ServiceWorks

I like the population auto fills. The search ability is a key factor in running our business. We ran a business in Arizona with twenty-five employee's and keep tracking of what was going on was our biggest hurdle. I tried a lot of other software for this purpose (several costing 5 times the cost of sw) without the power of service works.

Just like learning any new software there are some frustrations along the way. There are a few bugs in the system that haven't been ironed out yet, for example; sometimes I will but in place holder information like the phone number if I don't know it. I will enter all fours or something with the intent to go back and enter the number when I get it. SW uses the ph number for the customer number. I doesn't allow you you to edit the customer number, oh it has the edit icon and you can delete it, but it won't allow you you to enter anything. By the way the work around for this one is copy and paste.

Great tech support and availability; SD mobile allowing office and in-field techs both able to see the progression and status of service calls, and a big time-saving help to the techs. However, while it's a time-saving boon for the techs, it has caused probably double the amount of time spent in office for this system vs. Swiftlink. It is also very nice to have the parts inventory linked to the jobs tickets/invoices.Warranty claim management and filing has been more streamlined with ServiceWorks and we find this to be a huge benefit.

Customer address: A glaring fault in this program is that there is only one address line for addresses, which is enough of an issue in itself that I would never choose this program again because of this one thing! In our area, 3/4 of our population is transient, lots of 2nd/3rd homes, and the need to have further defining information for many addresses which requires a 2nd address line or a line for a business name and then an Attn: line. One address line is a very outdated entry form and really unheard of any more. PARTS: The special order parts chart for checking in parts can be a real pain when "tentative parts" are allowed to plug the chart up. We were of the understanding that we could have a Master List of parts we stock and that there was another place we could have nonstock parts listed ... this doesnt appear to be the case - if you want a record of non-stock parts that happen to be in the office stock, they need to be in the Master List in order to select them from the inventory or to see that we even have them... we worked out a system to mark those nonstk parts in the Master List; also it would be nice to have a field where you can put the date the last time a part in the Master List was updated... we worked a system out for that as well. LOCATION finder for dispatch map: is often wrong, often not very accurate... would need to link to a better GPS system in order for this to be dependable and useful for mapping routes.

There are many wonderful features but the feature we utilize the most is the dispatch. Being able to dispatch a call by location of the tech allows us to start the day knowing how the week is setting up.

I am having a few issues learning all the features some are a bit redundant but we have to devote the time to learning to use the features making it a priority