How to Show Only Calls to Schedule or Only Scheduled Visits
Which calls decides whether the Calls list shows every call, only the calls nobody has been scheduled for yet, or only the visits an engineer has been scheduled for. It is the first section of the filter rail on the Calls list, and it is also the first half of the question pill on the toolbar.
How do I see only the calls that still need an engineer?
Choose To schedule under Which calls at the top of the Calls list's filter rail. The list then shows only the calls nobody has been given yet, one row per call, and the Engineer column on each row offers Schedule engineer.
- Open Calls from the navigation menu.
- Choose To schedule under Which calls at the top of the filter rail.
You can do the same from the toolbar: select the first half of the question pill (it shows All, To schedule or Scheduled), and a small Which calls panel opens with the same three buttons. The panel stays open after you pick, so you can compare the three, and a line under the buttons says what the chosen one means; close it with its ×, by pressing Escape, or by clicking anywhere else.
Hovering each button says what it means:
- All — "Every call in the window, scheduled or not."
- To schedule — "Calls nobody has been given yet. They have no engineer and no due date."
- Scheduled — "Calls an engineer is scheduled for. One row per scheduled visit."
The rest of the rail still applies: the date window, the customer, call type and call status filters all narrow the calls to schedule in the usual way. This is a good way to work through the unscheduled calls logged this week, or the ones for one customer.
A call a customer logs on the Customer portal arrives with the status Open and no engineer, so it is one of the calls To schedule shows on the Calls list. ABM Service does not alert anybody when one comes in, and the list does not update by itself: press Refresh on the Calls list's toolbar to see calls logged since you opened it.
How do I see only the visits that have been scheduled?
Choose Scheduled under Which calls at the top of the Calls list's filter rail. The list then shows only the visits an engineer has been scheduled for, one row per visit, so a call with two engineers appears twice, once with each.
Scheduled works well with a window on Due in the By Date section: together they show the visits due today, this week or next week. Add ticks under Engineer to see one engineer's work, or under Action Status to see how far each visit has got.
Each row under Scheduled carries that visit's own details: the engineer in the Engineer column, how far the visit has got in Action status, and when it is due, started and ended. The call's own Status is repeated on every visit of the same call. To look at the whole call, with every visit on it, open it from its call number.
Choose All to go back to every call. All is what the Calls list shows when it first opens.
Why are some filters and columns greyed out when I choose To schedule?
Because a call nobody has been scheduled for has no engineer, no due date, no action status and no start or end time: all of those belong to a scheduled visit. A filter on any of them could only ever empty the Calls list, so choosing To schedule switches them off and says so.
When you choose To schedule on the Calls list:
- Due in the By Date section refuses to be chosen, and a window on Due moves back onto Logged.
- The Action Status and Engineer sections of the filter rail are greyed out, and any ticks in them are removed. If you tick one anyway, the tick is taken off again and the note under the date buttons says so.
- A column filter on Started or Ended, or on one of your company's own columns that belong to the visit, is removed, and so is any grouping by Engineer, Action status, Due, Started, Ended or one of those columns.
- A sort on one of those columns changes to the date the window is on, newest first.
- The Engineer, Action status, Due, Started and Ended column headings are greyed out, and so are any of your company's own columns that belong to the visit. They stay on screen, but they cannot be sorted or filtered, and their heading menu explains that the column is blank on every row. The Engineer cells still work: each one offers Schedule engineer.
A note under the date buttons in the By Date section says why, starting "Calls still to schedule have no engineer and no due date.", and then says what was dropped, for example that it switched the window to Logged or dropped an engineer filter.
Do my engineer and due-date filters come back when I go back to All?
No. When you go from To schedule back to All or Scheduled on the Calls list, the filters that To schedule removed stay removed. Putting them back silently would show you a different list from the one you last saw, without saying so.
If you want them again, tick the engineers or action statuses again in the filter rail, or choose Due again in the By Date section.
Tip: If you switch between the same few set-ups often, save each one as a layout and pick it from the Layouts control at the top of the filter rail. A layout remembers the Which calls choice along with the other filters.
What does the count at the foot of the Calls list say for each choice?
The count at the foot of the Calls list names what its rows are, and that depends on Which calls:
- With All, it counts "calls & scheduled visits", because each row is either a scheduled visit or a call nobody has been given yet.
- With To schedule, it counts "calls to schedule". Each row is one call.
- With Scheduled, it counts "scheduled visits". Each row is one engineer's visit, so a call with three engineers counts three times.
Changing Which calls is a new question, so the list goes back to page 1 and lets go of any row you had marked.
Why is a call I scheduled no longer in the To schedule list?
Because it now has an engineer. To schedule shows only calls nobody has been given, so as soon as a visit is booked for a call — from the Calls list, from the call itself, or from the Scheduler — the call leaves that list the next time the list is loaded. If you book it from the Engineer column of the Calls list, the list refreshes at once and the row disappears, with a message at the foot of the screen saying who was booked and when.
If somebody else schedules a call while you are looking at the list, it stays on your screen until you press Refresh on the toolbar.