Using the Customers List
The Customers list is where you look up the accounts your company works for: every customer's name, code, address, status and the people and groups it belongs to. Open it from the navigation menu by choosing Customers. From here you can find and open one customer, narrow the list, add a new customer, and reach the customers nobody has put on the map yet.
What is the Customers list and how do I open it?
The Customers list is the screen that lists your company's customer accounts, and you open it by choosing Customers in the navigation menu. The first time, it opens showing Active accounts only, sorted by name, 25 to a page; after that it opens the way you last left it, or on the layout you have made your default.
The screen has three parts:
- The filter rail down the left side, headed Customers. It holds the Layouts control (it shows the name of the layout in use, such as Last Used Layout), the Which accounts choice and three tick lists: Group, Category and Account manager.
- The toolbar across the top of the Customers list. On the left is the line of filter chips, starting with the Filters button and the Accounts chip. On the right are the Find a customer box, which opens one customer, a Refresh button, the Customers with no location button when there are customers without a map pin, and New Customer.
- The list itself, one row per customer, with a pager at the foot.
The line under the list says how many customers match and where you are, for example "240 customers — page 1 of 10". Choose 10, 25, 50 or 100 at the foot of the Customers list to change how many rows a page holds, and use the page buttons beside it to move between pages.
Tip: The Customers list opens on active accounts only. If a customer you expect is missing, check the Accounts chip on the filter line, just after the Filters button: it always says which accounts the list is showing.
What do the columns on the Customers list show?
The Customers list shows nine columns when it first opens, and you can add more. The standard columns, from left to right, are:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Name | The customer's name. It is a link that opens the customer. |
| Code | The customer's account code. It also opens the customer. |
| Address | The mailing address, laid out on several lines as it prints. |
| Status | Active, Inactive or Prospect, as a coloured word. A status your company added in ABM itself shows as its own letter. |
| Group | The customer group the account belongs to. |
| Category | The category typed on the customer. |
| Account manager | The ABM user responsible for the account. |
| Phone | The company phone number. |
| Accounts e-mail | The e-mail address used for accounts. |
Seven more columns are available but hidden to start with: Delivery address, Eircode, Sales analysis, Invoice to (the account this customer is billed to, which opens that other customer), VAT number (value-added tax number), Opened (the date the account was opened) and Last edited (the date and time recorded as the account's last change, which a save in ABM Service does not move). The custom fields your company has added to customers are offered too, under Customer Custom Fields, except photos and signatures, which the list cannot show (a photo's text description can still be offered).
To add or remove columns, right-click a column heading on the Customers list and choose Choose columns…; to take one column off quickly, right-click its heading and choose Hide column. The list shows at most 20 columns at once. Name cannot be taken off, because it is the link into each customer: the dialog says "The name carries the link into a customer, so it cannot be taken off." Moving and resizing columns works as on every list: see How to Choose and Arrange the Columns in a List.
How do I sort or group the Customers list?
Click a column heading on the Customers list to sort by that column, and click it again to reverse the order; right-click a heading for Sort ascending, Sort descending and Group by this column. Every column of the Customers list's own can be sorted, so you can put the list in order of Code, Account manager or Opened, for example. Clear sorting puts the Customers list back in its own order, by Name.
On the Customers list, Group by this column is offered for Status, Group, Category, Account manager, Sales analysis and Invoice to, and for some of your company's custom fields. It is not offered for Name, Code, the two addresses, Phone, Accounts e-mail, Eircode, VAT number, Opened or Last edited; sort by those instead. Grouping by Account manager, for example, lists each account manager's customers together.
Sorting or grouping takes the Customers list back to page 1, and a saved layout remembers both. How to Sort and Group a List explains the grouping bar, grouping by two columns and Ungroup all, which work the same on the Calls list.
How do I open a customer from the Customers list?
Select the customer's Name or Code in the Customers list, and the customer's screen opens in the same tab. Both are links to the same customer, so use whichever column your eye is on. To open a customer that is not on the page in front of you, type its code, name, address or Eircode in the Find a customer box on the toolbar instead: see How to Find a Customer on the Customers List.
Other ways to open a customer from the list:
- Double-click anywhere on the customer's row.
- Select the row once to mark it, then press Enter.
- Hover over the name or code and select the small open-in-new-tab link beside it (its tooltip reads Open the customer in a new tab in a browser, or Open the customer in a new window in the ABM Service desktop app) to keep the Customers list where it is and open the customer in the new tab or window.
If you have added the Invoice to column, its name opens the account the customer is billed to, not the customer on the row.
When you come back from a customer with the Back arrow, the Customers list returns as you left it: the same filters, the same page, and the row you opened still marked. A customer opened from Find a customer leaves your marked row as it was.
What does the Refresh button on the Customers list do?
Refresh, on the toolbar of the Customers list beside the Find a customer box, asks for the same list again so you see changes other people have made since you opened it. The Customers list does not update by itself, so a customer a colleague has just added or changed appears only when the list is read again: after Refresh, when you change a filter, the sort or the page, or the next time you open the list. Refresh keeps your filters, your page and your marked row; it does not start you again at page 1. Refresh reloads the rows only: the Group, Category and Account manager lists in the filter rail, and the number on the Customers with no location button, are read when the Customers list opens and are brought up to date the next time you open it.
Changing what the Customers list shows, such as picking a different Which accounts choice, ticking a group or typing in a column filter, is different: the list goes back to page 1 and lets go of the marked row, because it is now a different list. Typing in Find a customer changes nothing on the list.
What do the messages on the Customers list mean?
The Customers list says in words what is happening when there are no rows to show:
- Loading customers — the list is on its way. It usually takes a moment.
- No customers match — nothing fits the filters that are on. Look at the chips at the top of the Customers list: the Accounts chip may be showing only Active accounts, or a group, category or name filter may be narrowing the list. Clear all filters removes everything except the Accounts choice.
- The customers could not be loaded: followed by a reason — ABM Service could not read the list. Press Refresh to try again; if it keeps happening, tell your system administrator what the message says.
If the Group, Category and Account manager lists in the rail all stay empty although your company has groups and users, the lists could not be read; the Customers list itself still works, and opening the Customers list again tries them again.
Does the Customers list remember how I arranged it?
Yes. ABM Service remembers the last arrangement of the Customers list you used, and you can also save arrangements by name with the Layouts control at the top of the filter rail. A layout of the Customers list keeps the Which accounts choice, the tick lists and column filters, the columns, the sort, any grouping and the page size. It does not keep which page you were on, which row was marked, or anything typed in Find a customer.
Choosing Default Layout in the Layouts control puts the Customers list back to how it comes: active accounts, by name, the standard columns. Last Used Layout is the arrangement you last left the Customers list in, and it is what the list opens on unless you have starred another layout as your default.
Your saved layouts of the Customers list are yours alone: colleagues do not see them, and there is no layout for everybody. To give a colleague the same view, tell them the Which accounts choice, the filters and the columns you chose, and they save it as a layout of their own with Save as a new layout… in the Layouts control. How to Save and Use Layouts has the steps for saving, renaming and starring a layout.
Can I export or print the Customers list, or change several customers at once?
No. The Customers list has no export to Excel, no print button and no way to tick several customers and change them together, in the browser or in the ABM Service desktop app. There is also no delete: a customer you no longer work for is set to Inactive on its own screen.
What to do instead:
- To come back to the same customers, narrow the Customers list with Which accounts, the tick lists in the filter rail and the column filters, and save it as a layout of your own. The line at the foot of the list says how many customers match.
- To change many customers, open each one from the list, change it and save it. The Back arrow brings you back to the Customers list as you left it, with the customer you opened still marked.
Can I see all my customers on a map?
No. The Customers list has no map. The customer map beside the Calls list and on the Scheduler draws only the customers behind the calls those screens are showing, not every customer: see Using the Customer Map on the Calls and Scheduler Screens. To see where one customer is, open it and choose Address & location in the sections sidebar of the customer screen. To find the active customers that have no location yet, select Customers with no location on the toolbar of the Customers list; the button is there only while at least one active customer has no location.