How to Change the Colours of Call Types, Statuses and Engineers
Every item in the filter rail's lists has a colour — each call type, call status, action status and engineer, and each customer group, category and account manager — and that one colour is used for the item everywhere in ABM Service. You can change any of them from the filter rail on the Calls list, the Customers list or the Scheduler, to make the things you care about stand out. Your colours are yours alone.
How do I change or reset the colour of a call type or status?
Click the small coloured square beside the item's name in the filter rail and pick a colour from the palette. The new colour appears at once everywhere that item is shown.
- Find the item in the filter rail on the left of the Calls list, the Customers list or the Scheduler — for example a call type in the Call Type list.
- Click the coloured square to the left of its name (its name is "Colour for" and the item's name). Clicking the square never ticks the item.
- Click one of the sixteen colours in the palette.
The palette shows the list's name and the item's name at the top, a preview of the item in its current colour, and the colours in two rows. The colour the item starts with is marked as "the default".
From the keyboard, press Tab to the ⋯ button after the item's name (its name is "More for" and the item's name), press Enter, and choose Change colour…. In the palette the arrow keys move between colours (Up and Down move a whole row) and Enter or Space picks one; moving alone does not change anything.
To put a colour back, click the item's colour square and press Reset to default in the palette, or press the ⋯ button after the item's name and choose Reset colour to default. Both are greyed out while the item still has its default colour.
Which colours can I choose, and what colour does an item start with?
There are sixteen colours: Blue, Indigo, Violet, Purple, Rose, Red, Orange, Amber, Olive, Lime, Green, Sea, Teal, Cyan, Brown and Slate. There is no free colour picker, because each of the sixteen is checked to stay readable in every colour scheme and in both light and dark modes. The exact shade follows the colourway and mode you have chosen under Appearance in the menu.
The built-in call statuses have fixed colours that mean something — Closed is green and Cancelled is red, for example — and so do the action statuses. Every other item, including your company's own call types and statuses, engineers, groups and account managers, starts with a colour of its own worked out from the item itself. That starting colour is the same on every computer and is never grey. It does not change if the item is renamed, except for a customer category, which ABM Service knows by its name, so a renamed category starts again with a new colour of its own and any colour you chose for it is not carried over. The rare item that cannot have a colour of its own shows a plain grey square that opens no palette, and its ⋯ menu offers only Show only this.
Where do my colours show?
An item's colour follows it across ABM Service:
- Calls list — the Type, Status and Action status columns are drawn as chips in their colours, and engineers' pictures wear the engineer's colour.
- Customers list — the Group, Category and Account manager columns.
- Scheduler — the appointments, in the colours of the list chosen in Colour by in the Scheduler's settings (call type, call status, action status or engineer), and engineers' pictures.
- Call and customer screens — the call's type and status at the top of a call, the status menu, and the call and engineer history on a customer's screen.
- The map — engineers' pictures, and the type and status of the calls listed on a customer's card.
Changing a colour only repaints: it never reloads the list or changes which rows you see. The totals on Home keep colours of their own, because they count groups of statuses rather than one item.
Can other people see my colours, and what if one is not saved?
No, your colours are yours alone; the palette says so: "Only you see your colours". Your colours are kept with your ABM sign-in, so they are the same on every screen and on any computer where you sign in, and each colleague has their own. Colours are not part of saved layouts. There is no way to set the colours for everybody: to give a colleague the same colours, tell them which colour you chose for each item and they pick the same ones from the filter rail.
ABM Service reads your colours when it opens. A colour you change on another computer, or in another browser tab or desktop app window, shows here the next time ABM Service is opened, once you reload the page in a web browser, or as soon as you change a colour here yourself, because each colour you save brings back all your colours as they are now kept.
If ABM Service cannot save a colour you picked, the item goes back to the colour it had, and a line appears under that item in the filter rail: "Your colour for" the item's name "was not saved", followed by the reason, such as a message that there was no answer and you should check your connection and try again. Pick the colour again once the connection is back.