Service operations
Every service step, part of one record.
Connect proposals, approvals, service tickets, job activity, results, and follow-ups in one operational workflow.
Proposals and approvals
Proposals are built in a guided wizard: Proposal & Building, Contact, Class & Description, Financial, Devices, Phases & Parts, then Summary. The office approves a proposal with an Approve action, which marks it Accepted with a timestamp. Only an Accepted or Awarded proposal, or an active maintenance contract that is in term and covers the job type, authorizes work.
- Prices pre-filled from Account Pricing rates set for the building, customer or management company, or from a company-wide default
- Phases with parts and estimated labor hours, optionally one phase per device
- Line items become read-only once a proposal is Accepted or Awarded
- A proposal can be started from an incident call, a job or a job record, with that record's building and customer filled in
- When a call or job is waiting on a proposal, an in-app notification says the proposal needs approval, and it clears once the proposal is approved
- An approved proposal authorizes one job, and must match that job's type, customer and building
Jobs and tickets
Jobs are created in an eight-step Job Wizard: Category, Site, Authorization, Customer, Details, Coverage, Billing and Schedule. A job cannot be created without an approved proposal or a covering maintenance contract. Creating a job from a proposal awards it: the job and the proposal are linked both ways, and the proposal's phases and planned parts carry into the job.
- A job ticket builds as the wizard is filled in, and can be printed, opened as a pre-filled email or exported
- Job numbers issued per category, with a configurable prefix, width, year and counter
- Jobs listed in their category: Inspections, Maintenance Contracts, Modernizations and Repairs
- Coverage and billing options from Job Setup, and tax looked up from the company's state tax IDs by the job's state
- An incident call becomes a job once a mechanic is assigned and the work is authorized
- Each job phase becomes its own dispatch with its planned parts, and rescheduling updates that same dispatch
Execution and results
The Results view follows each job through Authorized, Created, Scheduled, Work performed, Reviewed, Invoiced, Paid and Closed. Each step comes from stored records, and a step with nothing on record shows as Not tracked. When the mechanic starts and finishes on the phone, the times come back to the office dispatch, the job phase moves forward, and the finished visit goes to office review.
- The mechanic's work-performed note shows in the office dispatch window
- For proposal work, the office reviews the parts usage entered on the dispatch in the office app: it compares planned and used quantities, marks unplanned parts billable, non-billable or warranty, and approves the work or returns it to the mechanic
- A reason is required to correct a quantity or return work, and for damaged or lost, unplanned, over-plan or unused planned parts
- Overdue, blocked and failed steps flagged, such as work returned for correction, a voided invoice, a past-due payment or a backordered purchase order
- Timeline and table views, filters, search, and summary cards for billed revenue, costs, profit and margin
- Job cost from approved parts usage, approved labor time and posted payables charged to the job
- One job window shows every stage, with the job's linked records and activity history
Completion and follow-up
Once an invoice is linked to a job, Results shows its invoice and payment status, flags past-due balances, and does not show the job as ready to close while money is owed or purchase orders are open. When a visit leaves work open, a follow-up dispatch can be created on the same proposal, job and phase. It starts unassigned and carries forward the planned parts that were not used.
- New proposals for further work raised from an existing job, inspection or call
- Maintenance contract renewals tracked on Results: term end, escalations due and renewal history
- Customer records list buildings, contacts, invoices, credits, contracts, calls, dispatches, proposals and inspections
- Building records add devices, the ledger and documents, and device records list dispatches, tests and mechanics
- Each device keeps a history of the approved parts installed on it, with serial or lot, installer, date and warranty, shown on the dispatch form
- A proposal's record shows the job and dispatches it produced, and its activity history
How it works
Six steps from the request to the follow-up.
A proposal or a maintenance contract authorizes the work, the job and its dispatches carry it out, and Results follows it through to close.
Request
Work comes in as a call logged by the dispatcher, or as more work on an existing job, inspection or call.
Proposal
The office builds the proposal in the Proposal Wizard, optionally pre-filled from the call or job, with a building, contact, class, phases and a price.
Approval
Office staff click Approve and the proposal becomes Accepted. Routine work can instead be authorized by an active, in-term maintenance contract that covers the job type.
Service
The Job Wizard creates the job only with a valid authorization, carrying over the proposal's phases and parts. Each phase becomes its own dispatch, the record the mechanic's phone works from.
Results
Start and finish come back from the phone, and the finished visit goes to office review. Results shows each job's steps, flags, and cost against revenue.
Follow-up
Unfinished work can go to a linked follow-up dispatch with the unused planned parts. Results tracks a linked invoice through payment, and the work shows in customer, building and device history.
Compared with Dispatch
Dispatch coordinates the work. Service operations follows its complete lifecycle.
A job's dispatches and follow-ups point to the same proposal, job and phase, and each of those records keeps its own status.
Dispatch
- The dispatch is the mechanic's assignment and its execution
- Works from the Dispatcher's boards, separate from the Operations area
- Takes each job phase as its own dispatch, with its planned parts
- Receives the start and finish times from the phone
- Holds the parts review and follow-ups for proposal work, on the Dispatches console
Service operations
- The proposal owns approval, the job owns its lifecycle, and each phase owns its own progress
- Has its own area: Results, Wizard, Closing, Contracts, Inspections, Modernizations, Repairs and Job Setup
- Links each job back to the proposal or contract that authorized it
- Follows each job on Results from Authorized to Closed, with its cost and, once linked, its invoice and payment
Connected
Works with the rest of Vertra
Get started
See how service work runs from proposal to close.
Talk to Vertra about how your office handles proposals, jobs and follow-up work today, or follow the roadmap to see what is coming next.