What Is on the Customer Overview
The Overview is the page the customer screen opens on: one page that answers who the customer is, where they are, how to reach them, what is happening on their calls, and how they are billed. It is the first item on the sections sidebar of the customer screen. Most boxes on it can be edited right there, and each is the same field as on the section it comes from, so a change made on the Overview is a change made everywhere.
What does the customer Overview show?
The customer Overview shows the most-used parts of the customer on one page, in two rows of three columns as ABM Service arranges it out of the box:
- First column: the Customer group (who they are, ending with Remarks) and the Address group with its map.
- Second column: How to reach them, then the Contacts card, then Engineers who have been here.
- Third column: the Calls card, then the Notes card.
- Second row: the Service group with the customer's holds, Credit control with the Terms under it, and Invoicing & tax with Invoice to.
A card with more behind it has a link at its top right that opens the full section: Contacts page, All engineers, All calls, Notes page and Credit & terms.
Your Overview can look different from a colleague's, because each person can arrange it their own way, and an arrangement can even split the Overview into tabs across the top of the form; select a tab to see the fields on it. On a new customer, the Contacts, Engineers, Calls and Credit control cards are not shown until the customer is saved.
What are the fields in the Customer group on the Overview?
The Customer group at the top left of the customer Overview holds who the customer is. Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
- Title: the trading name as it appears on invoices, up to 50 characters. Required.
- Code: the customer's code in the accounts, up to 16 characters. Required, and it must not belong to another customer. You can change the code of a saved customer here too; the new code is checked against your other customers when you save.
- Status: Active, Prospect or Inactive. The Customers list's Which accounts choices use the same three words.
- Group: your company's customer groups. Required. Picking a different group also changes the Trading terms to that group's terms.
- Area: your company's own areas, or — Not assigned.
- Category: a short free-text category, up to 10 characters.
- Account manager: the ABM user responsible for the account, or — Not assigned. ABM users who have been removed are not offered, except the one already set, so a customer never loses its manager by accident.
- Branch: your company's own branches, or — Not assigned.
- Remarks: one short line for everybody who opens the customer, with "One line everyone sees" in the empty box.
The How to reach them group, beside the Customer group on the Overview, has the customer's main Phone, Fax and Accounts e-mail. The people at the customer are on the Contacts card below it.
Why can I only type 30 characters in Remarks on a customer?
Remarks, the last box in the Customer group of the customer Overview, 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 is on the Overview only, not on any other section of the customer screen, and because each person can arrange their own Overview, it can be moved or taken off it like most fields.
For anything longer, use the customer's notes. Select Notes on the customer screen's sections sidebar, 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 Address box on the customer Overview show?
The Address group on the customer Overview shows the mailing address as a block, one line under another (the street lines, then the town, county and post code, then the country), and a map of where the customer is. The address is read-only here: you change it line by line on Address & location, and the block follows your typing straight away, even before you save. If there is no address yet, the box says "No address yet — type it on the Address & location page; the pin is found from it."
Where your company keeps Eircodes, the Irish postcodes (it is set up for Ireland), the box also shows the Eircode, or not set with an Add it button that opens Address & location.
The map on the customer Overview shows the customer's pin. Along its bottom edge it says Pin saved with the stored coordinates, or No pin saved yet; that line always describes what is stored, so a pin you have moved but not yet saved is drawn on the map above coordinates that are still the old ones. When nobody has placed the customer, the map shows an estimate from the Eircode or the address and says so. The Overview's map has no buttons: to place or move the pin, use Address & location. If your company has no map set up, the box says "No map is configured for this deployment." and shows the coordinates instead.
What are the Service, Credit control and Invoicing boxes on the customer Overview?
The second row of the customer Overview is a short form of the customer's account and service settings, bound to the same fields as their own sections:
- Service: Contract calls and Manual calls (the default engineer for each kind of call), Default service, and six switches for the customer's holds: Stop log calls, Stop edit calls, In arrears, Service invoice hold, Service quote hold and Service credit note hold. A hold that is on also shows as a chip beside the customer's name in the header. Defaults & holds on the sidebar explains what each hold does.
- Credit control: the total due, an aged-balance bar, the amounts by age and the last receipt. These come from the accounts system and are marked read-only. When the customer is billed to a parent account, they are the parent's balances.
- Terms: Trading terms (required) and Credit limit.
- Invoicing & tax: Currency (chosen when the customer is created, then locked), Tax status, VAT / ABN (the customer's value-added tax number, or Australian Business Number) and VAT exempt date, then Invoice to, which says "This customer. Invoices and statements go to it directly." or names the parent account the invoices go to. Under it is a search box ("Bill another customer instead — search by code, name or address") for choosing a parent account, and a named parent has a Remove button; like every other change, a new parent is kept only when you save the customer.
The full versions, with every field and rule, are Credit & terms, Bank & direct debit, Defaults & holds and Docket & e-mail on the sidebar.
What do the Contacts and Notes cards on the Overview show?
The Contacts card on the customer Overview shows the first three people on the account, each with their position, e-mail and phone, and pencil and bin buttons to edit or remove them. If there are more, the line underneath says, for example, "2 more contacts on this account", and the link at the top right reads 2 more contacts; otherwise it reads Contacts page. Either link opens Contacts, which is where you add a contact: the Overview card has no add button.
The Notes card has four tabs, Service, General, Billing and Last call, each showing one of the customer's notes. A dot beside a tab's name means that note has something in it. You can type straight into the Service, General and Billing notes; Last call is read-only. Notes page opens all four side by side.
The Calls and Engineers who have been here cards are explained in What Do the Calls and Engineers Cards on a Customer Show?.
Can I change how the customer Overview is laid out?
Yes. The Overview's arrangement is yours to change: select the ▾ beside Overview on the customer screen's sections sidebar to pick one of your saved Overview layouts, or choose Customize this layout… to move, group and hide its fields and cards, put them on tabs, and add any field from another section. You can also add your company's own customer fields to it. The sidebar's foot says "Overview ▾ arranges the overview".
While you customize, the header shows the layout's own buttons instead of Save, ending with Done. Customizing changes only how the Overview looks, never the customer's details. It cannot start while the customer is being saved: you are told "The customer is being saved — the overview can be customized once that finishes."
A few fields always stay on the Overview, however it is arranged, because a customer cannot be saved without them: Title, Code, Group, Trading terms and Currency. If you try to hide one, the Overview refuses and says so, for example "Title is required and stays on the form." The fields of the Customer and How to reach them groups, Remarks included, are only ever on the Overview, not on any other section, so a field you hide there can be changed again only once you put it back or pick a layout that shows it.
Your Overview arrangement is yours alone: nobody else sees it, there is no company-wide one, and changing yours never changes a colleague's. Your company's own customer fields are set up in ABM itself, so the Overview can show the ones that exist but ABM Service cannot add new ones. Files such as documents and photos belong under Attachments on the customer screen's sections sidebar, not on the Overview (see using the Attachments section); the one exception is a photo custom field your company may have, where Replace… takes a picture of up to 4 MB that is kept when you save the customer.