Apps to streamline your workday

ServiceMax, www.servicemax.com, is a cloud-based, subscription based suite of modular applications for field service management of any size field service operation. The solution can be accessed via a web browser on iPhones, smartphones and tablets, as well as by laptops and desktops.

The Scheduling module enables routing of field technicians based on geographic location, customer severity, drive time, or by prioritizing to the highest value customers. The module supports ability to give customers real-time work order status updates. Reports and dashboard screens show work order data, including the team's service history, overall parts usage and time consumed, and failure analysis.  

The Contract Management module provides accurate service tracking and billing and includes complete visibility into warranty and contracts in service delivery. The module supports multiple product and labor pricebooks. Rich labor pricing options include fixed price, minimum labor charged, rounding time charged and the ability to set product or produce line-specific labor pricing. Users can create and manage templates of popular service plans. The module also has the abilities to define service level agreement tiers with defined response and resolution times and to automatically calculate work order line pricing based on contract price terms and discounts.

The Field Service Inventory and Parts Logistics module allows users to manage parts, returns and repairs across any network, tracking parts in the warehouse and in trunk stock and ensuring that the right technician is dispatched with the right part. The module's auto-replenishment feature ensures optimal inventory levels, minimizing overstocking while preventing stock run-out. 

The Social module enables real-time secure communication across an entire company. Technicians can post questions or troubleshoot with others. The remote device monitoring capability allows companies to get notified by the product when something is wrong or about to go wrong. That feature allows the contractor to either send a service technician to the customer site and fix the problem before the customer may even know there is one or, in some situations, call the customer and advise a quick fix (if that is a possibility), saving a service call. The module also supports issuing of automated alerts of accounts with high volume activity.

The Customer Portal offers customers self-service capabilities, including direct visibility to relevant work-orders, case details and service history. Customers can create their own service requests and work orders based on their time availability. The Partner Portal supports dispatching of work orders to partners and the tracking of them and provides partners similar self-service capabilities on field service operation.    

The ServiceMax Mobile for iPad features touch-screen capabilities, putting case histories, parts information, logistics, repairs, warranties, and other knowledge bases on an iPad screen whether there is Internet connectivity or not. Technicians can take advantage of route planning and driving directions and view videos and product manuals at the customer site. The module supports summary invoicing, enabling on-the-spot signature capture, PDF creation, and e-mail integration for immediate invoicing.

CloudTakeoffis another cloud-based, subscription-based application, this time for PCs and MACs, that enables contractors to share plans and specs with subs, vendors and others invited to bid on the plans or provide pricing for the job. They access the plans online for free simply by clicking on an e-mailed invite and filling in just a bit of basic information. Invitations can be sent individually or batched with the blind copy feature, so recipients do not seem who else was invited. The solution, which automatically converts the plans into the format of the server, facilitates takeoffs of measurements and counts on digital plans from any source, including SmartBidNet.com, Dodge, Reed, iSqFt.com, Builders Exchange, Blue Book and FTP sites, with results linkable to an Excel workbook. 

Users can take advantage of drop-down Option Sets under conditions or the Project Tags feature which allows users to track and filter takeoff items by location, detail, room, floor, base bid, alternate or other user-defined criteria.

Created by the American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE), the Plumbing Engineering & Design Tables App(downloadable free athttp://aspe.org/tablesapp) offers, according to ASPE, "all of the equations, pipe sizing data, and background information" needed to complete plumbing system design and installation projects on a daily basis. The app, the information for which is taken from the Plumbing Engineering & Design Handbook of Tables, includes data and information from the major plumbing codes and standards used in the U.S., including the International Plumbing Code (IPC), Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC), and National Standard Plumbing Code. Sizing data appears in both SI and English units.

Interactive design tables allow users to choose the appropriate pipe material and other design criteria and quickly calculate pipe flow rates and velocities, friction loss, pressure loss and stack flow rates. The tables cover all of the formulas and equations commonly used in plumbing system design projects.

ASPE members can use all of the features in the app while non-members can, according to ASPE, use the free download to see limited examples of how the app can be used.

Bill and Patti Feldman write articles and web content for trade magazines and manufacturers of building products. They can be reached at [email protected].