Multiple tasks, different users

AyaNova 7 (legacy version) Workorders, Quotes & PM's
1

have been reading some of the (700+ page!) manual, and I am not clear on whether we can do the following:

  1. Start WorkOrder: RMA printer is being shipped to us. User: Receiving
  2. RMA unit received. New User: Service
  3. RMA service complete. New User: Admin
  4. RMA Invoice paid. Close.

Alterately, Service might need to send it to Engineering for advanced trouble-shooting. These tasks are not explicitly scheduled, more of a first-come first-served sequence.

So assuming each department has an AyaNova seat, how would they mark their progress and “pass it on” to the next User? How would the next User know that they were now responsible for that workorder?

Knowing this, I think I can figure everything else out, and present to management.

2

Hi Dan
I have laid out a suggested flow of service using AyaNova to give you an example.

  1. You are contacted that a specific printer is being shipped to you for service.

You create a new workorder for the client
You select that specific printer in the Unit subsection (if not yet entered, enter on the fly, selecting that client as who own’s the unit)
Enter in details such as the a summary of what the issue is (Workorder Item Summary), any special details to who would be providing the service (Service Notes), date service was requested (Date requested), perhaps a Workorder Status of “Unit In Transit to Us” and whatever other workorder details desired such as the client may have a reference number, you may have another internal reference number etc.
Provide that workorder number to the person that will be shipping (or whatever reference number you have uniquely entered)

  1. The printer is received by your shop

When the unit is received, in addition to its serial number, it has been shipped with the workorder number created for it.
This makes it easy for you to quickly find and open that workorder.
Set the Workorder Status to “Received for Service” to indicate to service department that this workorder is now ready for service. Users can intermittently refresh the Service Workorders grid in the Service navigation pane filtered on the Workorder Status to see if any new workorder with status of “Received for Service” display so that they know it needs to be done.
NOTE: with AyaNova, you purchase licenses for the number of schedulable users. Scheduleable users could be an individual tech, or it could be an entire department. It depends how much specific control you want over scheduling and reporting
You might specifically schedule a schedulable user via the workorder so that it is assigned to a specific person. This way, if that user is subscribed, that user will be notified (via internal AyaNova popup, via internal AyaNova memo, via external email or via external pager) that there is a new workorder scheduled for them so they don’t miss it.
As well if scheduled now for a specific schedulable user, that workorder will now display on the graphical Schedule screen so that the user can see at a glance he has scheduled work to do.

  1. Service is performed on the printer

Schedulable user that begins service changes the Workorder Status to “In Service” so that others know it is in the middle of being serviced.
The tech identifies in the Labor tab the details of service that is performed, how long it took, what rate, etc
If parts used in service, parts are entered via Parts subsection of the workorder
If instead the printer must go to a specialist, than just as above, the tech could change the Workorder Status to “Engineering Required” so that engineer that is subscribed to be notified when a workorder goes to that status is - and they know right away a printer needs their expertise; or as above, they can have the Service Workorders grid filtered on the Status column to only show workorders set to status of “Engineering Required” so they see at a glance that service is needed. Or again like above, if the Engineer is a specific scheduleable user, will display on their graphical Schedule screen that a workorder is ready for service

  1. Service is completed

Once service is completed - either by Service or Engineering, and they have entered their details in the Labor tab - change the status to “Completed - Mgmt Approval Required”
Just as above, whoever checks and confirms could be subscribed to that status so notified when something is completed. Or as above, filter to only show workorders with that status and refresh on a regular basis to see if any new
Once mgmt has confirmed everything is completed correctly, mgmt changes the status to “Ready for Billing” and checkmarks Service Completed

  1. Bill customer and close

Depending on what accounting program you have if any, you might:

  • print off a customized Sample Detailed Service Workorder with Grand Total report and give to the client. When client has paid, identicate so in the Invoice# field, and than checkmark the Closed field to completely close the workorder.

  • if using QuickBooks or PEachTree, may want to use the optional interface program to autoamtically invoice out the workorder into the appropriate accounting program

  • if using an accounting program, may want to create an invoice in the accounting program, enter that invoice # in the Invoice # field in the workorder, print off a copy of a customized Sample Detailed Service Workorder with Grand Total report to provide with it, and close the workorder.
    This is a suggestion on possible use. Let me know if any questions or other situation that I can help with, or expand on further.

  • Joyce

3

Joyce - many thanks!

So to simplify all of that, the WorkOrders can be sorted by Status, and in our case, the Status and the User are really the same thing. We’ll still need to have at leastService and Engineering as Scheduled Users because they need to clock billable hours.

Is the date/time of each completion/step recorded somewhere? So if we receive it on Tuesday, but Service doesn’t start until Thursday, we can be aware of the queue time? Does the final WorkOrder report show the various dates? Created, Received, Serviced, Completed, Paid, Shipped.

Even if it doesn’t, I think I like it.

Thanks Again!

4

Hi again

The workorder entry screen has many different date fields that you can use as needed.

For example:

  • use the Service Date field to identify when the service itself is to occur/is occuring.

  • use the Request Date field in the workorder item to identify when the service was actually requested

  • refer to the Record History menu option to see when the workorder was actually created and by whom, as well as when it was last edited and by whom.

  • use the Close By Date to identify when the workorder should be finished by (mgmt couldsubscribe to be notified if the workorder is not closed by this date to check into why)

  • use the Scheduled Users subsection of the workorder entry screen to identify when (Start date/time and a Stop date/time) you want to schedule someone ahead of time so that they know to place their time appropriately

  • use the Labor subsection of the workorder entry screen to identify the dates/times that work was performed on this, as well as billable time and no charge time

  • note with both Schedulable Users subsection and the Labor subsection, you can enter as many records as you need. For example, lets say that you are servicing a printer starting at 1:00Pm and you work on it till 1:30PM, and than have to stop and go do something else. Enter that time in and the details of what you did. When you return, create a second record in Labor, identifying the new start time, details of what you do, and the stop time when finished. This way the total amount of billable quantity is identified in a Detailed Service Workorder with Grand Total

  • there are also additional date/time fields in the other subsections of a workorder entry screen. I will point you towards the AyaNova v3 Manual section “Service Workorders” starting page 106 which goes over each section and subsection of a workorder and every field with suggestions for use.

Do note that the report templates installed with AyaNova are examples of what you could use. You can customize anyas needed - removing what you don’t need, adding additional that you do, and so on. Plus via this forum we provide many additional sample report templates that you can also download and import and customize further as needed, and/or refer to when creating your own.

You can display any of the above fields in a detailed type report template.

Although the Sample Detailed Service Workorder with Grand Total doesn’t neccessarily have all of these date/time datafields showing as it is an example report template, the report template can be customized to show any fields available via its Fields tab in the report designer.

I encourage you to go through the section “Creating Custom Reports” starting page 635 which includes tutorials on report customization so you can walk through changing datafields, adding datafields, adding a logo, etc etc, as well as refer to answers posted to questions by other AyaNova users about report designing in the forum http://forum.ayanova.com/Forum100-1.aspxand to additonal sample report templates in Additional Sample Report Templates & Tutorials section of this forum

Let me know if you have additional questions.

  • Joyce
5

Many thanks Joyce!

Now to convince the rest of the team…

6

New question: I’ve read the WBI documentation, but I can’t seem to figure out how a customer would use it to make a request for service. I’m thinking of an online form (name/product/contact/problem) that would automatically be imported to the system as a new workorder, with a status of “Customer Request”, which we would then confirm and assign.

How would I do this?

7

Hi again.

That is what WBI provides.

  1. Yourclient wouldlog in via WBI (you would have provided them the URL to go to once you have setup WBI, and their client username and password)

  2. Your client would create a new Customer Service Request - as outlined on http://www.ayanova.com/WBIClientwebHELP/requesting_service.htm

  3. When your customer saves and exits, this Customer Service Request shows in the Customer Service Request grid in AyaNova

  4. You alsomay have subscribed to be notified (by AyaNova popup, AyaNova internal memo, external email or pager) whenever a new Customer Service Request is made, and are notfiied that way.

  5. You review the Customer Service Request and either Accept it or Reject it - accept it to generate a service workorder with details from that Customer Service Request such as the client, summary of what the issue is, reference # for the service request, serial number of the unit if previously entered into AyaNova, details of what the issue is and any other text they wish to provide, and whether the issue is an emergenercy, ASAP or not urgent so that you have all of the information the client gave you in the service workorder so that you can schedule appropriately

For details on above, refer to the AyaNova v3 Manual section “Customer Service Requests” starting page 397 for details on the Customer Service grid and screen, andaccepting or rejecting; andthe section “Notification Subscriptions” starting page 434 and to “Setting up the AyaNova Event Generator for Notificatoins and Preventive Maintenance” starting page 578

Let me know if you have additional questions

  • Joyce
8

OK, so the WBI is helpful for largercustomers, butmay not work wellfor us with new/random customers (we could create a generic client to start?). We have a mix of both.

I’ve been playing with the demo, and I’m confused as whether to consider each printer as an Item, and schedule multiple Users for each task (receive, repair, invoice, ship), or do I consider each task an Item, with one User per? Whichis best for FIFO scheduling, and proper hand-offs? It’s probably a personal preference, but what do you recommend?

Also, can you add/edit the drop down menus (Status, Work Type, etc) in the demo? If so, how?

The problem with adopting any program like this is the enormous start-up effort.

Thanks for all your help.

Dan

9

Hi again Dan

WBI is not only for large service companies. It is used by service companies with one scheduleable user to 100’s, by service companies with a couple clients to 1000’s

WBI when a client logs in, is where they can request service specifically for themselves, and view their own workorders. Service Requests made by that client can be accepted by you and used to automatically create a service workorder for that specific client - saving you time and ensuring everything the customer entered is set in the service workorder.

I am not sure what you mean by a “generic” client. One of the benefits of AyaNova is that each workorder is for a specific client - so that you have history for that specific client - can print out reprots for that specific client, see who performed service for that specific client and when and what was done, and so on. If you created for example a generic client called “Generic Client” and selected that when you created a workorder, you won’t know who precisely that client is, nor be able to have a history of service performed for that specific client.

I’ve been playing with the demo, and I’m confused as whether to consider each printer as an Item, and schedule multiple Users for each task (receive, repair, invoice, ship), or do I consider each task an Item, with one User per? Which is best for FIFO scheduling, and proper hand-offs? It’s probably a personal preference, but what do you recommend?

You are correct - what works best for you.

We recommend as per the suggestions in the manual that if you are servicing a specific Unit (customer owned equipment) that you select that unit in a workorder Item, and enter specifics about servicing that unit only in that item - who is to provide the service, what parts are needed to perform that service, Tasks pertaining to that unit, when service is performed who did it and their time and billable amounts, other charges etc - this way, you maintain specific history for service of that specific unit.

A single unit is selectable per workorder item. So if you are going onsite to perform service on a number of units at the same time, create a workorder item for each unit so that you can specify what service is needed for each unit.

Enter details for the tech on what needs to be performed in the Service Notes field in the workorder item for that unit.

Or you might want to create a single Item and idenfify in the Service Notes via text what the tech is to do.

You might also want to use the Tasks section of a workorder item to select common tasks that are to be performed in the course of the workorder. This saves the service manager time when creating and scheduling a workorder, and the tech can confirm they have completed each task by setting its status (Completed, To Do, N/A)

I highly recommendthat you go through the section “Service Workorder” starting page 106 which identifies each section and field of the workorder entry screen with suggestions for use. As well, once you have gone through those, go through the workorder tutorials starting with “Tutorial: Creating a service workorder” starting page 178 which is tutorials from creating a service workorder, through selecting tasks and scheduling, entering details on the service performed to completing a workorder.

Also, can you add/edit the drop down menus (Status, Work Type, etc) in the demo? If so, how?

You add, edit and delete Workorder Statuses, Types, Categories, etc via the specific subgrid under the main menu option Subgrids. See the AyaNova v3 Manual section “Adding, Editing and Deleting Data into SubGrid Tables” page 56 for details and screenshots.

The sample database has sample data in it, including Workorder Statuses, Types, etc. You by no means have to keep those or use those. You can have whatever statuses, types, categories you want. And we provide an easy way of starting with a new database by using the Erase AyaNova database op

10

Many thanks for your patience. I need to spend more time with this…