Skip to main content

How to Choose Who Gets a Customer's Service Docket

The Docket & e-mail section of the customer screen decides what ABM does automatically with the service docket for this customer's work: whether it is printed, e-mailed, or both, and which contacts it is e-mailed to. Open the customer from Customers and select Docket & e-mail under Service in the sections rail on the left of the customer screen.

How do I have a customer's service docket e-mailed to them?​

Open the customer, select Docket & e-mail in the sections rail, turn on E-mail the docket on the Automatic service docket card, tick the contacts under Contacts to e-mail, and save the customer.

  1. Open the customer from Customers.
  2. Select Docket & e-mail in the sections rail, under Service.
  3. Turn on E-mail the docket on the Automatic service docket card. The line under it reads "To the contacts ticked below".
  4. Turn on the switch beside each contact who should receive the docket, under Contacts to e-mail. Each contact shows their e-mail address under their name.
  5. Select Save at the top of the customer screen, or press Ctrl and S together (Ctrl+S).

The settings do not send anything straight away, and nothing on the customer screen prints or e-mails a docket. They tell ABM what to do with the customer's dockets from then on; the card describes itself as "What happens to the docket when a call is closed."

To stop e-mailing dockets, turn E-mail the docket off and save. You can leave the contacts ticked; they are used again if you turn e-mailing back on.

What do Print the docket and E-mail the docket do?​

They are the two switches on the Automatic service docket card in the Docket & e-mail section of the customer screen, and each one decides one thing ABM does automatically with this customer's docket.

  • Print the docket — ABM prints the docket.
  • E-mail the docket — ABM e-mails the docket to the contacts ticked under Contacts to e-mail.

They are independent, so you can turn on either one, both, or neither. With both off, nothing automatic happens to the customer's dockets.

The printing and e-mailing are done by ABM itself, not by ABM Service. ABM picks a docket up once an engineer's visit on the call is marked Finished, which is not the same moment as the call's own status changing to closed. Saving or closing a call on the call screen does not by itself print or e-mail anything, so if a docket has not arrived, check the visit's status on the call first.

A new customer starts with both off. Turn them on and select Save customer to set them as the customer is created, or come back to Docket & e-mail after the first save.

Can I print or resend a docket, or see a customer's past dockets, in ABM Service?​

No. ABM Service has no button that prints, e-mails or resends a service docket on the spot, on the customer screen or on the call screen. The Docket & e-mail section of the customer screen only decides what ABM itself does with the customer's dockets from now on: print them, e-mail them to the ticked contacts, or both.

ABM Service cannot show the dockets that have already gone out either. Docket history, under History in the customer screen's sections rail, is marked later: hovering over it says "Docket history — not available in this version", and selecting it does nothing.

What you can do:

  • To change who gets the next docket, tick or untick the contacts under Contacts to e-mail on the Automatic service docket card, and save the customer.
  • If a docket has not arrived, check that an engineer's visit on the call is marked Finished, because that is what ABM waits for. A visit's status cannot be changed in ABM Service.
  • For a copy of a docket that has already gone, ask whoever looks after ABM at your company, because the printing and e-mailing are done by ABM, not by ABM Service.

Why are there no contacts to tick under Contacts to e-mail?​

The list under Contacts to e-mail, in the Docket & e-mail section of the customer screen, shows the customer's own contacts, so it is empty until the customer has some. It says which case you are in:

  • "This customer has no contacts yet." — the customer is saved but nobody has been added. Select Contacts in the sections rail, add the people with Add contact, and come back to Docket & e-mail to tick them.
  • "Add contacts first." — the customer is new and has not been saved. Contacts can only be added once the customer exists, so select Save customer first, then add contacts in the Contacts section.

Docket & e-mail also shows "This customer has no contacts yet." while the customer's contacts are still loading or if they could not be loaded. If you expected people there, open Contacts in the sections rail: it says plainly when the contacts could not be loaded and offers Try again.

A contact who shows no e-mail address under their name has no address for the docket to go to. Open the contact from the Contacts section, add their e-mail address, and select Save contact.

Is there another way to send dockets to a contact?​

Yes. Each contact also has an Always e-mail switch of their own, described on the contact as "Service e-mails and dockets go to this person". You find it by opening the contact from the Contacts section of the customer screen.

Use Contacts to e-mail on Docket & e-mail when you want to choose, for this customer, exactly who gets the automatic docket. Use a contact's Always e-mail when that person should always get service e-mails and dockets. A contact is saved on its own, with Save contact, while the Docket & e-mail switches are saved with the customer.