Method Community

Hey everyone,

We are in the process of entering all of our recurring jobs. I noticed that it is also creating a one time activity on the first recurring date. So, the first service date has 2 activities with the same information. But what is weird is the duplicate is not showing up in the work order list, only the Activity List. Almost like it is creating a one time activity to go with the recurring work orders.

Any thoughts on how to prevet this? We only want the work orders to go in.

Bryan

Hi Bryan,

Creating a recurring service creates the occurrence activities as well as a series activity, which is why you have 2 on the first day (One of the filter options for the work order list hides the series).  If you do not wish to have the series displayed in you Activities lists elsewhere in Method you can place a filter on the grid to only show activities with RecurrenceType Not Equal to Series.

-Michael 

 Hi Michael,

Im still a little confused on this one. So, you are saying that when a recurring series work order is created, that the first occurence has a 'work order' and an 'activity'? If so, I'm not sure why it does this. The 'activity' that it creates as a duplicate on the first occurence will then show up as an activity that needs attention on my CRM reminders. That means that if I create 150 different work orders that are recurring, then I am going to have 150 activities associated with it that I will have to manually go in and delete since I don't need those.

So, my question is, can there be a customization done that does not create that duplicate activity when a recurring work order is created?

Thanks for the help!

Bryan

Bryan,

Any Work Order you create is also an activity. When you create a recurring work order it will create all the occurrence activities plus a series activity. So if you are creating a monthly recurring work order for the year it will create 12 occurrences plus 1 series, for a total of 13 activities.  By default when you create a series the Due Date start for the series is the day you created it, if one of your occurrence also starts on the day you created the series it will show up as 2 activities (Work Orders) for the same day in your Sales Center. There is no way to stop this through customization but you can hide the series from being displayed when not using the Field Service center. Some people move the series activity to the end of the year when it should come up for renewal.

-Michael 

 Michael,

sorry but this one just hasn't stuck yet.

So, in the series activity, when we choose a job item and add it to the series, i notice that when you open one of the occurences of that series, the job item is not there. Why does it not copy the job items from the series into each occurence?

Bryan

Bryan,

When you create a series it creates all the activities for each occurrence but it does not copy the job items (They are found in a separate table ActivityJobItems). When you edit an occurrence you should see a button labelled Copy Job Items from series which copies all the Job Items from the Series activity. Most user change the job items on each service and also if it was to copy all the job items it would make creating an series take some time because it would have to copy all the items to each occurrence, so just imagine 5 job items x 52 weeks. If you do want it to copy all the job items it is possible to do this through actions similar to the ones found in the Copy Job Items from series button.

-Michael 

 OK, that makes sense.

So, one thing I noticed though. When I complete a series of occurences and then send them over to QB on an invoice, the job items from the series are showing up in QB for each of those occurences.  

How can that be possible if you said it does not copy the job item for each occurence?

Bryan

Bryan,

From the Work Order List Screen when you click on More Actions > Invoice Selected or More Actions > Invoice All it actually goes through and checks to see if the occurrence has any job items, if it doesn't it copies them from the series. 

-Michael

 Perfect! Thats all we need it to do.

Thank you

What if I want the software to copy job items from the series job to the recurring jobs? I have set up the recurring service with a job item of "Maintenance Service", however when I generate dates for the recurring service, then go to the edit the individual services, the job item "Maintenance Service" shows up momemtarily, then dissapears. It does appear in the mobile web, for the jobs, which is good enough (as long as my field personnel can see it) but I would like to know why they appear and are then gone, and not showing up in the individual work orders.

Thanks

Christian

Christian, 

If you're working in the Work Order List screen you will find that you can edit an individual occurrence OR edit a series of occurrences. If you edit a series you will see the job items listed but if you edit an occurrence then by default you will not. The reason for this is that you may have different job items associated with different occurrences in the same series. The good news is copying job items from a series is a simple process. When editing an occurrence in the Add/Edit Work Order screen click the Copy Job Items from series link near the bottom of the screen. You should then see the job items from the related series within the occurrence. Let me know if this helps. 

- Jason

I have seen the option to copy the job item to the work order from the series, however since I am setting up between 40-100 services per customer, multiplied by around 200 customers, this is too much time/work to get services set up. While some of the work order do need to be edited indidividually, (first services of the month get services like shrub pruning and herbicide services) the majority of the services I just want to copy the series job items (core maintenance service or lawn service). As well, when I set up a billing occurance, I don't want to edit each recurring service, as the only job item for those occurances is the "contract billing installment". I just need to be sure that when recurences are set up, in the absence of editing, they will pull up the series' job items.

Also, I now have additional questions :)

I have jobs scheduled that show up on mobile login, as well as work order list, but do not appear in the job calender. Also, When I renew a service or multiple services, do they copy over the job items, or just the recurences? Say for instance at the end of the year at contract renewal time, I have recurences and job items set up in a date schedule that is working for the customer, when I renew, is everything copied, or just the dates?

Thanks for your help!

Christian

Christian,

If I understand correctly, you would like to have the job items of a series copied over to each related occurrence automatically? This would require some customization. My suggestion would be to make a copy of the FieldService_AddEditWorkOrder screen and edit it. Take a look at how the actions in the Copy Job Items from series button are set up and try to replicate it in the OnScreenLoad action list within the Advanced Screen Properties.

landscapemedic:

I have jobs scheduled that show up on mobile login, as well as work order list, but do not appear in the job calender.

Have you checked to see if you have any filters applied to the calendar? There are filter options on the calendar screen. Also, if you view the screen CRM_ActivityTypeList you'll find that some activity types are set to Show on Calendar and some are not. You can edit these settings by clicking Select on the activity type you wish to edit. 

landscapemedic:

When I renew a service or multiple services, do they copy over the job items, or just the recurences?

Everything will be copied including the job items.

- Jason