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What Can't I Do in ABM Service?

ABM Service covers the office's service work: calls, engineers' visits, the Scheduler and customer accounts. Some things people expect from a program like this are not in this version, or are done in ABM itself or by your system administrator. Each answer on this page says plainly what ABM Service does not do and what you can do instead.

Can I change my name, password or e-mail address in ABM Service?​

No. ABM Service has no page for changing your own details. You sign in to ABM Service with your ABM user and your ABM password, so your name and your password belong to ABM, and whoever looks after ABM at your company changes them in ABM's own user list. The ABM Service sign-in page has no forgotten-password link, and it does not use your e-mail address at all: you choose your name from the list and type your password.

What you can change yourself, from the ABM Service menu:

  • Appearance — the colours, and Light, Dark or System mode.
  • Authenticator — your authenticator app, in a web browser, when your company uses them. You can turn yours off there only if your company does not require one, and only by typing a current code from your phone. If you have lost your phone, only your system administrator can reset it.

Your saved layouts, the colours you give to items in the filter rail and your counting rules on Home are also yours to change, and they follow your sign-in from computer to computer. If your name is missing from the sign-in list, or the sign-in page says your user has no password or has not been given the company, ask whoever looks after ABM.

Can I export a list to Excel, or print a list or a call?​

No. ABM Service has no export and no print button in this version. The Calls list, the Customers list and the Scheduler have nothing that sends what they show to Excel or to a file, and the call screen and the customer screen have no print button either.

In a web browser, your browser's own print command prints the page as it appears on screen; ABM Service has no layout made for paper. The one exception is a call's Details or Resolution document: with the cursor inside the document, pressing Ctrl and P together (Ctrl+P) prints that document on its own, through a print window of its own. In the ABM Service desktop app, Ctrl+P does not print anything.

What to do instead:

  • To come back to the same rows, narrow the list with the filter rail and the date window so the rows on screen are the ones you mean, and save it as a layout of your own with Save as a new layout… in the Layouts control. A saved layout is yours alone, so to give a colleague the same view, tell them the filters and the date window you chose.
  • For the customer's service docket, the customer's Docket & e-mail section, under Service on the customer screen, decides whether ABM itself prints the docket, e-mails it, or both, once an engineer's visit on the call is marked Finished. Nothing in ABM Service prints a docket on the spot.

Can ABM Service e-mail me or pop up a notification when a call comes in?​

No. ABM Service does not send e-mails, text messages or pop-up notifications to office staff, in the browser or in the ABM Service desktop app. That includes a call a customer logs on the Customer portal: ABM Service tells nobody, and the call simply appears in ABM Service as an Open call with no engineer. The desktop app's own messages are about the app itself, such as its updates, never about calls. Nobody is reminded when a call's follow-up date arrives either: to see your follow-ups, add the Follow up to and Follow up date columns to the Calls list and filter them to your own name and the days you want.

To see new and changed work:

  • On the Calls list, select Refresh on the toolbar. The Calls list does not update by itself when somebody else logs or changes a call. Choosing To schedule under Which calls shows only the calls nobody has been given an engineer yet, which is where a new call from the Customer portal first appears.
  • On the Scheduler, open the cog button for Scheduler settings and set Auto-refresh to every minute, 5, 10 or 30 minutes, then select Apply. It starts Off.
  • On Home, the counts for the period show how many calls have been logged, by status.

Can I send an e-mail to a customer from ABM Service?​

Not from inside ABM Service: it has no e-mail of its own. In a web browser, the Send an e-mail link beside a contact's e-mail address on a call, and a contact's e-mail address in the Contacts section of the customer screen, open your usual mail program with the address filled in, and you write and send the message there. In the ABM Service desktop app, e-mail links do not open your mail program; select the address, copy it with Ctrl and C together (Ctrl+C), and paste it into a new message.

To keep a record of an e-mail on the call, paste the e-mail into the call's Details or Resolution document and save the call. A pasted e-mail keeps its pictures and formatting.

Service dockets are e-mailed by ABM itself, not by ABM Service. Choose who receives a customer's dockets in the Docket & e-mail section of the customer screen: turn on E-mail the docket, tick the contacts under Contacts to e-mail, and save the customer.

Can I undo a change after I have saved it?​

Not for a call's or a customer's fields: once a call or a customer is saved, ABM Service has no button that un-saves it, so to put a field back, change it back by hand and save again. The one exception is the text of a call's Details or Resolution document, where Undo still reaches back past a save while the call stays open. What you can undo depends on where you are:

  • Before saving a call or a customer, select Discard in the Unsaved changes bar at the bottom of the call screen or the customer screen. It throws away every unsaved change and shows what is saved.
  • Inside a call's Details or Resolution document, Undo on the document's toolbar takes back your last few edits and leaves the rest of your changes in place. It still steps back through what you typed before the call was saved, for as long as the call stays open on the screen and you have not selected Discard, which reads the call again and starts the document's history afresh. Select Save again to keep what Undo put back.
  • On the Scheduler, every move or resize is saved at once, and Undo in the message at the foot of the Scheduler puts the visit back. It is offered for about six seconds, for your most recent change only, and only while you stay on the Scheduler.

Some changes cannot be taken back at all. An engineer booked on a saved call, from the call screen or from the To schedule column on the Scheduler, is saved at once and has no Undo, and the visit cannot be taken off the call again. Removing a contact on the customer screen asks no question first. A contact that belongs to another customer is only unlinked from this one, but a contact that belongs to the customer you are on is deleted everywhere, from every other customer it is linked to as well, and has to be added again. A call's status change is recorded as an Automatic Action in the call's Actions, so a status set by mistake can be set back, but the record of the change stays.

Can I delete a call or a customer, or merge two duplicate customers?​

No. ABM Service cannot delete a saved call or a customer, and it cannot merge two customers into one. Use the status instead:

  • An unwanted call, for example one logged twice: open it, select Status at the top right of the call screen, choose your company's cancelled status, such as Cancelled, and select Save. Saying why in the call's Comment helps whoever finds it later. The Calls list starts with only Open and Active ticked, so a cancelled call drops out of the usual view.
  • A new call you have not saved: select Cancel beside Save call and nothing is written.
  • A customer you no longer work for, or a duplicate account: open the customer, set Status on the customer's Overview to Inactive, and select Save. An inactive customer leaves the Customers list's usual Active view and is no longer offered in the customer box when you log a new call, but its history is kept. Also search inactive accounts in the Customers list's search finds it again.

Calls stay with the customer they were logged for, so marking a duplicate customer inactive does not move its calls to the other account. A contact is the one thing on a customer that can be deleted, from the Contacts section of the customer screen.

Can I move a call to a different customer, or change when it was logged?​

No, not once the call is saved. On the call screen, a saved call's customer, its address and the date it was logged are for reading only, and saving a call always keeps the customer it was logged for. You can change the customer only on a new call, before you select Save call.

If a call was logged against the wrong customer:

  1. Open the right customer from Customers and select Log a call at the top of the customer screen.
  2. Fill in the new call, copying across the Comment and the Details document, and select Save call.
  3. Open the wrong call, set its Status to your company's cancelled status, note in the Comment which call replaced it, and select Save.

Book the engineer on the new call. A visit already booked on the wrong call stays on that call, because a booked visit cannot be taken off a call in ABM Service.

Can I remove a visit, edit its notes or mark it finished?​

No, not in this version. On a saved call, a booked visit cannot be taken off the call or cancelled on its own, its notes cannot be edited one visit at a time, and its status, such as Finished, is not changed anywhere in ABM Service. What you can change is when a visit happens and who does it: open Change this visit from the engineer pill at the top of the call screen or from the visit's row on the Scheduled visits card, or drag the appointment on the Scheduler. A visit whose status says the work is over, such as Finished, Closed or Cancelled, is locked: it cannot be moved or given to somebody else, and the call screen says to book another engineer instead.

What to do instead:

  • To finish the job, change the call's own status to your company's closing status, such as Closed, and save the call.
  • To give the engineers new words, change the call's Comment or its Details document on a saved call. The Scheduled visits card then shows a switch such as Update the 2 scheduled visits, on to begin with; save with it on and every visit on the call gets the call's new comment and details, finished ones included.
  • To take back an engineer you have not booked yet on a new call, press Don't schedule in the engineer's dialog.

You also cannot add a phone call, a note or an e-mail to a call's Actions list in ABM Service. To log a conversation, select Note on the toolbar of the call's Details or Resolution document: it adds a stamp with your name, the time and the date, ready for you to type under.

Can I change several calls or appointments at once?​

No. ABM Service changes one call at a time, and one appointment at a time. The Calls list and the Customers list have no way to tick several rows and change them together, so there is no bulk close, bulk status change or bulk reassign. On the Scheduler, you move or resize one appointment at a time.

To work through many calls quickly:

  • Narrow the Calls list to exactly the calls you need to change, with the filter rail's ticks, a customer and the date window.
  • Open each call from the list, change it, and select Save or press Ctrl and S together (Ctrl+S). Back returns you to the list as you left it, with the call you opened marked.
  • To book waiting calls one after another, use the To schedule column on the Scheduler, which lists the calls nobody has been given an engineer yet, oldest first.

Can I set up a recurring visit, copy a call, or see a customer's contracts?​

No. ABM Service books one visit at a time, for one date and time, and it has no repeating or recurring visits, no planned maintenance schedule and no button that copies an old call into a new one. To book the same work again, log a new call for the customer with Log a call on the customer screen and schedule the engineer for it. The Calls section of the customer screen lists the customer's past calls, so you can open the last one and read how it was done.

On the customer screen, Contracts, Docket history and Tags, under History in the sections rail, are marked later: they are not available in this version and cannot be opened. The engineers who have been to the customer are in the Engineers section of the customer screen, and on a saved call, Existing calls in the call screen's sections rail lists the customer's other calls.

Can I attach a file or a photo to a call?​

Not as an attachment. Attachments, under Documents in the call screen's sections rail, says "Attachments are not available in this version." There is nowhere in ABM Service to attach a file, such as a PDF or a spreadsheet, to a call or a customer.

A photo is different when your company has a photo custom field and it is on your layout of the call screen or the customer Overview: select Replace… under the photo box, choose a picture of up to 4 MB, and save the call or the customer.

To keep other pictures or an e-mail with a call, paste them into the call's Details or Resolution document and save the call. Both documents keep pictures and formatting. The Details document is what the engineer reads first, and the Resolution document holds what was done.

Can I run reports in ABM Service?​

No. ABM Service has no reports screen in this version, and the numbers on Home cannot be clicked through to the calls behind them. What it does have:

  • Home counts the calls logged and the visits due in a period, Today, This week, This month or This year, split by status, and ranks the busiest engineers, customers and call types. The arrow labelled The period before steps back one day, week, month or year at a time, so you can see the same counts for an earlier period.
  • The Calls list shows how many rows match your filters in the line at its foot, for example the number of calls and scheduled visits and how many pages they fill. Filter by call type, status, engineer, customer and date to count exactly what you want.
  • The customer screen shows how many calls a customer has had, split into open, active, completed and cancelled, on the Calls card of the Overview.

There is also no timesheet screen, no job manager screen, and no screen for invoices, stock or purchasing in ABM Service; invoicing and the accounts stay in ABM itself. A customer's balances are shown in Credit & terms on the customer screen.

Can I add engineers, call types, statuses or custom fields in ABM Service?​

No. The lists your company works with are set up in ABM itself, not in ABM Service: engineers and their photos, call types, call statuses, job groups, customer groups and areas, and your company's custom fields. ABM Service reads them and offers them in its lists, but has no screen for adding, renaming or removing them. Ask whoever looks after ABM at your company.

A few things are set by your company's system administrator, the person who signs in as ABM user number 1 and sees the Administration part of the menu: whether everybody needs an authenticator app to sign in over the web, and which customers can sign in to the Customer portal, under Customer sign-ins. Nobody else can change these, so ask your system administrator, for example to give a customer access to the Customer portal.

Can I share my layout with a colleague, or set one for everybody?​

No. Every saved layout in ABM Service belongs to the person who saved it: the arrangements of the Calls list, the Customers list and the Scheduler, and your arrangement of the call screen and the customer Overview made with Customize this layout…. Nobody else sees them, there is no company-wide layout, and changing yours never changes a colleague's screen.

To give a colleague the same view, tell them what you chose, such as the filters, the columns and the date window, and they save it as a layout of their own with Save as a new layout… in the Layouts control. For a custom field on the call screen or the customer Overview, tell them the field's name and they add it from the Hidden items list while customizing their own layout.

Can I see where my engineers are right now on the map?​

No. The customer map on the Calls list and the Scheduler shows customers, not engineers: each marker is one customer, wearing the colour and initials or photo of the engineer who has work there. ABM Service does not know where an engineer is at this moment.

To judge who is near a job:

  • On the Scheduler, open the map and the To schedule column and select a waiting call. The Nearby panel lists the booked appointments closest to that customer, with the distance, the engineer and the time, and Put after places the call straight after one of them. Nothing is booked until you select the tick beside the placed call, named Book it.
  • The Scheduler board shows where each engineer is booked to be and when, one row per engineer.

A customer with no location on the map cannot be drawn, and the map's banner says how many are missing.

Can I put a holiday, a meeting 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 block out time that is not a call, such as a holiday, sickness, 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.

Nothing stops a visit being booked for an engineer who is away, so check who is working before you book. 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. To fill an engineer's free time with work, mark out the slot on their row, fill in the Quick call card that opens and select Create & schedule; the call is logged and scheduled into that slot.

Can I keep a half-typed call and finish it tomorrow?​

Only by saving it. ABM Service keeps your unsaved changes while you move between screens in the same browser tab or desktop app window, with a reminder marked unsaved in the bottom-left corner. They are kept in that tab only, until you close or reload it: they are not saved anywhere else, they do not follow you to another computer, and closing a desktop app window does not ask first.

To finish a call later, save it now with what you know. A call needs a customer, a call type, a status, the Comment and the contact's name, and a job group for a call type that raises a job, before Save call will create it; the status starts as Open. Everything else, including the Details document, can be added and saved later. Once saved, the call is kept in ABM for you and your colleagues to find, and nothing is lost when you close the browser.

Can I use ABM Service offline, without a connection?​

No. ABM Service has no offline mode, in a web browser or in the ABM Service desktop app. Every screen reads from and saves straight to your company's ABM data, so it needs a working connection all the time.

If the connection drops while you are working, what you have typed stays on screen. A save that cannot get through says Not saved in the bar at the bottom of the call screen, with the reason beside it; select Save again once the connection is back. Do not close or reload the tab while you have unsaved work, because your changes are kept only in that tab.