Using the Customer Screen
The customer screen is where you read and change everything about one customer account: who they are, where they are, who to talk to, what is happening on their calls and how they are billed. Open it from the Customers list, or by selecting a customer's name wherever ABM Service shows one, such as on a call or in the Calls list.
How do I open a customer?
Select the customer's name, or their code, in the Customers list and the customer screen opens on that customer's Overview. A customer's name is also a link almost everywhere else in ABM Service: on the call screen, in the Calls list and on a shared contact, so you rarely have to go back to the list to find one.
- Open Customers from the menu.
- Find the customer, for example by typing part of the name or code in the search box.
- Select the customer's name to open the customer screen.
To keep two customers open at once, use the small open-in-new button beside a customer's name wherever the name is a link; it appears when you point at the name, or when you move to the name with the Tab key. Its tooltip reads Open the customer in a new tab in a web browser, or Open the customer in a new window in the ABM Service desktop app, and the customer opens there while the screen you were on stays as it was.
The customer screen is also the screen for a brand-new customer: New Customer on the Customers list opens it empty, headed New customer. See How to Create a New Customer for that.
While ABM Service fetches the lists the customer screen needs (groups, terms, users and the rest) you see Loading…, and the customer's own details then fill in as they arrive. If the customer no longer exists you see a message saying the customer was not found, with the back arrow to leave when there is a screen behind it. If those lists cannot be fetched at all, the screen says "Could not load the lookups:" followed by the reason; open the customer again in a moment, and tell your system administrator if it keeps happening. The screen also has small cards that load on their own, such as the contacts and the calls summary; if one of them fails, only that card says so (for example The contacts could not be loaded.) with a Try again button, and the rest of the customer stays usable.
What does the header at the top of the customer screen show?
The header at the top of the customer screen tells you who the customer is and anything that should stop you in your tracks. From left to right:
- The name and code of the customer, beside their initials.
- The status chip: Active, Prospect or Inactive, in the same colour the Customers list uses (green, yellow and red).
- A chip for every hold that is switched on: Stop log calls, Stop edit calls, In arrears, Invoice hold, Quote hold and Credit note hold. Hover over one and it says, for example, "In arrears is on". The chips appear the moment the switch is turned on, even before you save.
- A line of facts: customer since the year the account was opened, the account manager, the trading terms, and billed to another customer when this one's invoices go to a parent account.
- Remarks: a one-line box, "Remarks — one line everyone sees", for the one thing everybody opening this customer should read. It holds at most 30 characters; longer notes belong in the customer's Notes.
On the right are Refresh, Log a call and Save. While you are customizing the Overview's arrangement, those are replaced by the layout buttons and Done.
Why can I only type 30 characters in Remarks on a customer?
Remarks, the one-line box in the header of the customer screen, holds at most 30 characters, which is a few words. That is the size of the remarks field in ABM itself, so the customer screen stops you typing at 30 rather than letting you type more and losing the rest when you save. When the box stops taking letters, you have reached the limit.
Remarks is meant for one short warning that everybody opening the customer should see at a glance, such as "Call before visiting" or "Key with reception". It stays in the header above every section of the customer screen.
For anything longer, use the customer's notes. Select Notes on the customer screen's sections rail, then type in one of the three notes you can write, each of which can hold several lines and paragraphs:
- Service notes — what an engineer should know before a visit, such as how to get on site.
- General notes — anything about the account that is not service or billing.
- Billing notes — rates, purchase order rules, and what to send with the invoice.
Select Save at the top right of the customer screen to keep your remarks or notes.
What does the Refresh button on the customer screen do?
Refresh, the round-arrow button at the top right of the customer screen, reads the customer again from the database, with its contacts, calls summary and engineers. Use it when you think somebody else has just changed the customer.
Refresh never throws away what you have typed. If you have unsaved changes, they stay in the boxes, and only the "last saved" version underneath them is brought up to date. If a colleague changed a field you did not touch, the save bar then counts that field as changed too, because saving your copy would put your older value back. That is your warning: select Discard in the save bar to take their version, or save to keep yours.
A brand-new customer that has never been saved has no Refresh button, because there is nothing to read yet.
How does the sections rail on the customer screen work?
The sections rail is the column down the left of the customer screen. It lists every part of the customer, each on a page of its own, in four groups:
- Customer: Overview, Address & location, Contacts, Notes
- Account: Credit & terms, Bank & direct debit
- Service: Defaults & holds, Docket & e-mail
- History: Engineers, Calls, Contracts, Docket history, Tags
Contacts, Engineers and Calls carry a count: how many contacts, how many engineers have been on site in the last twelve months, and how many calls the customer has ever had.
The rail starts open. Select Sections at the top of the rail ("Let the sidebar fold away") to fold it down to icons and give the page more room; then hover over the icons to peek at the names, and select Sections again ("Keep the sidebar open") to keep it open. The line at the foot reminds you: "Hover to peek · ≡ to keep it open · Overview ▾ arranges the overview".
Beside Overview on the customer screen's rail is a small layouts button, a star and a ▾, whose name reads "Layouts:" followed by the layout in use. It opens a menu of saved Overview layouts, where you can pick a different arrangement, choose Customize this layout…, or choose Save as a new layout….
Why are some sections on the customer rail greyed out?
A section on the customer screen's rail is greyed out for one of two reasons, and hovering over it tells you which.
- Contracts, Docket history and Tags are marked later: they are not available in this version of ABM Service. Hovering says, for example, "Contracts — not available in this version", and selecting one does nothing.
- On a new customer that has not been saved yet, Contacts, Engineers and Calls are greyed out too, with "once the customer is saved". A contact, a call or a visit has to belong to a customer the database already knows, so these open the moment you save. The foot of the rail says so: "This customer has not been saved yet — contacts, calls, contracts and tags open once it is."
Everything else, including Address & location and Notes, can be filled in before the first save.
Can I delete a customer, merge two customers or print the customer screen?
No. The customer screen has no delete, merge or print button: ABM Service cannot remove a customer account or combine two accounts into one. For a customer you no longer work for, or a duplicate account, set its status instead:
- Open the customer from Customers.
- Choose Inactive in Status on the customer's Overview.
- Select Save at the top right of the customer screen.
An inactive customer leaves the Customers list's usual Active view and is no longer offered in the Customer box of a new call, but its calls, contacts and notes are kept; choose Inactive or All under Which accounts on the Customers list to find it again. Marking a duplicate inactive does not move its calls to the other account: calls stay with the customer they were logged for. The one thing on a customer that can be deleted is a contact, with the bin button on the contact's row under Contacts or on the Overview's Contacts card.
To print what the customer screen shows, use your web browser's own print command, which prints the page as it appears on screen. In the ABM Service desktop app, pressing Ctrl and P together (Ctrl+P) does not print anything.
How do I get back from the customer screen?
Select the back arrow at the top left of the customer screen ("Back to customers") to return to wherever you came from, whether that was the Customers list, a call or the Calls list. If you opened the customer directly, for example from a link, a bookmark or a new tab, there is nothing to go back to and the arrow is not shown. The customer screen has no menu of its own, so in a browser open your company's ABM Service address again, which opens on Home; in the ABM Service desktop app, use Go in the title bar.
When you come back to the customer later with the browser's or the app's Back, it opens on the section you left it on, with the same note tab and the same rail. Leaving the customer with unsaved changes does not lose them: ABM Service keeps your typing, and it is still there, waiting to be saved, when you return. Until you do, a reminder with the customer's name and the word unsaved sits in the bottom-left corner of every screen; select it to go straight back to the customer screen.