Offtopic: Workorder/Dispatch Software
Submitted by kspare on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 7:32am.
I'm in desperate need of some good dispatch/workorder software.
Basically i've grown from the computer guy giving out his cell phone to a company with multiple techs. Our office admin calls us and we do the calls and send an email each day. Or so we're supposed to do. But people get busy and forget.
So what I want is this.
Something Online. I want customers to be able to login open up a WO and maybe even pick the tech they want to come onsite.
We all use Treo 700wx's and possibly black berry's so if we could update the wo from those that would be icing on the cake!
Any suggestions? The software doesn't have to be free either.
Integration to accounting software would be a plus but I know i'm kinda getting greedy at this point.
trouble tickets
Sun, 05/04/2008 - 9:18am
You are looking for something like "trouble tickets"
http://www.troubleticketexpress.com/ ..........FREE..............
We use the program from http://www.craftysyntax.com/.... CHEAP..... with a custom billing software witch has a PHP / mysql tie in.
We have a custom page setup within the Crafty tabs to open a trouble ticket, we also use the VNC single click hasa remote access to the customers desktop.
http://www.uvnc.com/addons/singleclick.html ...............FREE..............
This setup allows us to solve over 60 % of tech calls WITHOUT a truck roll.
For many of the smaller trouble shoot issues just the Craftysyntax messages is working out great.
Process then automation
Sun, 05/04/2008 - 10:31am
Growth is difficult, if you don't lock your processes in early then it can quickly get out of hand.
I great backend system with lousy process is far worse than great process with a mediocre backend.
We are using software that we started writing back in the late 80's. It worked well when the company was at its peak of 25 techs and works great today. It is still text based! We have "webified" a few of the apps. Itis quirky and suited for our way of doing business. If anybody is interested it is written in Dataflex.
Work orders are key to our process. Nothing gets done without a work order. The assigned tech is responsible for completing the work order. We use then on trouble tickets, service (both contract and T&M), professional services and installs. Work orders allow us to track hours to cost accounts. We know what it is costing to maintain our network and provided our contracted work. We also know the exact cost of each install both labor and materials.
We also maintain a database for warranty and provisioning purposes of all phones MAC addresses.
Hope this helps....Scott
--
Scott
aka "Skyking"
i have a custom solution too
Sun, 05/04/2008 - 5:54pm
i have a custom asterisk php solution that records all calls , and presents in a 'page' so that the tasks can be assigned and tracked. my solution is not fully automated , more "semi-automated" it requires a "service-admin" to assign tasks, comment the notes fields , and when the service person has complete teh task and invoiced the client - the service admin has to close the task. i am sure i could automate the invoice and closeing of the task, but i like to error check manually to make sure we have crossed the 't' and dotted the 'i'
i will look at the other solutions, they look interesting.
Member Since:
2007-02-16