Job Notifications is a feature that provides you with the ability to create and send email notices to your customers to keep them informed as to the status of their job. These notices can be automatically created and sent to your customers as jobs are booked, rescheduled, dispatched, closed, and/or canceled. Job Notifications are controlled via Job Classes and are initiated via prompting. Job Notifications are handled by a background service that will run in SuccessWare21 at periodic intervals to create and send out the messages.
Before you can start sending job notifications to your customers you must first configure this feature by:
The Job Notification Service is a background task that is responsible for the sending of all job notification messages from within SuccessWare21, in order to use this service it first has to be enabled.
Once enabled, the service will automatically start whenever a user logs into SuccessWare21. You can manually start the service from the Communications Dashboard by clicking on the hyperlink “Job Notification Service is NOT running”.
IMPORTANT: The Job Notification Service runs from within SuccessWare21 and at least one user must be logged in to the application in order for it to process remote emails. If all users are logged off of SuccessWare21 no messages will be sent! The Communications Dashboard does display the status of the service so you can check to verify it is running.
In the unlikely event that you need to stop the job notification service, from the Communications Dashboard simply click on the hyperlink “Job Notification Service is running”. From the SuccessWare Tasks window click the red X to the right of Job Notifications, click yes if prompted to stop the operation. You’ll know the service has stopped if the dashboard reads “Job Notification Service is NOT running”. Just because you have stopped the service on your workstation does not mean that it has been stopped on all workstations. To truly stop the service you will want to disable the service and then have all workstations restart SuccessWare.
IMPORTANT: You should never stop the service, or log off of SuccessWare21, if the service is in the middle of processing email message, if you do there is a very good chance that some emails will not be sent.
If your implementation of SuccessWare21 includes multiple companies then the service must be enabled individually for each company. In addition, the service will only run for a particular company if at least one user is logged into that company.
IMPORTANT: When running SuccessWare21 with multiple companies, notifications will only be sent for companies that have at least one user logged in.
To enable and start the job notification service you need the “Communications Setup” ability in SuccessWare21.
In order for SuccessWare21 to automatically create a message to a customer about the status of their job you need to create a template. You can think of a template as the text and formatting of a “letter” that you would like to send to the customer. By including merge fields in your templates you can personalize your “letters” for each customer. A merge field is a field you put in an email template, mail merge template or custom link to incorporate values from a record. For example, you can place a merge field in an email template so that the greeting includes the recipient's name rather than a generic “Hello!” SuccessWare21 can email in HTML format so your template can include HTML tags for formatting, images and hyperlinks. You have the option to use your own HTML editor and import the template, or use the built in editor. To access email templates select Setup | Email Templates from the menu on the Communications Dashboard. This will open the Customer Communication Templates form listing all your templates. From here you can add, edit and delete them.
SuccessWare21 also provides the ability to include your company logo in the message to your customer. To use this feature you must first import your logo which you do by right-clicking on the Customer Communication Templates form and choosing Company Logo. On the dialog box that appears click the Browse button and then open your image file.
Select a template and click the Edit button, or simply click the Add button to create a new template. From the Edit tab of the Email Template form you simply type your message as you would like it conveyed to the customer. On the right-hand side of the edit window you’ll find a list of merge fields that can be added to the template. To add a merge field position the cursor at the point you want the field added, highlight a merge field in the box and click the Insert Field button. The merge field will be inserted at the position where the cursor is, you will know it’s a merge field because it will be surrounded by square brackets ‘[ ]’. In SuccessWare21 the following customer data is available for merging:
The following data pertaining to your company is available for merging:
For Dispatch templates the following technician data is available for merging:
For each of the 6 notification types you can specify a default template. On the Preview tab you can view how your template will be rendered, check the view with sample merge data box to view it as it would be when the merge is complete.
For additional information pertaining to email content please see the Email Content Guidelines document.
If you have an HTML document already created that you would like to use simply click the Import button and select your file. SuccessWare21 will load and use that document. You can use the same merge fields with imported documents, simply update the document so that it contains the field(s) you want to merge surrounded by square brackets ‘[ ]’.
SuccessWare21 comes preconfigured with one sample template for each notification type that you can begin using immediately. Each template will be set as the default for that notification type; you can change the default if you wish.
To add or modify email templates you need the “Communications Setup” ability in SuccessWare21.
To use Job Notifications at least one of your job classes will have to be enabled for it, to do this select Setup | Job Notifications from the menu on the Communications Dashboard. This will open the Job Notification Settings form; on the left-hand side all your job classes will be listed. Displayed on the right-hand side is the job notification configuration for the selected class.
To enable job notifications for a class place a check in the Enabled box next to the class. The first time you enable a job class for notifications the template field will be filled in with the default template for that notification type. If you do not want to use the default template simply select another one. If you will be sending reminder notifications enter the number of hours prior to the appointment that the reminder should be sent. Once enabled, notifications for this class of jobs can be sent by right-clicking on the job and choosing Messages – Customer Notification. To improve efficiency you can use automatic job notifications which you enable by checking the Automatic Job Notifications Enabled box next to each notification type. In automatic mode the user does not have to right-click on the job, instead they will automatically be prompted to send the notification.
The Copy button can be used to copy the configuration from one job class to another.
To configure job classes you need the “Communications Setup” ability in SuccessWare21.
On the Employee Setup form is a tab called Work Biography, on it you can record the following information. When sending dispatch notifications you can choose to include this information in the message that you send to your customers:
· Photo – A photograph of the employee
· Text – Enter short but informative text concerning the employee’s qualifications, abilities and expertise.
· URL – The URL to this employee’s online biography, if they have one.
Please keep in mind that on the Address/Phone tab the E-Mail field will be the email address that SuccessWare21 will use when sending appointments while the Pager E-Mail field will be used when SuccessWare21 sends a page/message to the employee.
When a Job Class is configured for Job Notifications you can manually send a notice to the customer by right-clicking on the job and choose Messages | Customer Notification. This can be done from Call Center (Dispatch) or directly from the job itself. A prompt will appear from which you can select the type of notice to send, the date and time of the appointment will also appear. To customize the message even further you are free to change the date/time text. A few other points concerning the notification prompt:
· If the customer has opted out of job notifications a banner will appear on the prompt alerting you to this fact. You can override their preference and send the notice anyway if you’d like.
· Just like opting out, if you require customers to opt in to receive job notifications and they haven’t you will be alerted to this with a banner. Again, you can override this setting.
· When the prompt is displayed, if it does not appear to the system that the job notification service is running you will be alerted with a banner (and provided a means of starting it).
In automatic mode the user does not have to right-click on the job, instead they will automatically be prompted to send the notification when using Call Center (Dispatch). Automatic prompting may also occur when using the Job Screen or Job Progress Screen. In automatic mode users will be prompted to send the customer a notice when the following set of conditions is met:
· The job class is enabled for job notifications
· And the job class is configured for automatic mode
· And the customer has not opted out of job notifications
· And you do not require customers to opt in to job notifications, or if you do that the customer has opted in
In addition, depending on the type of notification being sent, the following conditions must also be met:
· Booking and Reschedule Notifications
o The appointment is scheduled for today or sometime in the future
· Dispatch Notifications
o The job is not closed and the technician has been dispatched today
· Closed Notifications
o The end date of the job is within the last 48 hours
· Cancel Notifications
o The appointment was scheduled for today or sometime in the future
After you choose to send a notification from the prompt window the message is actually queued up for sending. The job notification service is responsible for sending all queued up messages. Every time it runs the service will look at the queue and send each message only if the following conditions are met:
· Booking and Reschedule Notifications
o The appointment is scheduled for today or sometime in the future
o Or the notification was sent manually
· Reminder Notifications
o The appointment is currently within your reminder window
o Or the notification was sent manually
· Dispatch Notifications
o The job is not closed and the technician has been dispatched today
o Or the notification was sent manually
· Closed Notifications
o The end date of the job is within the last 48 hours
o Or the notification was sent manually
· Cancel Notifications
o The appointment was scheduled for today or sometime in the future
o Or the notification was sent manually
IMPORTANT: If the job notification service has been disabled, or if it is not running on any workstation then users will still be able to queue up messages they just won’t be sent.
Messages can be tailored to your business via email templates. SuccessWare21 includes a set of notification templates which you can use as is or you can customize them to fit your needs. We suggest that you use a different template for each type of notification, if you desire you can also use different templates for different job classes.
On the Call Center (Dispatch) form an image of an envelope will be displayed next to each appointment. No envelope next to an appointment indicates that it is for a job class that has not been enabled for notifications. The color of this envelope is a visual clue as to the status of the current notification:
· Gray – This appointment is for a job class is enabled for notifications and there is a message that can go out, but you have not requested the message go out.
· Yellow – This appointment has a notification that is pending, it should be sent the next time the service executes.
· White – The last notification for this appointment was sent successfully.
· Red – The last notification for this appointment failed to send. Please consult the Message Review form for the cause of the error.
Any user who can view a job or the dispatch board can send job notifications in SuccessWare21.
Whenever the job notification settings for a job class are changed, an event will be logged indicating who changed them and what was changed.
The Job Notification Service will log messages in the event log under the event type “Job Notice”. Typical messages will include:
· Recording the Start and Shutdown of the service on the workstations
· Recording that the service ran and sent data, including statistics related to the sending of messages
· Recording which notification, if any, a user choose to send when they were prompted
· Recording when a user overrode the customer’s opt in (or out) preference
Whenever a service location’s (or billing account) communication preferences are changed, an event will be logged indicating who changed it and what was changed.