What Happens to Unsaved Changes When You Leave a Screen
ABM Service never throws away what you typed just because you went to another screen. If you leave a call, a new call, a customer, a contact or a Quick call card without saving, your typing is kept and a reminder naming it appears in the bottom-left corner of every screen until you save it or discard it.
Do I lose what I typed if I go to another screen without saving?
No. When you leave a screen with unsaved changes by any route inside ABM Service, such as a customer's name, Back, another call, or the menu on the Scheduler, your typing is kept exactly as it was and a reminder appears in the bottom-left corner of the window. Select the reminder to go straight back and carry on.
This covers:
- a call you have changed, including its Details and Resolution documents, with their pictures, scroll position, cursor and Undo history;
- a new call you had started;
- a customer you have changed, or a new customer you had started;
- a contact you were adding or editing in the contact sheet on the customer screen;
- a Quick call card on the Scheduler that you had typed into, together with its time slot.
Your changes are kept in this browser tab only, and only until you close or reload the tab. They are not written anywhere until you save. Closing the tab, refreshing it or typing another address makes your browser ask first. In the ABM Service desktop app, closing a window does not ask, so save before you close it.
A screen you have only looked at holds nothing, so leaving it leaves no reminder. A new call you opened and did not type into is not kept either: selecting New Call and changing your mind costs nothing.
Does ABM Service save my changes automatically, or keep a half-typed call until tomorrow?
No. ABM Service has no automatic save: nothing you type on a call, a customer, a contact or a Quick call card is written anywhere until you save it. The one exception is booking or changing an engineer's visit on a saved call: when you press Done in that dialog, ABM Service saves the call's unsaved changes first. Unsaved changes are kept only in the browser tab or ABM Service desktop app window where you typed them, and only until that tab or window is closed or reloaded. They do not follow you to another tab or another computer, and they do not survive the computer being restarted.
To finish a call another day, save it now with what you know. A new call can be saved once it has the few boxes Save call needs, and everything else, including the Details document, can be added to the saved call later. Once saved, the call is kept in ABM for you and your colleagues, and nothing is lost when you close the browser.
ABM Service has no offline mode either. If the connection drops while you are working, what you typed stays on screen and is kept like any other unsaved change. A save that cannot get through says Not saved in the bar at the foot of the call screen, with the reason beside it. Keep the tab open, and when the connection is back select Save again, or Try again on a new call.
What are the unsaved reminders in the corner of the screen, and how do I get rid of one?
The reminders in the bottom-left corner of every screen list each thing you have left with unsaved changes, oldest first, each with a dot, its name and the word unsaved. Select one to go back to that screen with your typing in it. A screen reader announces the group as Unsaved work.
To get rid of an unsaved reminder, either save the call or customer it names, or throw the changes away: select the cross (×) at the end of the reminder, then select it again when it changes to Discard?. The second press discards your changes and the reminder disappears. A reminder marked saved instead of unsaved is cleared with a single press of its cross, because nothing is lost.
Each reminder names the thing the way you would say it:
- a call you changed — Call followed by the call's number and for and the customer's name;
- a new call — New call for and the customer's name, or just New call before a customer is picked;
- a customer — the customer's name, or New customer followed by the name typed so far;
- a contact — Contact — followed by the contact's name, or New contact;
- a Quick call card on the Scheduler — Quick call for and the customer's name, or just Quick call before a customer is picked. Selecting it takes you to the Scheduler with the card and its time slot back on the board.
The reminder for the screen you are looking at is not shown, because your typing is in front of you; it reappears when you leave. The order of the reminders never changes as you go in and out of them.
A reminder for a new call takes you back to that exact draft, not to a fresh blank one. A reminder for a contact reopens the contact sheet with what you had typed.
Tip: Holding Ctrl while you select a reminder opens that screen fresh in a new tab. Your draft stays in the tab you were in, so to carry on with it, select the reminder with an ordinary click.
How do I throw away unsaved changes I no longer want?
Select the cross on the reminder, then select it again when it changes to Discard?. The first press only prepares the discard, so a slip of the mouse beside the reminder never throws work away; moving the pointer off the reminder cancels it. The second press discards the changes and the reminder disappears.
You can also discard from the screen itself:
- Select the reminder to go back to the call or customer.
- Select Discard in the Unsaved changes bar at the foot of the call screen or the customer screen.
The screen goes back to what is saved, and nothing is left unsaved. Discarding is the last point at which ABM Service takes a change back for you: a saved call or customer cannot be un-saved, so to put something back, change it back and save again. On a call you still have open, the Undo button in the Details or Resolution document's toolbar still steps back through what you typed there before the save; select Save again to store the result.
On the new call screen, Cancel means discard: the new call is thrown away, no reminder is left behind, and you go back to the screen you came from (or to the Calls list if there is none). In the contact sheet on the customer screen, Cancel, the sheet's Close cross and clicking outside the sheet all discard the contact you were typing in the same way. Leaving by any other route keeps the draft.
While a new call is being saved, Cancel does nothing and its tooltip says The call is being saved — it can be cancelled once that finishes. A save cannot be stopped once it has started, so the new call is created and opens as a saved call. The contact sheet behaves the same way while a contact is being saved: its Cancel says The contact is being saved — it can be cancelled once that finishes. and its Close cross says The contact is being saved.
What happens if my save finishes while I am on another screen?
The save completes normally and ABM Service does not pull you away from the screen you are now on. How you find out depends on what you saved:
- A new call you saved and then left before the save finished is created. When you return to it, for example with its reminder or your browser's Forward button, you land on the saved call.
- A new customer, or a contact, whose save finished after you left shows a reminder in the bottom-left corner with the word saved instead of unsaved. Select it to open the customer, or select its cross (named Dismiss) to clear it. One press is enough, because nothing is lost by clearing it.
Why was my Quick call slot not kept?
A Quick call card on the Scheduler is kept only once you have typed into it. If you mark out a time slot and leave without choosing a customer or typing anything, nothing is kept and there is no reminder, because an empty slot is not work. A customer that the Scheduler's own customer filter put on the card does not count either; choosing a customer on the card yourself does. Once you have typed, leaving the Scheduler, for example by selecting the customer's name on the card, keeps the card, its time slot and your text, and pressing Back brings them all back.