My Tracker is a snapshot of workload allocated to your user. It is divided into 3 sections.
Comprises a list of Jobs and Items within those Jobs, that are assigned to you. It is broken down by Job Number, Item Number, Status, and other useful information to give you an instant overview.
Individual Jobs and Items within those Jobs can be accessed directly from My Tracker by clicking the associated numbers.
Similarly the Customer Records can be accessed by clicking the customer's name.
Comprises a list of quotes that are 'open', awaiting their status being updated to Accepted, Rejected or Closed. The view is similar to that provided above. They can be similarly directly accessed by clicking the quote number.
This shows you Job Item(s) that have pre-delivery requirements set up, that are coming due for arranging. If you are the allocated Owner of a Job, it will appear in your Tracker. It will also appear on the Whiteboard, so if you are on holiday or otherwise committed, another member of the team can arrange it on your behalf and mark it as completed.
The more time a Requirement takes to arrange, the more notice WMS will provide you. For example setting an Item with a requirement of 'Scaffolding (4 stories)' that takes an estimated 21 days to arrange, order and erect, WMS will provide you a total of 42 days notice of that need. When the 21 day mark approaches, WMS will start making the more urgent need more noticeable with colour-coded countdowns. After 21 days has passed a bright red 'OVERDUE' notice will be displayed.
To mark a Requirement as completed, click the Item Number and then tick the box next to the particular requirement that has been arranged. This will remove the Requirement from My Tracker and the Whiteboard.
The Whiteboard attempts to mimic the original whiteboard in the office used to track work units.
Like My Tracker, it dynamically updates every time it is viewed. It provides a full overview of current workload, regardless of who owns the work in question. It is sub-divided into multiple stages, selectable using the left-hand menu.
Items will disappear from the Whiteboard at different stages. For example, work units marked as 'Ready for Invoicing' will automatically be removed from the Whiteboard and instead appear in the 'Ready for Invoicing' Report that can be accessed from the Reports tab at the top of the screen. Similarly, items marked as 'Awaiting Payment' or 'Paid' will not appear on the Whiteboard even though the Job may be 'Open'.
This keeps the Whiteboard strictly containing work that is still being done or needs to be done, rather than administrative workloads that can be better managed by other means.
This lists all open Jobs and associated Job Items, irrespective of their status (assuming that status is before the 'Ready to Invoice' step).
This lists all open Jobs and associated Job Items that are set to the 'Fabricating' status. This allows you to drill down on what work is currently being undertaken in the workshop.
This lists all open Jobs and associated Job Items that are set to 'Finishing'. This permits tracking of work items that are off-premises but not yet delivered or completed.
If a Job or an Item gets set to 'Paused', it will appear in this filter. This makes it easy to remove work items from the main list of jobs for short periods (customer queries, awaiting materials or such) without losing the job completely by closing it.
This filter performs the same function as the My Tracker 'Active Requirements', except this filter is an 'all-employee' view, rather than limited to your own owned Jobs and Items. So if a colleague cannot for whatever reason arrange a requirement that they are being reminded about (sickness, holiday or other committment), any other employee can see that there is a requirement outstanding and deal with it.
Add New is divided into 4 different sections.
This option is completed in 2 stages. The first stage is the entry or selection of the customer details. WMS is 'customer-record centred', meaning nothing happens within it, without a customer record.
The coloured boxes of the customer input screen are actually search boxes. As you type in them, suggestions will be displayed for existing customers within the database. If one of them matches who you are quoting for, clicking that line in the suggestion box will populate all remaining fields with the existing data, and link this new quote to that customer automatically.
If the suggestions do not match an existing customer, continuing to type and ignoring the suggestions will create a new customer record.
TIP: Try to avoid creating duplicate customers as this will complicate management of Customer Flags and job history searches.
Once a customer (new or existing) is entered, a large free-text box below allows you to make free text notes about the quote in question. Use this box to record anything normally done for quotation purposes, and when complete, click Create Quote.
This will take you to the Quote screen itself (a quote number will have been generated, and is displayed at the top of the screen). You can now add one or more Item(s) to this Quote, based on what the customer requires, and estimate the hours involved to produce their requirements.
If the quote later has its status set to Accepted, a Job number will be automatically generated and the Item(s) in the Quote will automatically be copied over into the new Job, along with any comments made along the way.
Quotes with their statuses set to Rejected and Closed are kept available to be viewed and changed at a later date, but will not generate Job Numbers.
This option is functionally the same as Add New Quote, except it bypasses the Quotation stage and automatically and immediately generates a Job Number. The same principle of customer selection or creation exists, as does the adding of one or more Job Item(s) to the Job.
If for whatever reason you wish to add a Customer to WMS but there is at present, no need to input a Quote or a Job, you can perform this action from this screen.
The same search-before-create principle exists, so all coloured search boxes that are available to you in Add Quote and Add Job, are available here.
Once a customer record has been created, it will become available from the Add Quote/Add Job screens.
Adding a Delivery Site can be performed from the Job Screen itself. However if you wish for any reason to associate a new delivery site with a customer before that stage, you can do so here. As always, the principle of it must be associated with a customer record is also the case here.
Special Delivery Instructions may apply, for example large lorries may need to access via a certain route. This area allows you to record such information for later use.
You can go directly to a quote or job by inputting the quote number (with or without the leading zeros) and hitting the go button.
If you are looking up a job item, knock off the item number and navigate to it via the Job screen. So for example to look up 12382-4, search Jobs for 12382 and then select Item 4.
Customers can be managed via the Customer Administration screen. This is accessible from many areas within WMS, wherever you see the customer's name as a link, or by searching the customer database directly using the Search page.
The customer search screen functions as every other customer search on WMS. Coloured fields will search the database and selecting one from the drop down list will populate all fields. Once you have selected a customer from the list, push the 'View Record' button to be taken to the Customer Database.
Report Screens are backend functions used to display or extrapolate useful information from the data input in to WMS. More reports can be programmed as their need arises. WMS Version 1.0 comes with the following report types:
The Weekly Report is an insight tool, allowing you to display the Jobs coming up for expected delivery between two given dates. The initial display prior to amending the dates defaults to starting today, and then finishing in 7 days time. The date range can be easily amended by clicking in the start and end date boxes and using the popup calendar to select your desired time frame.
Critically, unlike The Whiteboard, this Report will also include Deferred and Closed Jobs. Should a Job or Item have been accidentally lost, it will appear in this report as well as the expected ones. Only Items marked as Cancelled will not appear in this report type.
The Site Requirements report functions as another insight tool. It is similar in design and functionality to the Weekly Report, but instead is looking ahead to future site requirements that are not yet due enough to appear on the Whiteboard or My Tracker displays.
The Ready To Invoice Report polls Items that have been marked as 'Ready to Invoice'. Items appearing in this report should have had their Actual Hours recorded in the Job Item page, and all additional materials used and so on similarly added.
It will also make the invoice raiser aware if further invoicing notes are marked in the comments of the Item.
Once the invoice has been raised, the credit terms must be applied (WMS defaults to 30 days but this can be easily changed per item), and then the Invoice Generated button must be clicked. This removes the Job Item from this report, and starts a countdown within WMS. The item will now appear in the 'Payment Pending' Report type.
Payments Pending displays all Job Items for which an invoice has been raised and is now awaiting payment. The item will remain in this report view until the credit term period + 7 days has passed. At any time before this period, the item can be marked as Paid.
Marking the Item as paid removes it from the Payment Pending report, and notes the date it was paid within WMS for later customer statistics.
The Payment Overdue Report displays Payments Pending that have gone over the "credit terms + 7 days" period. From this report items can be viewed, and marked with one of 3 results.
Paid On Time If the item has been paid but for administrative reasons has not been identified as such until now, clicking this button will remove the Item from the Overdue report, marking it as Paid On Time. No adverse comments will be recorded against the customer.
Paid Late will still mark the item as Paid, but it will record a late payment against the customer, as well as add a Journal entry to the customer record. Depending on the circumstances of the late payment, the user marking this item as a late payment should give due consideration to setting the 'Late Payer' flag on the customer, by clicking the customer's name and navigating to the Flags tab of the customer. This will provide a warning on all future quotations and job entries that this customer has failed to pay on time in the past.
Deliquent will close the item as Unpaid, and record a delinquent payment against the customer by statistics entry as well as a Journal entry to the customer record. The person so marking this item should give due consideration to Blacklisting the customer by clicking the customer's name and navigating to the Flags tab of the customer record. This will provide a warning on all future quotations and jobs that this customer may not be dealt with again.
This report will provide a list of all Jobs within WMS, irrespective of the job status, in ascending numerical order. The oldest job in WMS will be at the top, and the newest at the bottom.
When this report is first selected, it will list every job. You have the option of narrowing this search down to a specific date range by using the calendar boxes, and pressing the Re-Generate Report button.
The Admin area is divided in to 4 parts.
Current users lists all system users, their name, email address, last login time, and whether their account is active or disabled.
Clicking the 'edit' link will permit users marked as Administrators to make changes to their account, including disabling it completely. There is no facility to delete a user within WMS as the user record is used extensively for journalling, statistics and management information. However, disabling a user account will prevent them from logging in again, as well as immediately logging them out of any active WMS sessions they may have.
As new employees join the company, they will need a WMS account. Administrative users can use this tab to add new accounts. A temporary password will be emailed to the new user upon creation, which they can then change after logging in.
Changing your password may be necessary, and can be done so from here. All users can change their own passwords as required. If you have forgotten your password and had to use the password reset tool from the login screen, you can change the temporary one that was emailed to you from here also.
Quick Help is scattered throughout WMS, providing contextual help on many screens without having to refer to the main help files. They should be unobtrusive, but they can be switched off from here if no longer required. Your preference will be saved to your user account and preserved on future logins. If you would like to turn them back on again, you can do so from here also.
If you have a problem that cannot be resolved by Quick Help or these Help Files, a support request can be raised with the WMS System Manager by sending an email to support@holdingbay.freshdesk.com. Please include at a minimum, the following information in your request:
Your Email Address:
Time and Date of Error:
Job/Item Number (if applic):
Attempted Action:
Exact Error Message:
URL of Problem:
Actual Outcome:
How to Reproduce:
Other Notes:
WMS is an evolving product. If a specific feature would be useful to you, please write it up and email it to the email address above, with the following information:
What do you want it to do? Be specific.
How urgent is this need?
What is your budget for financing this request?