- Which database or company ABM Service uses, and the server's own settings — these belong to the installation of ABM Service at your site, and are changed by whoever installed it or looks after your ABM Service server.
- Installing a new version of ABM Service — done by whoever looks after your ABM Service server, not from a screen. When a new version is first used, its own small tables in your database bring themselves up to date; you may see a window titled The database is being updated. It stays until you press Try again, which loads the screen again, so wait a moment and press it; nothing else needs doing. Only if that window says the database could not be brought up to date does somebody have to act: copy the whole sentence and send it to your software supplier's support team or IT contact. The ABM Service desktop app on each person's computer updates itself and offers Install update on its icon beside the clock; nothing on the Administration screens starts or holds back that update either.
Applying or removing a recommended index cannot lose data, because an index holds nothing that is not already in its table. So a backup is not something the Database screen asks for; whether and when your company backs up its database is decided with whoever looks after SQL Server.
Do I have to set up the administration screens separately in each ABM company?
Yes. Everything on the three screens under Administration in the ABM Service menu belongs to one ABM company, so a site with two companies sets each one up on its own, and nothing copies settings from one company to the other. The line under each screen's heading names the company you are in: Recommended changes for the company's database on Database, How people sign in to the company over the web on Sign-in, and The customers who may sign in to the company over the web on Customer sign-ins.
- Database — the recommended changes are for that company's database. Applying them in one company changes nothing in the other, which keeps its own list, banner and History.
- Sign-in — the Authenticator app setting is kept in that company's database, so one company can be Required while the other is Off. The authenticators people set up are kept per company too: somebody who signs in to both companies over the web sets one up in each, and their authenticator app then shows two entries, each starting with the company's name. Reset on one company's People list clears only that company's.
- Customer sign-ins — the customer sign-ins and the Defaults tab belong to that company. A customer who should reach both companies' Customer portals needs a sign-in in each.
To set up the other company, open ABM Service for that company, which has its own web address, and sign in there as user 1. Check the company's name in the line under the heading before you change anything.
Can I change lists such as call statuses, call types or engineers, or set layouts and colours for everybody?
No. ABM Service has no screen for adding, renaming or removing your company's call statuses, call types, engineers, job groups or areas. It reads those lists from ABM, where your company set them up, and whoever looks after ABM at your company changes them there. The Customer sign-ins screen only chooses which of your call statuses and call types each customer may see.
There is also no way to set a layout or colours for everybody. Saved layouts belong to each person: deleting one even says "Nobody else uses it — layouts are yours alone." The colours of call types, statuses and the other items in the filter rail on the Calls list, the Customers list and the Scheduler are each person's own as well, so a colour you pick for a call type changes it for you and nobody else. The Appearance colourway is kept by the browser it was chosen in. User 1 has no screen to hand any of these out: each person saves their own layouts and picks their own colours on their own screens. If the office wants everybody to work the same way, agree the layout and colours between you and let each person set them up once.
Can I delete calls or customers as the system administrator?
No. Being ABM user number 1 gives no extra power on the Calls, Customers or Scheduler screens: you work on them exactly as everybody else does, and ABM Service has no way to delete a call or a customer account for anybody. Instead:
- A call logged by mistake — open it, select Status on the call screen, choose your company's cancelled status, and save the call.
- A customer you no longer work with — open the customer and set Status in the Customer group of the Overview to Inactive, then save the customer.
Either way nothing is thrown away: changing a status removes nothing from the call or the account, so its visits, calls and account history are all still there if anybody needs them later.
The few things that can be deleted in ABM Service are a contact on the customer screen, a person's own saved layouts, somebody's authenticator app (with Reset on the Sign-in screen), and, on the Customer sign-ins screen, a customer sign-in that has logged no calls.
Can I let customers book an engineer or choose a visit date on the Customer portal?
No. No permission on the Customer sign-ins screen lets a customer schedule an engineer, pick a date or time for a visit, or set a call's status or priority. Ticking Log a call under What they may do gives them a form that asks what the call is about, a one-line description, who to ask for, a phone number, an e-mail address, a purchase order (PO) number, their own reference and the details, and nothing else. ABM Service takes no engineer, date, status or priority from a customer in any other way either. The call arrives on the Calls list unscheduled, and your office schedules the engineer as for any other call. With See the visits on a call ticked, the customer can then see when an engineer is booked and who is coming.