Using the Scheduler
The Scheduler is the planning board of ABM Service: one row for every active engineer, with each engineer's visits laid out across the days and hours you are looking at. Open it from the menu by choosing Scheduler, or from the Scheduler button on the Home screen. From here you can move and resize visits, change a visit's engineer, and mark out a free slot to log a new call straight into an engineer's diary.
What does the Scheduler show?
The Scheduler shows every active engineer as a row, and every engineer visit due in the dates you are looking at as a block on that engineer's row, placed by its due date and its length. Open it from the menu by choosing Scheduler.
The board has four parts:
- The toolbar along the top of the Scheduler — the Filters button, the date button with its arrows and Today, the view buttons Day, Work week, Week and Month, To schedule, the map button, Scheduler settings, Refresh and New Call. To schedule opens a column of calls still waiting for an engineer, and the map button, Show the customers on a map, shows the customers of the visits on screen on a map beside the board.
- The filter rail on the left — Which engineers, Customer, Call Type, Call Status, Action Status and Engineer, with your saved layouts at the top.
- The board itself — a column of engineers on the left headed Engineers with how many there are, and the days and hours across the top.
- The footer under the board — how many engineers and actions are showing, and the colour key.
Only engineers are on the Scheduler. Work booked for office users (internal users) in ABM is not shown, and neither are engineers who are no longer active. The engineers are listed in name order and stay in that order.
Each engineer's row starts with their photo, or their initials in their own colour, then their name, and underneath it how many actions they have in the dates on screen and how many hours those add up to. This helps you see at a glance who is busy and who has room before you promise a customer a time. The photos come from each engineer's record in ABM: ABM Service has no way to add or change an engineer's photo, so ask whoever looks after ABM at your company.
The Scheduler opens on today's dates, scrolled so that today's column is in view; at the weekend the Work week view shows Monday to Friday of the week, without today. The browser tab, or the ABM Service desktop app's window, says Scheduler while you are on it.
The Scheduler has no print or export button in this version, and nothing on it sends the board to Excel or to a file. In a web browser, the browser's own print command prints the page as it appears on screen, so only the engineers and hours in view at the time, not the whole board.
What is on each appointment on the Scheduler?
Each appointment on the Scheduler is one engineer's visit for one call, and it shows the call number, a small status dot, the customer's name, the start and end times, and the visit's comment. Rest the pointer on an appointment to read all of that in full, together with the call type and the action status; click it to open its details card.
- Its colour comes from the Colour by choice in Scheduler settings — by default the call's type — using the colours you have chosen for those items in the filter rail.
- The status dot says how far the visit has got: still to do, under way, done or cancelled. A visit that is done (Finished, Complete, Closed or Matched) is drawn fainter, and a done or cancelled visit has the customer's name struck through.
- An exclamation mark in the corner means this visit overlaps another visit of the same engineer. Rest the pointer on it to see Clashes with and the other call numbers. Visits that only touch, one ending as the next starts, do not clash.
- No duration — a visit saved with no length in ABM is drawn as a narrow marker at its due time, showing only its call number. Rest the pointer on it, or click it to open its card, to see its time followed by "no duration".
- An arrow at either end means the visit carries on before the start or after the end of your working day, which you set in Scheduler settings.
- A button to open the customer in a new tab appears beside the customer's name on appointments wide enough to hold it.
A narrow appointment on the Scheduler shows only its call number and status dot. When a zoomed-out board makes a short visit very narrow indeed, it is drawn as a thin coloured sliver with no words in it. Either way, resting the pointer on it shows everything, and its click still opens the details card.
Why are some engineers' rows taller than others on the Scheduler?
An engineer's row on the Scheduler grows taller when two or more of their visits overlap in time, because overlapping visits are stacked one under the other instead of hiding each other. This way no appointment is ever covered up, and a tall row is a quick sign of double-booking.
Each overlapping visit carries an exclamation mark, and its details card lists the calls it clashes with under Clashes. In the Month view each day is one box with no hours in it, and only visits whose times overlap are stacked. Two visits on the same day that do not overlap, say one in the morning and one in the afternoon, are drawn in the same place in that day's box, so the later one covers the earlier. To see a busy day's visits side by side, look at it in the Day, Work week or Week view.
The rest of the board keeps its place while you scroll: the engineer names stay fixed on the left and the day and hour headings stay fixed at the top, so you always know whose row and which hour you are looking at. Weekend days are shaded in the Week view. In the day and week views today's date is marked Today, and while the time is inside your working day a line runs down today's column at the current time, with the time shown at the top of the board.
What do the numbers and colours at the foot of the Scheduler mean?
The footer under the Scheduler board says how many engineers and actions are showing, and names the colours in use. When every engineer is showing it reads the number of engineers and the number of actions; when you have narrowed the rows it reads, for example, "12 of 40 engineers", followed by the number of actions.
The colour key starts with Colour: and the name of the list the board is coloured by — Call type, Call status, Action status or Engineer — followed by the items most common in the dates on screen, each in its colour, up to six of them. Items that do not fit the width are left out of the key, but their appointments are still drawn. When the board is coloured by Engineer, no items are listed, because each engineer's row already shows their colour beside their name.
While a call from the To schedule column is being placed on the board, the footer instead explains the marks on the lanes: free time you can click to place the call, where it would go, and time that has already passed.
Why can't I see an appointment on the Scheduler?
A visit is missing from the Scheduler when the dates, the filters or the working day leave it out. Check these in order:
- Check the dates in the toolbar's date button. The board shows only visits whose due date falls in those dates.
- Check the filters. A number on the Filters button and chips beside the date button mean the board is narrowed by customer, call type, call status, action status or engineer. Select Clear all filters to see everything again.
- Check Which engineers. On Scheduled, engineers with no visits in the dates are hidden.
- Check the working day in Scheduler settings. In the Day, Work week and Week views, a visit that falls wholly outside your working day hours is not drawn. Widen the working day, or look at the Month view, which places visits by day whatever their time.
- Check who it is booked for. Visits booked for office users rather than engineers, and visits for engineers who are no longer active, are not on the Scheduler.
- In the Month view, check for a visit underneath another. Two visits for the same engineer on the same day that do not overlap in time are drawn in the same place, so one can hide the other. Look at that day in the Day or Week view.
If somebody else has just booked or moved the visit, select Refresh to read the board again.
How do I refresh the Scheduler?
Select Refresh in the Scheduler's toolbar to read every engineer's visits again, so that changes made by other people since you opened the board appear. Refresh keeps you where you were on the board.
The Scheduler does not update on its own unless you ask it to. To have it read the board again every few minutes, open Scheduler settings and choose an Auto-refresh interval: Every minute, Every 5 minutes, Every 10 minutes or Every 30 minutes. It is Off to start with.
While the board is being read you will see Loading schedule…. If ABM Service cannot read the visits you will see The schedule could not be loaded.; select Refresh to try again. If you see The engineers could not be loaded. or The filters could not be loaded., Refresh does not read the engineers or the filters again: leave the Scheduler for another screen, such as Calls, and then open Scheduler again.
When you leave the Scheduler to open a call or a customer and then come back with Back, the board returns to the same dates and filters, with the appointment you had selected brought back into view.
Can I block out a holiday or time off on the Scheduler?
No. Every appointment on the Scheduler is an engineer's visit on a call, and ABM Service has no way to put anything else on an engineer's row, such as a holiday, sick leave, training or a meeting. With All chosen under Which engineers, the Scheduler shows a row for every active engineer whether or not they are working that day, and nothing stops a visit being booked for an engineer who is away, so check who is working before you book or move a visit.
To keep the board to the engineers who are in, tick them under Engineer in the Scheduler's filter rail: the board then keeps only the ticked engineers' rows. If you use the same list every day, save it as a layout from the Layouts control at the top of the filter rail. To fill an engineer's free time with work instead, mark out the slot on their row and log a call into it with the Quick call card.