How to Go Back and Forward in the Desktop App
Each ABM Service desktop app window remembers the screens it has shown, like a web browser does, so you can step back to the list you came from and forward again. The Back and Forward arrows sit in the title bar, just after the File and Go menus. Each window has its own history, separate from your other windows.
How do I go back to the previous screen in the desktop app?
Press the Back arrow in the ABM Service desktop app's title bar, or press Alt and the Left arrow key together (Alt+Left). The window returns to the screen it showed before. Press the Forward arrow, or Alt and the Right arrow key together (Alt+Right), to go forward again.
- Open a call from the Calls list in a desktop app window.
- Press Back in the title bar, or press Alt+Left. The Calls list comes back as you left it.
- Press Forward, or press Alt+Right, to return to the call.
Pointing at the arrows shows Back (Alt+Left) and Forward (Alt+Right).
If your mouse has side buttons (often called thumb buttons), they go back and forward in a desktop app window too.
Does going back in the desktop app keep my place in the list?
Yes, when you left the list by opening something from it. When the ABM Service desktop app's Back takes you to a list you left by opening a call or customer from it, or by choosing a screen from the list's own navigation menu, the list comes back as you left it, sorted the same way and with the row you had open marked. This is what makes it quick to work down a list: open a call, deal with it, go back, open the next.
If you left a list through the Go menu in the title bar, Back still returns you to the list, but it may not be as you left it: the marked row can be gone and the list can open the way it does when you open it afresh. To keep your place in the Calls list, the Customers list or the Scheduler, switch screens with the navigation menu on the screen itself rather than the title bar's Go menu.
Unsaved typing is not thrown away when you go back either. A call or customer you were editing keeps your changes while you look at other screens in the same window, and you can come back to them with Forward or by opening the record again. Save before you close the window, though: closing a window does not ask about unsaved changes.
Why is the Back arrow greyed out in the desktop app?
The ABM Service desktop app greys out Back when the window has no earlier screen to return to, and greys out Forward when there is nothing ahead of it. This usually happens in a window that opened straight onto a screen, for example a call opened from a button on the ABM (Advanced Business Manager) toolbar, or a new window opened from the tray icon.
In that case, use the Go menu in the title bar to reach Home, Customers, Calls or Scheduler. After that, Back will return you to the call.
A screen's own back arrow, such as the arrow at the top left of a call screen, is not shown at all in a window with nothing behind it, for the same reason: it would have nowhere to go.
What does the back arrow on a screen do in the desktop app?
Some ABM Service screens have their own back arrow at the top, such as the arrow beside a call's number on the call screen (a screen reader calls it Back to calls; on a customer it is Back to customers). In the desktop app it does exactly the same as the Back arrow in the title bar: it steps the window back one screen. It is only shown when there is a screen to go back to.
Both arrows, Alt+Left and Alt+Right all move through the same history, so it does not matter which you use.
Alt+Left and Alt+Right also work while you are typing in a call's documents, so you do not have to click out of the editor first.
Why doesn't Backspace or F5 work in the desktop app?
Backspace is never used for going back in the ABM Service desktop app, so you cannot leave a screen by accident while deleting text in a call, a note or a search box. It always deletes text. To go back, use the Back arrow in the title bar or press Alt+Left.
For the same reason, F5 does not reload a desktop app window. In a web browser F5 reloads the page, which could throw away a call you were halfway through typing; the desktop app switches that key off, together with the browser's other shortcuts such as Ctrl and R (Ctrl+R).
Alt+Left and Alt+Right are the keyboard's way back and forward, and they work everywhere in the window, including inside a call's documents.
Does each desktop app window have its own Back and Forward?
Yes. Every ABM Service desktop app window keeps its own history, so Back in one window never changes what another window shows. A window you opened for the Scheduler goes back through the Scheduler's history, and a window with a call goes back through that window's own screens.
One exception protects your work: if going back or forward would bring a window onto a call or customer that is already open in another window, the other window comes to the front instead, because a record is only ever open in one window. With the title-bar arrows, a screen's own back arrow, Alt+Left or Alt+Right, your window stays where it was. With the mouse's side button for back, your window may instead land one screen further back in its own history, on a screen you have already seen; press Forward to return.