Drag and Drop issue in Scheduled Users' Screen

AyaNova 7 (legacy version) Scheduling
1

Some background information…

Our dispatcher’s find it works more efficiently for them, when scheduling technicians for existing customers, to create workorders starting from the customer’s equipment records.

Because they also need to make sure of an open time slot, their procedure after entering workorder details is to schedule a technician within the workorder by selecting only “Today” and leaving the time at 12:00AM via the Scheduled Users under Workorder Item Sub-items. They then exit to the Schedule screen, scroll up to the midnight time slot, and drag the workorder to an opening on the schedule.

When the dispatchers get real busy they often encounter what we refer to as the “Boomerang” effect. The “Boomerang” effect occurs when the user fails to keep the cursor “hovered” over the workorder long enough (usually about two seconds) before dragging and dropping. After dropping the Workorder into a time slot and letting go of the mouse button the Workorder disappears from view and returns to its original midnight position.

The issue at hand…

Up to now they have just had to deal with it and slow down but since the advent of pop-up balloons being added this effect has become a problem. Now instead of the one workorder “boomeranging,” if the workorder is dropped on to a time slot that has already contains scheduled workorders, all of the workorders get boomeranged and end up out of view.

Is there any way to turn off the pop-up balloons? If not maybe delay them, or is it possible the drag and drop functionality can be made more “Outlook-like” (Click, drag, drop)?

Thanks,
Bob

2

Hi Bob

I am trying to recreate this “boomerand” effect that you refer to and can not

-I am viewing the 1 Day separate view for 5 schedulable users
-On this day, the user in question has 6 existing workorder items during the day (i.e.8am to 9AM, etc)
-From the Units grid, I right-click on a serial number, select Workorder which opens to the Scheduled Users sub-screen in the workorder
-I drop down the selection for Start Date & Time, and todays date and time (05-12-200708:11:25 AM) is automatically selected so I edit it to 12AM to reproduce what you say your dispatcher does
-I view the Schedule screen for 1 Day view for today
-I place my mouse over the edge of the 12AM scheduled item so that the mouse turns into a four-arrowed cursor, I click down and drag it to a time slot where there are three other workorders - one at 7:30AM and two starting at 8AM - and let go at the 8AM slot, and it changes to 8AM. I tested droping it at different times and can not reproduce this effect you are saying

Please provide specific detailsso that we can reproduce, and so we can make sure if this is an issue that it is addressed in the next maintenance update that we are planning on releasing end of May/beginning of June. Do let me know.

  • Joyce
3

Hi Joyce,

A video is worth a thousand words… :wink:

I captured this boomerang-effect and attached a video showing it in action. As you can see, the first time I dragged the new Workorder# 8717 down the screen, no boomerang effect, but after placing the Workorder back at 12:00AM and dragging it down the second time, not only did the Workorder open, but as soon as I closed the Workorder, it and Workorder# 8706 “boomeranged” to 12:00 AM.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Bob

4

Hi Bob

I am not able to reproduce this boomerange effect and am not able to see in this video the effect - its goes by incrediably quick and not sure what you are opening or doing at different times and what exactly I am looking for.

What I am seeing, and am able to reproduce is -

-I create a workorder just as you did in the video
-via right-clicking on the unit and selecting workorder
-new wo opens, enter in details, select Scheduled Users, select a user, select Today from the drop down for start and save
-Go to the Schedule screen, select Refresh and scroll to 12AM
-click once on the workorder item to select it, and than place my mouse over it so thecursor changes to a four sided arrow and drag it down to 9AM
-if I doubleclick to open, the Scheduled User shows 9AM just as it does on the Schedule screen
-if i select the workorder item again in the Schedule screen and drag it back up to 12AM, and than open it, it now shows 12AM same as the Schedule screen
-if I select the workorder item again, and again drag it back down to 9AM, and than open it by double-clicking on it, it now shows 9AM just as it is placed on the Schedule screen.

If the user selects the workorder item and drag and drops it, the workorder item start time will change. If the user does not select the workorder item than that means that the Schedule screen won’tbe able to “tell” the databasewhat is being dragged.

The next maintenance update will have it so that you can click and drag in the same click if this is what you are getting at.

  • Joyce
5

Hi Joyce,

Adding the “click and drag” in v3.5.0 almost completely eliminated the “boomerang” problem. The only way I can reproduce this anomaly now is to drag and drop a workorder up and down the schedule screen into different time slots repeatedly as fast as I can go. However, this is nowhere near the rate the dispatchers go when they move workorders.

And so far the feedback I received was… “hooray!!” :slight_smile:

Thanks,
Bob

6

Great to hear Bob - I was hoping it would even though we couldn’t reproduce - your people must have incrediably fast mice and fingers :slight_smile:

  • Joyce
7

Hi Joyce,

Unfortunately, we are having issues with the new “Click and Drag” feature. I’ve attached 4 videos.

In Video 1 you can see the error message that results when one of our dispatchers moves (Clicks and Drags) one of my workorders at her normal pace. In Video 2, again in my scheduled user screen, the same error occurs when she attempts to moves a different Workorder. In Video 3 she is attempting to move a different Schedulable User’s Workorder and receives the same error. In Video 4 you can see as long as she clicks on the Workorder, pauses (Workorder becomes highlighted), and then moves the Workorder, no error occurs.

I am able to duplicate this problem on other computers with other user accounts.

In case you have any difficulty seeing the steps we performed in the video here are the exact steps in order performed:

  1. Opened AyaNova, logged in, and arrived at the Scheduled Users screen. (We started recording at this point)
  2. From the Scheduled Users screen, selected one Schedulable User from the drop down list.
  3. Selected a 5-day view.
  4. Clicked and Dragged a Workorder to a different time slot - This is where the pop-up error, and program crash occurs.

We have tried rebooting the server and workstations to no avail.

Just to note again, this problem didn’t occur until the pop-up Balloon feature was added in version 3.4.0.

If there is anything else you wish me to try please let me know. It’s important we get this resolved soon.

Thanks,
Bob

8

EBCS (6/6/2007)Hi Joyce,

Unfortunately, we are having issues with the new “Click and Drag” feature. I’ve attached 4 videos.

Bob, there’s something not right here. We tried everything possible to reproduce your original problem and this new problemand could not, the change we did was not a fix of anything it was a new feature to eliminate the two clicks required to move or resize a schedule item.

I personally pored over the balloon tip code, it has no relation or interaction at all with thedragging of schedules, it’s completely separate and in fact not new at all, it’s simply a change to the visual style of tips that are used where they used to be square are now rounded etc.

I took a look at other changes that were in that release with the balloon tips addition, nothing related to dragging scheduled items etc. I can’t find any connection between the balloon tips and the dragging operation of scheduled items on the schedule.

We have thousands of users using that schedule screen many incredibly heavily and to date no other reports of any similar problems with it that you’ve experienced. We can not reproduce it here in our test stations on a variety of hardware and operating systems.

At this point it’s definitely something unique to your environment that is triggering this error, something we just don’t have here to reproduce sowe need two things from you:

First off we need a fresh copy of your data including the login name and password of the user in the video so we can try to replicate the operation exactly as in the video with your data.

If you have never sent in your data before please email support@ayanova.com directly for instructions.

Secondly I need to know everything about the scope of the problem at your end, the hardware and software environment etc.

Do all users experience this problem equally on different computers?

Do all those users have the exact same computer hardware?

Do any users never experience this problem who are doing the same sorts of operations in the schedule screen?

What is the hardware and software of the users having this problem? (Please be specific as possible, I’m interested particularly in the operating system, the cpu speed, the mouse brand etc)

What other programs are running at the same time both as applications and system tray programs like virus scanners, anything that runs in the background, a list of running services and applications taken as a screenshot would be useful as well.

Users are running AyaNova from their own computers in windows correct? I.E. they are NOT using remote desktop or terminal services or some other remote session software.

  • John