What Can I Do with the Lists on Calls, Customers and the Scheduler?
The Calls list, the Customers list and the Scheduler share one set of tools for narrowing, arranging and colouring what you see. This page says which tools each screen has, so you know where to look before you start. Each tool has its own page with the steps.
Which tools are on the Calls list and the Customers list?
The Calls list and the Customers list have every list tool in ABM Service: you can sort, group, choose columns, filter by a column, page through the rows, use the filter rail on the left, save layouts and change colours.
- Sort — click a column heading, or right-click it and choose Sort ascending or Sort descending.
- Group — right-click a heading and choose Group by this column, or drag the heading up above the headings.
- Columns — right-click any heading and choose Choose columns…, or Hide column to take one off.
- Column filters — the small funnel at the right of a heading opens that column's filter.
- Pages — the row under the list sets how many rows a page shows (10, 25, 50 or 100) and moves between pages.
- Filter rail — the panel on the left with the screen's lists (call types, statuses, engineers on Calls; group, category and account manager on Customers).
- Layouts — the Layouts control under the screen's name at the top of the filter rail.
- Colours — the small square beside each item in the filter rail.
On both screens the column that opens a record — Call on the Calls list, Name on the Customers list — always stays first and cannot be hidden.
Which tools does the Scheduler have?
The Scheduler has the filter rail, the filter chips, saved layouts and colours, but not the grid tools, because the board is a planner of engineers' days rather than a list of rows. There are no columns to sort, group, hide or filter on the Scheduler, and no pages.
On the Scheduler you can:
- Tick call types, call statuses, action statuses and engineers in the filter rail, and pick one customer.
- Save the board's arrangement as a layout from the Layouts control at the top of the rail. A Scheduler layout never saves a date: picking one keeps the dates the board is showing, and the Scheduler opened afresh starts on today's window.
- Change the colour of a call type, call status, action status or engineer from the square beside it in the rail. Colour by in the Scheduler's settings decides which of those four colours the appointments wear.
The Scheduler's own controls (the date window, Which engineers, the views and the settings) are described with the Scheduler.
Why can't I sort, group or filter a column?
Some columns offer fewer tools on purpose, and ABM Service tells you why rather than leaving a control that does nothing.
- On the Calls list, while Which calls is on To schedule, the Engineer, Action status, Due, Started and Ended columns, and any custom field your company keeps on a call's actions, cannot be sorted, grouped or filtered, because calls nobody has been scheduled for have no value in them. Right-clicking one of those headings shows the note "This column is blank on every row here, so there is nothing to sort, group or filter by.", and all of them except Engineer are drawn faded. Any other column keeps its tools even when every row you can see happens to be empty in it.
- The Problem description and Resolution columns on the Calls list hold long text and cannot be sorted, grouped or filtered, so they have no funnel and no sort items. To find calls by words in the problem description or the resolution, type a word or phrase from them into the Search calls box on the Calls list's toolbar and press Enter: it searches the whole text of both, with the call number, reference and comment, inside the date window. A long-text custom field your company has added is different: its funnel lets you search inside the text, and says "This one holds a sentence, so it can only be searched inside." Such a field shows only the first 200 characters of its text, ending in "…" when there is more, and it cannot be sorted or grouped.
- Some columns are not offered for grouping because every row would be its own group, such as the customer's name, code, address or phone number on the Customers list.
- The list of calls on a customer's own screen uses the same grid, so you can sort, move, resize and hide its columns and page through it there, but it has no column filters and no Choose columns…. A column hidden there comes back the next time you open that customer afresh, from a list or a link rather than with Back.
Are my layouts and colours private?
Yes. Your saved layouts and your colours belong to your ABM sign-in: nobody else sees them, and they are there on any computer where you sign in, in the browser or the ABM Service desktop app. Changing a colour or saving a layout never changes what a colleague sees.
Layouts and colours are kept apart. A layout belongs to one screen, so the Calls list, the Customers list and the Scheduler each have their own list of layouts. A colour belongs to an item, such as one call type, and is the same on every screen and in every layout.
Two small preferences belong to the browser or desktop app you are using instead of to your sign-in: how wide you have dragged the filter rail, and whether you have folded it away with the Filters button. In the ABM Service desktop app those two last only while the app is running: once it has been exited from its icon by the clock, restarted or updated, the rail is back at its normal width and unfolded.
Can I export, print or copy what a list shows?
No. The Calls list, the Customers list and the Scheduler have no export and no print button, so nothing sends their rows to Excel or to a file. The rows of the Calls list and the Customers list cannot be selected with the mouse either, because a double-click on a row opens it, so a value cannot be swept out of a cell and copied from the list.
What to do instead:
- To copy one value, such as a call's reference or a customer's address, open the row and copy the value from the call screen or the customer screen.
- To come back to the same rows, set the filters, columns and sort you want and save them with Save as a new layout… in the Layouts control at the top of the filter rail.
- To count rows, read the words beside the page buttons under the Calls list or the Customers list, which say how many rows match, for example "120 customers — page 1 of 5".
In a web browser, the browser's own print command prints the screen as it appears; ABM Service has no layout made for paper.