How to Log a Call for a Customer
When you already have a customer open, you can log a call for them without going back to the Calls list or searching for them again. Select Log a call in the header of the customer screen, and the new call opens with that customer already chosen.
How do I log a call from the customer screen?
To log a call for the customer you are looking at, select Log a call in the header at the top right of the customer screen, after Refresh and before Save. The new call screen opens with the customer already filled in; you add the rest and save the call there.
- Open the customer from Customers, or by selecting their name anywhere in ABM Service.
- Select Log a call ("Log a call for this customer") in the header of the customer screen.
- Fill in the call on the new call screen: the contact, the call type, the comment and anything else your company needs.
- Select Save call on the new call screen.
The same button is at the top of the customer's Calls section, beside "Every call ever logged for" the customer, "with no date limit". Both buttons do exactly the same thing, so use whichever is in front of you: the header's when you are reading the customer, the Calls section's when you have just looked through their call history.
When your system administrator has switched on Fiona, the office's voice agent, a Log by voice button sits just after Log a call in the customer screen's header. It logs a call for this customer by talking to Fiona instead of typing it, and is explained in using the Log by voice button.
What does a call logged from the customer screen start with?
A call logged with Log a call on the customer screen starts with the customer chosen, as if you had picked them yourself: their name, code and address are on the call, and you are not asked which customer it is for. You still fill in who called and how to reach them.
The contact's name, phone and e-mail are deliberately left empty, even when the customer has a main phone number or an accounts e-mail: only the customer is carried across, and the contact details are yours to fill in for whoever is calling.
You rarely have to type the contact. Select the Contact name box on the new call and it lists the people on this customer's Contacts, with any contact shared from another customer marked "Shared ·" and that customer's name; pick the person who rang and their details come with them. Somebody who is not on the list can still be typed in by name.
Everything else on the call starts the way any new call does, for example with your company's default call type. How to fill in and save a call, and how to schedule an engineer for it, are covered with the call screen.
Why is there no Log a call button on the customer?
Log a call is not in the customer screen's header while the customer is new and has not been saved yet: a call has to belong to a customer that already exists. The sidebar says so at its foot, "This customer has not been saved yet — contacts, attachments and its history open once it is.", and the Calls section is greyed out too.
Select Save customer first. As soon as the customer is saved, Log a call appears in the header and the Calls section opens. Log by voice, where your company has it, appears at the same moment.
Log a call is also hidden while you are customizing the Overview's arrangement, when the header shows the layout buttons instead; select Done to get it back.
Elsewhere in ABM Service, Log a call is also at the top of the Home screen, and the same button is called New Call on the Calls list and the Scheduler. The call screen has no such button: to log another call for the same customer, open the customer from the call, by selecting the customer's name at the top of the call screen, and use Log a call there.
Can I log a call for a prospect, an inactive customer or a customer on hold?
Yes. Log a call on the customer screen is offered on every saved customer, whatever its Status, so it is the simplest way to log a call for a prospect or an inactive account: the Customer box on a new call offers active customers only, but a call started from the customer screen already has the customer chosen. To reach the account, type its name in Find a customer on the Customers list and select Also search inactive accounts, or choose Prospect, Inactive or All under Which accounts; open it, and select Log a call in the header of the customer screen.
The customer's holds do not stop it either. In this version ABM Service does not check Stop log calls or any other hold when a call is logged, even though the Holds card in Defaults & holds says "New calls for this customer are refused", so a hold is a warning to read, not a lock: look at the hold chips beside the customer's name in the header of the customer screen before you log the call.
Can I copy an old call, or move a call onto this customer?
No. ABM Service has no button that copies an old call into a new one, and a saved call always keeps the customer it was logged for. To book the same work again, select Log a call on the customer screen and fill the new call in; the customer's Calls section lists the past calls, so you can open the last one and copy its words across. If a call was logged against the wrong customer, open the right customer, log the call again with Log a call on that customer screen, and set the wrong call's Status to your company's cancelled status, saying in its Comment which call replaced it.
What happens to my unsaved changes to the customer when I log a call?
Your unsaved changes to the customer are kept when you select Log a call on the customer screen. ABM Service remembers what you had typed, which section you were on and how the screen was arranged, and when you come back to the customer, for example with Back, your changes are still there with the Unsaved changes bar showing.
They are not saved by logging the call, though. Select Save on the customer screen when you return, or Discard in the bar if you no longer want them.
The same is true of every other way out of the customer screen that goes to a call: selecting a call number on the Overview's Calls card, in the Calls section or in the Engineers section.