How to Open and Read a Call
Every call on your account has a page of its own in the Customer portal, showing what was asked for, who is coming and what was done. Open it by double-clicking the call on your Calls list, by selecting a visit on your Visits page, or by selecting the Latest call figure on your Home page.
How do I open a call in the Customer portal?
Double-click the call on your Calls list, or mark it with the arrow keys and press Enter. The call's own page opens, with Call and its number as the heading.
You can also reach a call from other places in the Customer portal:
- Select a visit on the Visits page, or under Coming to your site on your Home page, to open the call that visit is for.
- Select the Latest call figure on your Home page, or a call under Latest calls, to open it.
To go back, press your browser's Back button. If you opened the call from the Calls list, that returns you to the list exactly as you left it, with the same search, date, status and page. Selecting ← Calls at the top of the call's page also takes you to your calls, but opens the Calls list fresh, on All with every status.
While the call is being fetched the page says "Loading…". On a phone or a narrow window, the three parts of the call page described below are stacked one under another instead of side by side.
A call's page shows the call as it stood when you opened it, and does not update by itself. To see a change your service provider has made since, such as a new status or a booked visit, reload the page, by pressing F5 or with your browser's reload button.
What does the top of a call's page show?
The heading of a call's page shows Call followed by the call number, then two coloured labels: the call's type and its status, both in your service provider's own words. The call's one-line comment sits under the heading.
If your service provider allows you to change this call, an Edit button appears beside the heading. If there is no Edit button, the call is finished or your sign-in is not set up to change calls; to add or correct something, contact your service provider and quote the call number.
Below the heading, the first card is headed with your account's name and lists the facts of the call:
- Logged — the date and time the call was recorded.
- PO number — your purchase order (PO) number.
- Your reference — your own reference for the call.
- Who to ask for — the person the engineer or service team should ask for.
- Phone — the contact phone number.
- E-mail — the contact email address.
A fact the call does not have is simply left out, so a call with no PO number shows no PO number line at all rather than an empty one.
A call's page never shows who at your service provider logged the call or who is looking after it there, and it does not show what the work will cost. The only name from their side is the engineer on a booked visit, on the Visits card. To find out who is dealing with your call, ring your service provider and quote the call number.
Nor does a call's page show the date the call was finished, a priority or target date, or a history of how its status changed: the status label in the heading is where the call stands now. The Visits card gives the date of each visit booked on the call; for anything else, ask your service provider, quoting the call number.
How do I see which engineer is booked for my call?
Look at the Visits card under the call's facts, on the left of the call's page. Its heading is Visits and the number of visits on the call. Each visit shows the engineer's name, how the visit stands, and its date and time.
The time shows a start and an end when the visit has a planned length, or just the start time when it has none. Visits are listed with the latest date first, and the card keeps past visits as well as those still to come.
If no visit has been arranged yet, the card says "Not booked yet. The office will arrange a time." Your service provider books the engineer; there is nothing you need to do. If the work is urgent, or the call has waited longer than you expected, contact your service provider and quote the call number: the call's page has no way to ask for a visit or a date.
Where the visit has been given to someone in the service team rather than a named engineer, the card shows The office in place of a name.
That is all a visit shows: the engineer's own notes on each visit are not shown in the Customer portal. The write-up of the work appears once for the whole call, under What was done on the call's page, when your service provider adds it.
The Visits card appears only if your sign-in includes engineer visits. If it is missing, your service provider has not turned visits on for you; ask them if you would like to see visits, or ring them about a particular call.
The Visits card on a call's page only shows what your service provider has booked: there is no button on it to move, cancel or confirm a visit, and it does not show where the engineer is or their phone number. To change a visit or reach the engineer, contact your service provider and quote the call number.
Does the Visits card on my call include past visits, and does a visit from last month mean it is booked again?
No, it is not booked again. The Visits card on a call's page in the Customer portal lists every visit on that call, past ones as well as those still to come, and the number after Visits in its heading counts them all. A visit from last month on the card is the record of that visit, not a new booking. Visits are listed with the latest date first, each with its date and time and how it stands, so the newest one is at the top.
To see only what is still to come on a call:
- Read the Next visit column on your Calls list: it shows the soonest visit on the call that is not yet over, or Not booked when none is still to come.
- Select Visits in the menu: Coming up lists the visits still to come on your account, soonest first.
A visit your service provider has cancelled stays on the Visits card too, with its status beside the engineer's name, so a cancelled visit is not a new booking either. If they book another time instead, it appears as a visit of its own. A visit on the card whose date has passed only means its booked time is over; ask your service provider, quoting the call number, if you are not sure whether an engineer came.
What are Details and What was done on a call?
Details is the full description of the problem, the one given when the call was logged: "what you told us". What was done is the engineer's report of the work, "written by the office", and it shows a padlock because you can read it but never change it.
Both are shown as formatted documents, so any bold text, lists, tables or pictures appear just as they were written. On a call's page, both are read-only. A web address, email address or phone number that is a link in either document opens when you click it, in a new browser tab or in your email or phone program; other kinds of link are not opened. A web address typed into the details when the call was logged, or added later with Edit, becomes a link by itself, so it can be clicked here.
There is no reply box under What was done, and no button to rate the visit or sign off the work. To add a question or a note to the call, select Edit beside the call's heading, if your sign-in may change calls and the call is not finished, and use Note in the Details toolbar; otherwise contact your service provider. Saving a change to a call does not alert your service provider, so if your note needs an answer, contact them as well and quote the call number. A call's page does not show what the work costs either: once it is invoiced, the invoice appears in Account history, if your sign-in includes it.
To print one of the two documents in full, click in its text and press Ctrl and P together (Ctrl+P); the Customer portal has no print button of its own.
Until the engineer's notes have been added, What was done says "Nothing yet. The engineer’s notes appear here when the work is finished." If the call is already finished and it still says that, your service provider has not added a write-up to this call; ask them, quoting the call number, if you need a report of the work.
While a document is on its way, its card says "Loading the Details document…" or "Loading the editor…". What was done waits for Details to open first, and meanwhile says "Waiting for the Details document…".
What if a call's Details will not show?
If one of a call's two documents cannot be fetched, its card on the call's page says so in place of the document, for example "Details could not be shown." or "What was done could not be shown." followed by the reason, and offers a Try again button. Nothing about the call itself has changed: only this copy of the document could not be shown.
- Select Try again on the card that could not be shown.
- Wait for the document to load.
The rest of the call's page still works, and the other document still opens. If Try again keeps failing, reload the page later or contact your service provider, quoting the call number.