Developer Diaries #2

Handling Multi-Visit Jobs

We learned pretty early on that a lot of jobs, particularly in Housing, ended up being more complex than ‘send operative, job done’. There are all sorts of reasons for multiple visits to the same property, but each one requires more organisation. This blog is about how Connect handles pre-inspections, and how easy they can be.

We have developed a version of Connect Mobile that runs on desktop Windows-based Netbooks (and laptops and tablets). This allows a supervisor or inspector greater flexibility, where perhaps more text input or other keyboard/large screen functionality is required. Of course, all this functionally is available on a handheld device as well.

Talking to our customers, we found that inspections were often treated as separate jobs. This meant that it was difficult to co-ordinate the completed inspections and the resultant repair work. The cost of the completed job would end up split between the two, when of course both are part of the same job.

Connect is designed to handle multi-visit jobs, and to co-ordinate between them. For this, a task (SOR) code that identifies the inspection is used, usually as the only task attached to the job. This is scheduled and/or appointed as normal, to an Inspector, Supervisor or Technical Officer.

The Inspector completes the inspection task, and then adds the tasks that are required for the repair to be completed. Connect identifies that Further Work Required is selected; this puts the completed Pre-Inspection on its own to do list, making it easy to assign as a standard Repair by the schedulers.

The repairs themselves can also be complex. Whether due to the requirement of a mix of skillsets, or any other multi-visit reasons, the original job can be converted into a Connect Project, the subject of part 2 of this blog.

Follow the blog to learn more about the benefits of the Connect mobile workforce management solution.