Using Back, New Tabs and Unsaved Work
ABM Service is built so that moving from one screen to another never costs you your place or your typing. Back returns each list and screen the way you left it, anything you leave unsaved waits under a reminder in the bottom-left corner of every screen, and your browser asks before closing a tab would lose it. This page is the map of those tools in ABM Service, with the page that explains each one in full.
How does ABM Service keep my place when I move between screens?
Press your browser's Back button, or the back arrow at the top of the call screen or the customer screen, and the screen you came from comes back the way you left it. On the Calls list, the Customers list and the Scheduler that means your filters, date window, columns, sorting and page, with the call, customer or appointment you opened marked and scrolled into view. The customer screen comes back on the section you were in, and the call screen on its section and form layout.
It works whether you left the screen by a call number, a customer's name, the menu, or the Find a call or Find a customer box. If your company logs calls by voice from the customer screen, the bar that says how a voice call ended follows you from screen to screen in that tab until you open the call or dismiss it, and its buttons leave a screen the same way, so Back still brings that screen back as you left it; What Does the Call Logged Bar Mean? explains the bar.
Home and Customers without a location always open fresh. The back arrow only appears when there is somewhere to go back to in that tab or window, so a call opened from a bookmark or in a new tab has none.
How to Go Back to Where You Were lists what each screen remembers.
How do I look at a call or customer without leaving my list?
Open it in a new browser tab, and the list you are on stays exactly where it is. Point at a call number in the Calls list, or at a customer's name almost anywhere in ABM Service, and select the small open-in-new button that appears beside it; its tooltip says Open in a new tab or Open the customer in a new tab. Holding Ctrl while you select the number or the name (Ctrl-click), or clicking it with the middle mouse button, does the same. The results under the Find a call and Find a customer boxes show the same button when you point at a row.
In the ABM Service desktop app the same button and shortcuts open a new ABM Service window instead of a tab, and the tooltips say window.
Each tab or window is separate. It has its own Back, its own unsaved reminders, and its own copy of the call or customer read fresh from the database, so typing you have not saved in one tab never appears in another. Each tab's title names what is in it, such as Call and the call's number, or the customer's name, so you can find the right one in the tab bar.
How to Open a Call or Customer in a New Tab or Window lists every place the button appears.
What happens to my typing if I leave a screen without saving?
ABM Service keeps it. When you leave a screen with unsaved changes by any route inside ABM Service, your typing is kept as it was and a reminder naming it appears in the bottom-left corner of every screen; a screen reader calls the group Unsaved work. Select the reminder to go straight back to it.
Reminders cover a call you changed, a new call you started, a customer or new customer, a contact in the contact sheet, a Quick call card on the Scheduler, a voice note on a call that has not finished being added, the details of a file in the Attachments section of a call or customer, and files you attached that are still uploading. Using the Attachments Section explains files and their details.
To throw unsaved changes away, select the cross on the reminder and then select it again when it says Discard?, or select Discard in the Unsaved changes bar at the foot of the call or customer screen.
ABM Service has no automatic save. Unsaved changes live only in the browser tab or desktop window where you typed them, until that tab or window is closed or reloaded. What Happens to Unsaved Changes When You Leave a Screen explains each reminder.
Can I work on more than one call at once in ABM Service?
Yes. In one browser tab, ABM Service keeps every call screen that has unsaved changes, so you can move from one call to another and come back to each with its fields, documents, scroll position and Undo still there. Use Back, or the call's reminder in the bottom-left corner.
Once two call screens in the tab hold unsaved changes, opening another saved call brings up the Two calls already have unsaved changes dialog. It lists the calls with changes; Discard it beside a call throws that call's changes away, and Stay where I am closes the dialog with nothing lost, so you can go back and save one. Starting a new call with New Call, or with Log a call on the customer screen, is never stopped. Customers have no such limit.
To look at calls side by side, or to hold more calls with unsaved changes at once, open them in separate tabs, or separate windows in the ABM Service desktop app; each tab has its own dialog.
How to Work on Several Calls at Once explains the dialog with a worked example.
When will ABM Service or my browser warn me before I lose work?
Only when something really is unsaved, and only when the next step would end the browser tab. Moving between screens inside ABM Service never asks, because your changes are kept.
- Your browser asks before you close the tab, refresh it, go to another website, or select something in ABM Service that loads a page afresh, such as Your account in the menu, Try again on the database notice, or Reload the page on an error page while the reminders are still showing. The question is the browser's own, in its own words; choose to stay to keep your changes.
- Sign out in the menu asks first, saying Unsaved changes on one screen will be lost. or giving the number of screens. Keep working cancels; Sign out anyway throws the changes away and signs you out.
- In the ABM Service desktop app, closing a window does not ask, so save before you close it.
Why Am I Warned When I Leave or Sign Out? covers each warning, and what happens when your sign-in runs out while you are working.
What do the error pages and the database update notice in ABM Service mean?
ABM Service shows its own page, in plain words, when something stops a screen from opening:
- There is no page at this address — the address, usually an old bookmark from the previous web portal, leads nowhere. Select Go to the dashboard and bookmark the screen again. What Do the Error Pages in ABM Service Mean? explains it.
- Something went wrong on this screen — the screen failed while it was being drawn. Save or discard anything named in the reminders first if they are still showing, then select Reload the page, and tell support if it happens again.
- Call or Customer followed by an identifier and was not found. — the link points at a record that does not exist; open it from the Calls or Customers list instead.
- The database is being updated — your company's ABM Service has just been updated and its database is catching up. Wait a moment and select Try again. What Happens When ABM Service Is Updated explains each sentence it can show.
After an update, ABM Service may also reload the page by itself, once, when a screen you had open belongs to the previous version. The version you are on is shown at the foot of the menu.