Skip to main content

How to Fill In the Call Details Form

The Details form is the left-hand part of the call screen's Details section: a card with the customer and the contact, and the Call card with the call's type, status, charge and the rest. Every field can be changed where it stands and is written when you select Save, except Address, Date and, once the call is saved, its customer, which are shown for reading. Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.

What goes in the Comment and the contact fields of a call?​

The Comment is the one-line summary under the call number in the header of the call screen; its empty box says "One-line summary of the call". It is what the Calls list shows for the call, so keep it short and specific. It is required, and holds up to 300 characters.

The customer and contact card, at the top of the Details form, holds:

  • The customer: their account code and name. The name is a link to the customer screen. Once a call is saved, the call screen does not change its customer.
  • Contact name (required, up to 50 characters): the person who reported the problem or who the engineer should ask for.
  • Phone and Mobile (up to 25 characters each).
  • E-mail (up to 60 characters). When an address is filled in, the envelope button beside it, Send an e-mail, starts a new message to it in your e-mail program when you use ABM Service in a browser. In the ABM Service desktop app the envelope does not open anything, because the desktop app hands only secure web addresses (starting https) on to your computer; select the address in the E-mail box, copy it with Ctrl and C together (Ctrl+C), and paste it into a new message. ABM Service has no e-mail of its own, so the message is written and sent in your e-mail program.
  • Address: the customer's address, shown for reference. It cannot be typed here, because it belongs to the customer; change it on the customer screen.

These contact details belong to this call only. Changing them here does not change the customer's own contacts.

Can I move a call to a different customer, or change the date it was logged?​

No. On the call screen's Details form, a saved call's customer, its Address and its Date are for reading only, and saving the call always keeps the customer it was logged for. The customer can be changed only on a new call, with Change beside the customer, before you select Save call.

If a call was logged against the wrong customer:

  1. Open the right customer from Customers and select Log a call on the customer screen.
  2. Fill in the new call, copying across the Comment and the Details document, and select Save call.
  3. Open the wrong call, set its Status to your company's cancelled status, note in the Comment which call replaced it, and select Save.

Book the engineer on the new call. A visit already booked on the wrong call stays on it, because a booked visit cannot be taken off a call in ABM Service.

What are the Type, Charge and Job group fields on a call?​

The Call card on the call screen's Details form holds the call's classification. Type, Status and Job group come from your company's own lists; Charge has the same three choices in every company:

  • Type (required): what kind of call it is. Each type can carry defaults, and changing the Type replaces the call's Charge, Job group, Follow up user and Cost centre with that type's defaults, the same way ABM always has. Check those fields after changing the type.
  • Status: where the call stands. The same value as the Status button in the header.
  • Charge: how the work is to be charged, one of 1. Non Applicable, 2. Non Chargeable or 3. Chargeable. It can also be left empty.
  • Job group: the group the call's job is filed under. When the type raises a job, Job group gets an asterisk and is required; saving without one says "This type raises a job — pick its job group." A group no longer in use is shown with "(inactive)" after its name.
  • Date: when the call was logged. It is shown on a saved call only, and cannot be changed; ABM Service stamps it at the moment a new call is saved.
  • P.O. number (up to 30 characters): the customer's purchase order (PO) number.
  • Customer ref (up to 100 characters): the customer's own reference for the job.

How do I set a follow-up on a call?​

Use Follow up and Follow-up date in the Call card of the call screen: choose the ABM user who should follow the call up, and when. Then select Save.

  1. Choose a person in Follow up. If the call had no follow-up date, Follow-up date is set to now; a date already there is kept.
  2. Change Follow-up date to the day and time the call should be followed up.
  3. Select Save at the top right of the call screen.

The Follow up list offers your company's ABM users. A call followed up by somebody who has since been removed from ABM still shows their name. Follow-up date cannot be changed while nobody is named; its tooltip says "Name somebody to follow the call up first."

To remove the follow-up, point at Follow up and select its × button (Clear the follow-up user). That clears the person and the date together, because a follow-up date for nobody would be a reminder nobody gets.

On a new call, Follow up starts as the call type's follow-up person or, when the type names nobody, as you.

ABM Service does not remind anyone when a follow-up date arrives: there is no pop-up and no e-mail. To see the calls you have to follow up, add the Follow up to and Follow up date columns to the Calls list with Choose columns…, and filter them to your own name and the days you want.

How do I empty a field such as Charge or Job group on a call?​

Point at the field on the call screen, or move to it with the Tab key, and select the small × button that appears at its right-hand end. The buttons are named for what they clear: Clear the charge, Clear the job group, Clear the follow-up user, and on Analysis Clear the priority, Clear the job status, Clear the work type and Clear the cost centre. The field goes empty and the change is saved with the next Save.

These lists have no "Not assigned" entry to pick; an empty box already means nothing is chosen, and the × is the way back to it. A field only shows its × while it has a value.

Tip: If your company has added its own fields to calls, they can be placed on the form with Customize this layout…, in the small menu beside Details in the sections rail. They are filled in and saved like the built-in fields.