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, their files, 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. A header runs across the top, the sections sidebar runs down the left, and the section you pick fills the rest.
How do I open a customer?
To open a customer, open Customers from the menu, type at least two letters of the customer's code, name, address or postcode in the Find a customer box on the toolbar, and select the customer in the Open a customer panel that opens under the box: the customer screen opens on that customer's Overview. You can also select a customer's name in the Customers list itself.
- Open Customers from the menu.
- Type part of the code, name, address or postcode in Find a customer.
- Select the customer in the Open a customer panel, or move to it with the arrow keys and press Enter, to open the customer screen.
The Open a customer panel offers active customers. To find a prospect or an inactive account, select Also search inactive accounts at the foot of the panel.
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 Customers list to find one. 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 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.
What if the customer screen says Loading or that the customer was not found?
While ABM Service fetches the lists the customer screen needs (groups, terms, users and the rest) and your saved Overview layouts, the customer screen shows Loading…; the customer's own details then fill in as they arrive.
- "Customer … was not found.": the customer no longer exists, or the link you followed was wrong. The back arrow is there to leave when there is a screen behind it.
- "Could not load the lookups:" followed by a reason: those lists could not be fetched. Open the customer again in a moment, and tell your system administrator if it keeps happening.
The customer screen also has parts that load on their own, such as the contacts, the calls summary, the engineers who have been on site and the customer's files. If one of them fails, only that part says so, with a Try again button (for example The contacts could not be loaded.), and the rest of the customer stays usable; anything you have typed is kept.
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. It stays in place above every section.
- The name and code of the customer, beside their initials.
- The status chip: Active, Prospect or Inactive, in the same colours the Customers list uses.
- 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". A chip appears the moment its 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.
On the right of the header are the customer screen's buttons:
- Refresh (the round-arrow button) reads the customer again.
- Log a call ("Log a call for this customer") opens a new call for this customer.
- Log by voice appears only when your system administrator has switched on Fiona, the office's voice agent: it logs a call for this customer by talking to her, and is explained in logging a call by voice.
- Save saves your changes; on a new customer it reads Save customer.
The one-line Remarks box is not in the header: it is the last field of the Customer group on the Overview. While you are customizing the Overview's arrangement, the header's buttons are replaced by the layout buttons and Done.
How does the sections sidebar on the customer screen work?
The sections sidebar is the column down the left of the customer screen, headed Sections. It lists every part of the customer in five groups, Customer, Account, Service, Attachments and History, and selecting an item opens that part in the rest of the screen. The header stays where it is, and anything you have typed in one section is kept when you open another.
Some items carry a count: Contacts (how many contacts), All attachments and each attachment category (how many files), Engineers (how many engineers have been on site in the last twelve months) and Calls (how many calls the customer has ever had).
The sidebar is open until you fold it. Select Sections at the top of the sidebar ("Let the sidebar fold away") to fold it down to icons and give the page more room; then point at the icons to peek at the names, and select Sections again ("Keep the sidebar open") to keep it open. ABM Service remembers your choice in this web browser or desktop app on this computer, so every customer you open afterwards opens with the sidebar the way you left it. The line at the foot reads "Hover to peek · ≡ to keep it open · Overview ▾ arranges the overview".
Beside Overview on the sidebar is a small layouts button, a star and a ▾, whose name reads "Layouts:" followed by the layout in use. It opens a menu of your saved Overview layouts, where you can pick a different arrangement, choose Customize this layout…, or choose Save as a new layout…. How layouts work is explained in using the Form Designer.
What is in each section of the customer screen?
Each item on the customer screen's sections sidebar opens one part of the customer. The Customer group holds who they are and how to reach them:
- Overview: the most-used fields and cards on one page, explained in what is on the customer Overview.
- Address & location: the mailing and delivery addresses and the customer's pin on the map, explained in setting a customer's address and location.
- Contacts: the people at the customer, explained in adding and editing contacts.
- Notes: the service, general, billing and last call notes, explained in using a customer's notes.
The Account group is Credit & terms (trading terms, credit limit, purchase orders, tax and who the invoices go to) and Bank & direct debit: see credit limits and trading terms and direct debit.
The Service group is Defaults & holds (the default engineers, the default service and the holds) and Docket & e-mail (whether the service docket is printed or e-mailed, and to which contacts): see default engineers and holds and the service docket.
The Attachments group holds the customer's files: All attachments, then one item for each category this customer's files are in, then No category when any file has none. Where your company can add files, you can drag files from your computer onto one of those items to add them: onto a category to file them in it, or onto All attachments or No category to add them with no category. A folded sidebar opens as the files reach it. The system administrator also sees Manage categories… there. Attachments work the same way on the call screen and are explained in using the Attachments section.
The History group is Engineers, who has been on site month by month over the last twelve months, and Calls, every call ever logged for the customer: see which engineers have been to a customer and every call for a customer.
The customer screen has no section for the customer's contracts, docket history or tags in this version; the customer's service contracts appear only as the choices in Default service for logged calls under Defaults & holds (called Default service in the Overview's Service group).
Why are some sections on the customer sidebar greyed out?
Sections on the customer screen's sidebar are greyed out only on a new customer that has not been saved yet. Contacts, All attachments, Engineers and Calls are greyed out, and hovering over one says, for example, "Contacts — once the customer is saved". Selecting one does nothing.
A contact, a file, 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 sidebar says so: "This customer has not been saved yet — contacts, attachments and its history open once it is."
Everything else, including Address & location, Notes, Credit & terms, Bank & direct debit, Defaults & holds and Docket & e-mail, can be filled in before the first save, and it is all saved together when you select Save customer.
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, engineers and files. 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.
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, files and notes are kept; choose Inactive or All under Which accounts on the Customers list, or use Also search inactive accounts in Find a customer, 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 a customer with the browser's or the app's Back, the customer screen opens where you left it: the same section, the same Overview layout and tab, the same note tab, and in Attachments the same item with the same file marked.
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.