How to Log a Call from a Slot on the Scheduler
When a customer rings and you can see an engineer is free, you can log the call and book the engineer in one go from the Scheduler. Mark out the free time on the engineer's row, and a Quick call card opens beside it asking for only what a new call needs. Create & schedule logs the call and books the visit together.
How do I log a new call into an engineer's free time on the Scheduler?
Press on an empty part of the engineer's row on the Scheduler board, drag along the row to cover the time you want, and let go. The Quick call card opens beside the slot; fill it in and select Create & schedule.
- Find the engineer's row and the day, in the Day, Work week or Week view.
- Press on empty time on the row, where there is no appointment, and drag left or right to cover the time you want. The slot grows a whole cell at a time and is labelled with the day and the start and end times.
- Let go. The Quick call card opens beside the slot.
- Pick the Customer, then fill in Contact name, Type and Comment, and Details if you wish.
- Select Create & schedule, or press Ctrl and Enter together (Ctrl+Enter).
The slot stays on one engineer and one day, inside your working day hours, and it covers whole cells, from the cell you pressed in to the cell you let go in, whichever way you dragged. The size of a cell is the Cell duration in Scheduler settings. A single click without dragging marks out one cell.
You cannot mark out a slot in the Month view, which has no hours. If you Cancel the card or close it with its cross, the slot stays on the board; click the slot to open the card again, which then starts afresh, because closing the card throws away what you typed. Press Escape to remove both the slot and the card.
Each quick call books one visit, on one day. ABM Service has no repeating or recurring visits. To book another visit for the same work on another day, open the call and use Schedule another engineer, the plus button beside the engineer at the top of the call screen, or Add engineer on the Scheduled visits card. That adds another visit to the same call, and it can be for the same engineer again. Mark out another slot and log a new call only for a new piece of work.
What do I fill in on the Quick call card?
The Quick call card on the Scheduler asks for the few things every new call needs, and shows at the top the engineer and the day and times you marked out. Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.
- Customer — type at least two characters of the customer's code, name, address or postcode and pick the customer from the list. The list offers only active customers; if nothing fits you will see No active customer matches. To log a call for an inactive customer or a prospect, open the customer's own screen from the Customers list and select Log a call there, then book the visit from the call. Once picked, the customer shows as a row with their code and name, and Change lets you pick a different one.
- Contact name — the person who rang, up to 50 characters.
- Type — your company's call types. The first type is chosen to start with.
- Job group — appears only when the type you chose raises a job, and then it must be picked.
- Comment — The one line the list shows: a short description of the call, up to 300 characters. It becomes the call's comment on the Calls list and on the visit.
- Details — What the call is about — the Details document. Whatever you type here becomes the call's Details document, the one you see on the call screen.
If the Scheduler is narrowed to one customer, the card starts with that customer already picked and the cursor in Contact name. Changing the customer on the card changes only this call; the board keeps its filter, so the new appointment for the other customer will not show on the board until you clear the Customer filter.
The quick call has no other fields, such as the call's own custom fields. If you need them, use Open the full page ↗ at the foot of the card, which carries what you typed onto the full New call page.
What happens when I select Create & schedule on the Scheduler?
Create & schedule logs the new call for the customer and books the engineer's visit into the slot you marked out, both in one step. The button reads Creating… while it works; then the card closes, the board reads again, and the new appointment appears on the engineer's row, selected, with its card open.
A message at the foot of the screen gives the new call's number and says it was created for the engineer, with Open call to open the new call straight away. The message stays for six seconds.
Note: The Scheduler board keeps its filters after Create & schedule. If the board is filtered to a different customer, call type, call status or action status from the new call, the new appointment does not appear on the board even though the call was created and the engineer booked. Do not log it again: use Open call in the message, or clear the filters with Clear all filters to see it.
The new call is logged now, by you. Because an engineer is booked on it, ABM sets the call's status to Active, and the engineer's visit is Active too, just as when you schedule an engineer from the call screen.
There is no Undo for a new call. To change the visit, drag it on the board like any other appointment; to change the call, open it with Open call.
What if the Quick call card says something is missing?
If something needed is missing or too long, the Quick call card lists what to fix under the fields and creates nothing until it is fixed. The messages you may see are:
- Pick a customer.
- Name the contact.
- Pick a call type.
- Give the call a comment — the one line the list shows.
- This type raises a job — pick its job group.
- The comment is longer than 300 characters. or The contact name is longer than 50 characters.
- An appointment starts and ends on the same day. You can see this when your working day runs to 24:00 and the slot ends at midnight; mark out a slot that ends before midnight instead.
If ABM Service cannot save the call, the reason is shown on the card in the same place, and nothing is logged. Fix it and select Create & schedule again, or Cancel to give up.
If the Type list says Could not load the types, the card cannot create the call. Close the card and click the slot to open it again, which tries to load the types again.
How do I open the full New call page from a slot on the Scheduler?
Select Open the full page ↗ at the foot of the Quick call card. The full New call page opens with everything you typed on the card, and with the engineer and the slot already waiting to be scheduled, so you can add the rest of the call's details before saving it.
On the New call page, the engineer and time show as a visit that will be booked when you save the call. You can change them there before saving. Nothing is saved until you save the call on that page.
The New Call button at the right of the Scheduler's toolbar opens the same New call page without a slot, for a call you do not want to book an engineer for yet. When the Scheduler is narrowed to one customer, New Call starts the call for that customer.
What happens to a quick call if I leave the Scheduler?
A Quick call card you have started typing is kept when you leave the Scheduler, for example to open the customer by selecting their name on the card. When you come back to the Scheduler, the slot and the card come back with what you had typed.
While it is waiting, an unsaved reminder in the bottom-left corner of every screen names it Quick call for and the customer's name, or just Quick call if no customer is picked yet. Select the reminder to go back to the Scheduler with the card and its slot.
Closing the card, pressing Escape, creating the call or opening the full page all end it. So does switching the Scheduler to the Month view, or narrowing the board so that the engineer's row is no longer shown, for example with Scheduled under Which engineers or the Engineer filter: the slot and the Quick call card go, with what you had typed.
Pressing on another appointment on the board ends it too, even a plain click to look at that appointment, if it is one you can move. Select Create & schedule, or Open the full page ↗, before you look at other appointments.