Method Community

I was looking at the posts on dated on 5/8/2009 when paul was talking about a equipment maintenance application. Is the equipment app the section where customers have equipment? Was just wondering.

Thanks, John M

John -

The equipment maintenance app was something that was underway, but got sidelined due to other priorities.  I don't see us completing this anytime soon given what we have on our roadmap for 2011.  It would be a good app for a 3rd party developer to make........

Paul 

Paul,

I have created Microsoft Access database programs for my landscape co. I created the database becasue i wanted my work orders customers and the like to be snyc'ed into a pda. This was before we had wireless internet. I gave my crews a pda and it was designed to copy time on the jobs. It worked great and it was easy to set up plus you were able to design screens anywhy you wanted.

Im going to look around your site for information on programming a app. If you have any links to help me get started let me know,

Thanks, John M

John -

Sounds to me like you are the perfect match for Method! In many ways, Method is "MS Access for the web".   But then again, it can also be described as "MS Access for the web that automatically syncs with QuickBooks, and oh yeah, also starts you off with a service scheduling module"!!

My advice, if you are building an app, try your darnest to base it off Method Field Services.  That way any app that was made for Method Field Services will be able to plug into yours, and if you create something that you think could be a shared app one day, it will plug into theirs.

Without knowing exactly what you are looking to build, I would suggest getting started on some webinars:

http://www.methodintegration.com/cs/blogs/methodblog/pages/Method-Community-Webinars.aspx

Start with the oldest ones and work your way up, until you get a feel for it.

Paul

Paul,

Sounds great! I will sart looking into this.  I have a few app ideas that could help me with my landscape operations and with the abilty to share them, that sounds great as well.  I will be gone to Disneyland, per wife's orders so when i get back, i look more into this.

Take care, John

Greetings,

I got time now to start looking into a equipment app. I have been looking at your existing apps to see if there might be a match.  The only app I could find and was close to what i was looking for was the Pro Services App. This app could fit the bill for somthing like this.  The only problem, its based off the Sales order table. Here are some of the ideas that i had: 1. Instead of Contracts number you would have equipment number. 2 budgets, the best part  about this is you could set up a budget for any peice of equipment. 3. As you work  on equipment, you could use the timmer feature to keep track of the timethat you worked on it.  4. You have accounts payable set up, so you could put your invenory parts in quickbooks.  Not sure if that is a good way of keeping track of parts buecsue its not inventory.  5. The screens are set up so  you can make activities that create workorders. I would have to add screen for files, like manuals, parts break down lists and such. 6. Best of all, its set up so your still have the look and feel of your outher apps.

This is just a thought.  Thought i would thow this out there to see what your thoughts are on this.  The important thing that i dont want to do is take somones work and redo it. The big thing with this is this app is based off sales orders.  Changing that could be be a deal killer.

Take Care,

John M

Great idea John. I'd definately be interested in this.

I was planning to work on a budget app, which would calculate your company budget for the year, and work labour burden, overhead, etc. into estimates and sales orders. It would also show forecast vs. actual at the end of the fiscal year. I believe this would be a great tool for all us landscapers, and others as well.

I'd love to see what you're working on as it progresses, and provide some feedback. I'd also like someone to try what I'm doing as well.

Unfortunately, business is picking up for me and I likely won't have what I want for another 6 months or so.

Keep us updated, and if you're interested I will keep you updated as well. 

Hey SpaScapes,

I have been looking into this app. Consulted with my CPA.  The two problems i have is its connected to the sales order table so I would have to start this from the beginning. I dont have a problem with that, just will take more time.  The second thing is we should not use the items database if this is for our own equipment maintenace.  My CPA said that your items should only be used for job costing. He said keep it  simple and dont have some items for job costing and outhers for expences. I see his point.  Becasue of that i wouldhave to make a work order that used the accounts payable tables. Create anouther table for the parts that we would used, like air filters etc.  The thing for me is time,  am getting much needed work thats comming in. So i am not sure what the time line is going to be on this. 

I did purchase a equipment program just for this issue.  I talked to him about maybe programming a app just for Method, he said he might look into this.  His program is based on Access. I toled him if he did that he could sell it to us as a monthly charge.  He is a part time programmer.  I like his program becasue its so simple to use.  I will keep you updated on this.

John M

Hi John,

I have had the idea for an equipment maintenance app brewing in my head for some time. I have begun some preliminary work on it, but not enough to be usable yet. It will probably be at least a month or two before I have something ready to go into beta testing, but it might save you the time and expense of creating it yourself if you are willing to wait a couple of months.

If you have specific ideas in mind please feel free to shoot me an email at matt@techinthefield.com