What Is Different Between the Desktop App and the Browser?
ABM Service can be used in a web browser or as the ABM Service desktop app, a Windows program. The screens inside are the same in both: Home, Customers, Calls, the call screen and the Scheduler look and work alike. What differs is everything around the screen: how you get in, how windows and history behave, and how the program is kept up to date.
How is signing in different in the desktop app and the browser?
In a web browser you sign in to ABM Service on its sign-in page, and your company may also ask for an authenticator code. In the ABM Service desktop app you sign in with your ABM name and password in a small window from the Windows Start menu, then choose the company; no authenticator code is asked for. From a button on the ABM (Advanced Business Manager) toolbar you are not asked to sign in at all, because ABM passes on who you are.
Changing who is signed in also differs:
- In a browser, Sign out is in the main menu, under your name.
- In the desktop app, there is no Sign out. To use another name or company, open ABM Service Desktop from the Start menu again and sign in; the name you used before stays open in the background, with its own tray icon. To stop the desktop app for a company and name, choose Exit on its tray icon beside the clock.
The desktop app can have several companies open at once, each with its own tray icon and its own windows.
How do windows and tabs differ between the desktop app and the browser?
In a web browser, the open-in-new button beside a call or customer opens a new browser tab and says in a new tab. In the ABM Service desktop app, the same button, a Ctrl+click and a middle-click open a new desktop app window instead, and the button says in a new window.
The desktop app also keeps each call and each customer in one window only: asking for one that is already open brings its window to the front rather than opening a second copy.
Instead of the browser's own buttons and address bar, each desktop app window has its own title bar, with the File menu (Check for Updates…, About, Exit), the Go menu (Home, Customers, Calls, Scheduler), and Back and Forward arrows. Pressing Alt and the Left arrow key together (Alt+Left), or Alt and the Right arrow key (Alt+Right), goes back and forward in both.
Which keyboard shortcuts work differently in the desktop app?
The ABM Service desktop app switches off the web browser's own shortcuts, so they cannot throw away your work by accident.
- F5, and Ctrl and R together (Ctrl+R), do not reload the window, so a half-typed call cannot be lost to a stray key.
- Ctrl and F together (Ctrl+F) does not open the browser's find-on-the-page box, and Ctrl and P together (Ctrl+P) prints nothing, not even a call's Details or Resolution document.
- Ctrl and plus or minus, and Ctrl with the mouse wheel, do not zoom, and ABM Service has no text-size setting of its own. To make everything larger, use Windows' own display scaling. In a call's Details or Resolution document, Zoom in on the document's toolbar makes the document larger.
- Right-clicking shows no browser menu anywhere, including in a text box or on selected text, so there is no Cut, Copy or Paste on a right-click. Menus that ABM Service itself draws on a right-click still work.
- Backspace never goes back, in either.
Alt+Left and Alt+Right, copy and paste with Ctrl and C (Ctrl+C) and Ctrl and V (Ctrl+V), and the other editing keys work as usual, and pasting never asks for permission.
Can I print from the ABM Service desktop app?
No. The ABM Service desktop app prints nothing: it has no print button, and pressing Ctrl and P together (Ctrl+P) prints nothing, even with the cursor inside a call's Details or Resolution document. In a web browser, Ctrl+P inside one of those documents prints that document on its own, through a print window of its own; the desktop app does not let that window open.
To print a call's Details or Resolution document, open the call in ABM Service in a web browser, if your company offers it, click inside the document and press Ctrl+P. ABM Service has no print or export of its own for the lists, the Scheduler or the customer screen. In a web browser, the browser's own print command, Ctrl+P with the cursor outside the documents, prints the screen as it appears; the desktop app has no way to do even that.
Do I lose unsaved work if I close the desktop app?
You can. In a web browser, closing a tab that holds unsaved changes makes the browser ask whether you want to leave. The ABM Service desktop app does not ask: closing a window with its Close button, Exit on the File menu or on the tray icon, or Close my windows in the update window, closes it straight away.
Moving between screens inside one window is safe in both: your unsaved typing is kept while you look elsewhere in that window. It is only closing the window that loses it. Save your call or customer before you close its window.
Why don't e-mail links work in the desktop app?
In the ABM Service desktop app, e-mail address links, such as Send an e-mail beside a call's contact or a contact's address on a customer, do not open your mail program. The desktop app opens only links to secure websites, and it opens those in your usual web browser. In a web browser, an e-mail link opens your mail program as usual.
In the desktop app, select the e-mail address, copy it with Ctrl+C, and paste it into a new message in your mail program instead. Links to other websites are not affected: a secure web link still opens in your usual web browser.
Can I use the ABM Service desktop app offline?
No. The ABM Service desktop app is installed on your computer, but it has no offline mode: every screen reads from and saves straight to your company's ABM database, the same one ABM itself uses, so it needs a connection to your company's network all the time, just as ABM does. Without one, the desktop sign-in window cannot list the users and a company does not open; you will see a message such as ABM's control database is unreachable or The company database is unreachable.
If the connection drops while a desktop app window is open, what you typed stays on screen, and a save that cannot get through says Not saved at the bottom of the call screen; save again once the connection is back. Do not close the window meanwhile: closing a desktop app window does not ask about unsaved changes.
Why does the desktop app forget my colours when it restarts?
The ABM Service desktop app keeps your Appearance choice, the colourway and Light, Dark or System, only while ABM Service is running. When ABM Service closes completely, with Exit on its icon beside the clock, when the computer restarts, or when an update is installed, it starts again in its own colours, Lagoon in Dark mode. Choose your colours again in Appearance in the menu. Closing a window with its Close button does not lose the choice, because ABM Service keeps running beside the clock.
In a web browser the choice is kept in that browser and survives closing it.
The same goes for a few other things ABM Service remembers on the computer rather than with your ABM user, such as whether the filter rail on the list screens is folded away and how wide it is. Your saved layouts and the colours you give to items in the filter rail are kept with your ABM user, so the desktop app never forgets them.
How do updates differ between the desktop app and the browser?
In a web browser there is nothing to install: you always get the version of ABM Service your company's server is running. The ABM Service desktop app is a program on your computer, so it downloads new versions itself, offers them in a small window in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and installs them when you agree or, by itself, once all its windows are closed.
The version you are running is shown beside the screen name in the desktop app's title bar, and in About on its File menu.