How to Save and Switch Form Layouts
The arrangement of a call's Details page and of a customer's Overview can be kept under a name and picked again later, like the saved layouts of the lists. The list of layouts opens from the small arrow beside Details (on the call screen) or Overview (on the customer screen) in the sections rail on the left.
What happens to my arrangement when I press Done?
When you press Done after customizing, the form stays as you arranged it and ABM Service remembers it as your Last Used Layout. You do not have to save anything: the next time you open a call (or a customer), it opens the same way, unless you have starred a different layout to open on.
Last Used Layout is always "where you left the screen last time"; its description in the list says "Where you left the screen last time — it is kept for you and cannot be deleted." It moves on every time you press Done or pick another layout, so it is not a safe place to keep an arrangement you want for good. Give that arrangement a name instead.
Default Layout is the form as ABM Service ships it. Picking it is the quickest way back to the original screen. On the call screen its description reads "The form as it comes out of the box — the customer and contact, the call, the two documents beside them." On the customer screen it reads "The overview as it comes out of the box — who they are and where, how to reach them, what is happening; the service, credit and invoicing groups below."
Both rows sit under the heading Layouts, just below Customize this layout… at the top of the list, with Default Layout first; the layouts you name are under Saved layouts, in alphabetical order. The call screen and the customer screen each have their own list, separate from the Calls and Customers lists.
How do I save a customized form under a name?
Open the layouts list beside Details or Overview, choose Save as a new layout…, type a name and select Save. The new layout is added under Saved layouts and becomes the layout the screen is on.
- Customize the form and press Done.
- Select the small arrow beside Details or Overview in the sections rail.
- Choose Save as a new layout… near the foot of the list.
- Type a name in the box under "Name this layout". The foot of the box reminds you: "It is saved for you only, and appears in this list."
- Select Save.
Press Done before you save. While you are still customizing, Save as a new layout… and Update save the form as it stood before you started, not the changes you are making.
If the save cannot get through, for example because the connection dropped, the reason appears under the arrow beside Details or Overview and nothing is saved; save again the same way, with Save as a new layout… or Update, once the connection is back. A saved layout is yours alone: there is no way to give it to a colleague, so tell them what you arranged and they save a layout of their own.
A name can be up to 60 characters. The box tells you when you reach the limit ("That is as long as a layout name goes — 60 characters."). Two layouts cannot share a name, even with different capitals: you will see "You already have a layout called" followed by the existing name, and Save stays unavailable until you change it. Each screen holds up to 30 saved layouts; with 30, saving another says "You have 30 saved layouts, which is as many as this screen holds. Delete one you no longer use."
How do I update a saved layout after changing it?
If the screen is on one of your saved layouts and you customize it and press Done, a dot appears beside the arrow to show it has changed (pointing at it says "Changed since it was saved"), and a small save button named Save… appears next to it. Select Save… and choose Update with the layout's name to replace the saved layout with what is on screen.
The Save… button (its tooltip reads "Save your changes to" and the layout's name) opens "Save your changes" with two choices:
- Update and the layout's name — "Replace it with what is on screen".
- Save as a new layout… — keep the saved one as it was and add another.
Until you do one of these, the saved layout itself has not changed. If you would rather go back to it, pick it again in the list, or while customizing press Revert.
The dot and the Save… button never appear on Last Used Layout or Default Layout, because neither is a layout you can change. To keep what you arranged there, use Save as a new layout….
To rename the layout the screen is on, open the list and choose Rename with the layout's name.
How do I choose which layout the call screen opens on?
Select the star beside a layout in the list (its label is "Open on this layout"). The starred layout is the one every call, or every customer, opens on from then on. You can star Default Layout to get a clean, original screen every time, or Last Used Layout to open where you left off, which is how the screen starts out.
When you open a call or customer, ABM Service chooses the form in this order:
- Coming back with Back — the form exactly as it was on that visit, even if you had changed it without saving.
- The starred layout.
- Last Used Layout, when that is starred or nothing else applies.
- Default Layout, if there is nothing else to use.
To delete a saved layout, select the cross beside it. You are asked first: "Delete" the layout's name, "Nobody else uses it — layouts are yours alone.", with Keep it and Delete. Deleting cannot be undone. If it was the starred layout, the star moves back to Last Used Layout. If it was the layout the screen is on, the form stays exactly as it is and the list calls it Last Used Layout from then on. Default Layout and Last Used Layout have no cross, because they cannot be deleted.
What does it mean when a layout "could not be restored"?
It means the saved layout mentions something the screen no longer has, usually a custom field your company has since removed, so ABM Service opened the rest of the layout without it and says so on the form's message line. Nothing else is lost, and the message goes by itself after a few seconds.
The messages you may see, with your layout's name in quotation marks at the start:
- "was saved before this screen had everything it has now. We could not restore" followed by what was missing, usually "the field" and the field's name. Save the layout again with Update to stop seeing the message.
- A note that the layout "was saved without" a field that must stay on the form, and that it "was put back on the form". The field is added at the foot of the form.
- A note about custom fields "over the 20 a form shows", naming them: only the first 20 custom fields on the layout are kept.
- "was saved by a newer version of this application and cannot be opened here." This happens when your copy of ABM Service is older than the one that saved the layout, for example the desktop app waiting to update. If you picked the layout, the form stays as it was and the sentence stays under the arrow beside Details or Overview until your next action in the list; if the screen was opening on it, you get the form as it comes out of the box instead. Update or reload, then pick the layout again.