The FACTS 9.0 release includes Service and Repair enhancements the affect programs in both the Sales Orders and Service and Repair modules due to the interactions between them.
Sales Orders program changes are detailed in the Sales Orders section and Service and Repair program changes are detailed section Service and Repair of these release notes.
The Service Time Entry and Technician Time Entry programs were also enhanced to include a new Equipment F/M button, to access Equipment File Maintenance from Service Time Entry and Technician Time Entry. This will allow, on a single session, applying updates to the equipment master while entering technician time sheets. It adds the ability to allow entering/creating equipment records during time entry/closing. Often when creating the initial ticket specifics of equipment being serviced are not known or entered improperly, allowing for bad and/or duplicate information. This will allow for the technician to provide accurate serial numbers for referencing. Equipment information must be entered before repair items or time can be entered.
Equipment F/M was enhanced to include the All icon for the Equipment prompt. This adds the ability to enter a service contract to cover all of a customer’s equipment, which eliminates potentially having to make contract entries for hundreds of pieces of equipment. More importantly, this also allows entry of a specific hourly rate for a customer.
Enhancements to Service and Repair added the ability, during Service Ticket Entry, to determine and display any technician schedule conflicts. With this you can:
During Service Ticket Entry, after entering the estimated hours to schedule, the system will check the assigned technician’s schedule to make sure that time is available and alert you when there’s a conflict with another ticket or a corporate/technician holiday. You will be able to force override any schedule. Inquiries are available throughout.
The service ticket entry process has been enhanced so there is now a warning when a scheduled date and time entered for a technician is in conflict with an existing entry, where that same technician already scheduled on another ticket. The enhancement accommodates multiple technicians on a service ticket. Scheduling can be done in 15 minute increments. The corporate schedule is set in SR Static Control F/M. This affects all programs that feed into scheduling (i.e.: Estimated Hours during service ticket entry). Current processing is limited to full day’s scheduled off for employees or corporate holidays; partial days are not supported at this time.
These programs were modified for the enhancement.
A new Schedule screen was added to Static Control F/M (SRF995) to create a default company work schedule that serves as the default weekly schedule to apply to all technicians, if they are to be scheduled. Completing this screen acts as the ‘master’ switch within the system to activate the scheduling features of Service and Repair.
A new Schedule screen was added to create the individual work schedules for each technician. Like default company work schedule, technicians marked to schedule will activate the scheduling routines. Having technicians not scheduled allows you to have a default or to-be scheduled technician, allowing entering of estimated time without concern for double booking. Note that these fields are initially set to the SR Control Record’s default schedule.
These fields and processes were added to Service Ticket Entry.
The Technician field now allows searching a schedule (for a single technician or all technicians). The Calendar icon is available to display the available time for the selected technician.
The Schedule Date is validated to ensure the date entered is a valid schedule date for the technician and not for a scheduled corporate holiday or a scheduled employee holiday. If the date exists in either file, a message window displays a warning and the reason.
The Estimated Hours field entry is validated in two passes. The first pass verifies that there is continuous time available starting on the supplied schedule date and a message window displays a message for each of the following reasons: Insufficient continuous time, Time runs into a scheduled corporate holiday, or Time conflicts with a scheduled technician holiday
If the technician does not have the available time, you can click Schedule or Cancel in the message window. If scheduling, insufficient time should be scheduled with additional technicians, and either holiday time and scheduled days off (i.e. Saturdays, Sundays) should be re-scheduled.
Note: The internal contents of the scheduling file are divided into ‘entries’, allowing simple or complex scheduling assignments (multiple days, multiple technicians, etc.). Entry 001 will always be the automated schedule entry. Using a flag on the record to indicate that that entry was manually changed, prompt a message stating that is has been changed and automated scheduling could not be performed.
A new Schedule button links to the new Schedule Entry (SRC570) screen, allowing for the manual editing of the scheduled times and for scheduling additional technicians.
Currently Service Ticket Dispatch allow for the editing of the primary technician and the starting date, time, estimated hours. If the Technician Scheduling enhancement is not used, this functionality is unchanged.
If Technician Scheduling is used, this will be replaced by a single Scheduling button that call the new Schedule Entry program for the highlighted ticket. Upon exiting, the assigned technician, schedule date, and estimated hours could be reassigned.
If technician scheduling is used, click Schedule to display schedule entry screen for the highlighted ticket. Upon exiting, the assigned technician, schedule date, and estimated hours that could be reassigned are displayed.
These new programs were created for the enhancement.
Use Corporate Holiday Entry to create and maintain dates that are not schedulable for all technicians, such as federal holidays, scheduled plant closings, and so on. The entry screen displays the dates in descending order; the relevant ones need to appear at the top. Potential conflicts for technicians on this date can be resolved using the Technician Schedule Report.
For each corporate holiday, specify the date and description.
Use Technician Holiday Entry to create and maintain dates that are not schedulable for individual technicians, such as scheduled vacation days or unscheduled sick days.
For each entry the technician is unavailable, specify the date and description.
If entries are made here after service tickets have been scheduled for a technician, a window notifying of scheduled conflict and the scheduling screen to allow optional rescheduling is displayed.
Using Schedule Entry you can rearrange the scheduling of this service ticket any way needed; splitting days, adding additional technicians, etc. This screen also displays any scheduling conflicts. You can view the schedule for a given technician or all technicians.
The ticket’s schedule is divided into ‘entries’, with entry 001 being the automatically created entry from the Service Ticket Entry. If this line is changed, then a flag must be set to prevent the automated process from canceling out the changes. If entry 001 is deleted, one of these three actions must take place (from either service ticket entry or service dispatch).
1 If only one other technician remains on the ticket’s schedule, that technician, date and time become the service ticket’s default.
2 If multiple technicians remain on the ticket’s schedule, then the user must choose the new primary technician for the ticket.
3 If no technicians remain, then the primary technician, schedule date, and estimated hours are cleared and forced reentry by the calling program.
Click Refresh to clear any schedule conflicts or any additional schedules made while in this screen.
Use the Technician Schedule Report to view information about technicians’ schedules. Run this report for currently scheduled service tickets as well as tickets that have no schedule created for them. Scheduled tickets indicate any schedule conflicts that are present.
Specify the beginning and ending technician for the report.
Specify the beginning and ending invoice dates
Indicate the scope for the report: S-Scheduled Tickets or U-Unscheduled Tickets.
Use Schedule Inquiry to view the schedule for a given day for a single technician or all technicians (a complete day view). When viewing by technician, all technicians available to schedule are displayed. You click forward and backward to scroll through dates. The technician, service data, and beginning time to be assigned to the service ticket are displayed. Schedule conflicts are also displayed.