BlueFolder Blog

BlueFolder Featured in Field Technologies Online Story on Mobile Field Service

FieldTechnologiesOnline.com, a premier sourcing site for technologies that help businesses manage mobile resources, included BlueFolder's field service management solution in their October Technology Update.

Writer Brian Albright's piece "Field Service Embraces New Mobile Devices" (registration required), focuses on field service organizations' adoption of mobile devices and the kind of mobile functionality they need to deliver better service. BlueFolder CEO Marc Fey was quoted extensively in the story.

No one doubts the value of using a rugged mobile computer for field service and maintenance applications. Semirugged and consumer grade devices, however, are slowly infiltrating what was once the domain of specialized, rugged computers.

BlueFolder's SaaS field service management solution runs smoothly on any kind of laptop, desktop workstation, or mobile device. We have seen the trend escalate among our client base, with some clients even distributing tablets to their entire field force. Thanks to Field Technologies Online for including our perspective.

BlueFolder Tip: Use "Favorites" to Become More Efficient

In a busy service management office, time is of the essence. The more steps you can save, the better. When you're using field service management software like BlueFolder, some features are quick and easy to access. If you need to see a list of all your customers, for example, simply click the "Customers" tab. But what about those parts of BlueFolder that aren't so easy to access? For example, what if you need to get to your item list on a regular basis, or access a filtered Service Request view?

Enter the "Favorites" feature. This little known feature of BlueFolder allows you to quickly bookmark parts of the application that you need to access on a regular basis, but that might require more a few more clicks to get to. Here's how it works.

First, you will need to access the part of BlueFolder you want to add to your favorites list. For example, let's say you need to regularly see a report of all the customer equipment that is past due for service, and you want to bookmark this view. Navigate to your equipment list, and select "Past due for service" from the view filter.

Next, look for the favorites tab - the small tab containing an asterisk (*) to the left of the Dashboard tab. Once you have located the favorites tab, mouse over it and click "Save as Favorite." The current page will be added to your favorites menu for quick retrieval any time you need it. Repeat this process for any page that you want to bookmark.

Reports that you need to access on a regular basis are good candidates for adding as favorites. Navigate to your Reports tab, then open and run the report. In the upper left hand corner of the screen, you will see a link labeled "Add Report to My Favorites". Click the link and your report will be added to your favorites list.

To access your favorite pages and reports later, just mouse over the favorites tab and your favorites will appear in a drop down menu for quick and easy access. BlueFolder features that previously took several steps to access are now available to you in one click!

To summarize, the Favorites feature can save you time and effort by making frequently used but hard-to-get-to sections of BlueFolder readily available. Be sure to give the Favorites feature a try today, and see how many clicks you can save!

BlueFolder Mobile Web App -New and Improved

We're very excited to introduce the new BlueFolder Mobile Edition! With new functionality and a completely redesigned user interface, your field techs will notice productivity improvements right away. If you haven't started using BlueFolder Mobile yet, now is the time to give it a try. There is no additional cost to use it, simply point your mobile browser to "YOUR-ACCOUNT.bluefolder.mobi" and log in with your BlueFolder username and password.

What's New

• Redesigned user interface ensures maximum productivity for your field techs.
• Customer records are more complete than the previous mobile edition, with support for custom fields, service history, comments, and more.
• Service Requests are also more complete, with near feature parity with the main BlueFolder web app.
• Equipment records can now be accessed.
• Creating new Service Requests is much more detailed, with the ability to choose customer, contact, location, and custom fields.
• The Service Request list is more robust, with more views than before and a much easier to use interface.
• Instead of showing your full list of assigned Service Requests, the updated Dashboard now includes a summarized list of how many Service Requests are assigned to you. The full list can be found by tapping on the item count from the dashboard.
• The Dashboard also contains a list of links to your most recently accessed items, making it easy to go back to something you were recently working on.

Screenshots

The following screenshots give you a quick sneak peek at what you'll see with the new BlueFolder Mobile.

We hope you enjoy this new release. We're excited to launch it, and look forward to adding more new mobile functionality in the near future.

Get Organized: Replace Inefficient Paper Files and Eliminate Chaos in the Field

This blog post was adapted from a BlueFolder case study. More field service management software case studies are available for free download.

While Minnesota-based Fluid Interiors successfully created performance-oriented workspaces for a growing list of clients - from office furniture installations to complex modular interior construction - the company faced a performance challenge of its own at the heart of the enterprise. Their pencil-and-paper work order management and workforce scheduling system would not be able to keep pace with expanding business. Their teams would be overwhelmed — and they wouldn’t have the data insight necessary to track the profitability and resource performance of each contract.

"Our customer base was growing quickly and we had to put some controls in place. We wanted our whole organization to be confident in the technology," said Steve Schmaltz, controller at Fluid Interiors. "We needed a stable platform to handle our growth, and that’s what we found with BlueFolder."

BlueFolder Workforce Scheduling Software Eliminates Chaos in the Field

BlueFolder’s work order management system helped Fluid Interiors master information flow, communication and documents between and within all departments. Likewise, its 24/7 interface let everyone involved on a project see which tasks had been done, which were remaining, and who was responsible for each touchpoint - removing the need to burden a single person with trying to manage all personnel in the field.

The company also saw that having a clearer picture of the internal costs of each job would let them pinpoint the pricing of their own services. With BlueFolder, Schmaltz can quickly see the status of any contract and know its budget status.

"The dashboard functionality is fantastic," Schmaltz said. "The interactivity and the drill-down links throughout the system are perfect."

"We used to have a ‘black hole’ of reportable hours when we weren’t sure what an installer was working on," said Schmaltz, who has established new profitability benchmarks since deploying BlueFolder and estimates high ROI. "Now we always know what they are doing, when they are doing it, and how long it takes. This saves us thousands every year. And our job-costing for labor is more accurate than ever."

BlueFolder and itDuzzit Announce FreshBooks Integration

In late June, we announced our new integration & partnership with FreshBooks, the leading online invoicing solution. The integration is powered by itDuzzit, a cloud integration platform that offers pre-built integration solutions.

Joining with these two leaders, we are now part of a total online platform for work scheduling and service billing software.

FreshBooks is the leader in online billing and invoicing. We're excited to team up with them to offer billing and work scheduling software capability in a complete solution that lets clients manage their service operations and billings in a seamless manner. This powerful platform will help business owners reach greater levels of efficiency and improve their cash flow.

Here are the key advantages of the integration in a nutshell. Users can:

• Create FreshBooks invoices with BlueFolder labor, material, and expenses
• Create one invoice per service request, or group several into a single invoice per customer
• Synchronize invoices as needed or schedule them to run automatically
• Automatically create customer records in FreshBooks
• Update BlueFolder service requests with FreshBooks invoice number, date, and link
• Send labor to FreshBooks time entries

These best-in-class applications create greater value for organizations - affordably. BlueFolder users can now use FreshBooks to manage all of their billing online without spending hours each month manually synchronizing data between the two systems.

Visit our website to learn more about quick and easy invoicing with BlueFolder & Freshbooks.

How Work Order Management Software Helped Computer Networker Reduce Annual Costs by $60K While Improving Service Delivery

This blog post was adapted from a BlueFolder case study. More service scheduling software case studies are available for free download.

Based in Northern California's fast-growing Central Valley, Merino Computer Concepts' (MCC) quality, timely and client-focused network and computing services set the company apart. However, their service delivery processes needed to be streamlined.

The company's team of network engineers was still dependent on a paper-based, multi-step approach to service documentation. They would fill out paper forms at client sites with details that the office manager had to later re-enter into the accounting system. The forms were then filed away, and had to be searched through whenever clients called or engineers needed client histories. On top of that, the company spent $3,600 a year printing the three-part paper forms that they manually filled out.

Field Service Scheduling Software with QuickBooks Integration

MCC initially recommended an online service management product that turned out to be too cumbersome to use: Simply scheduling an appointment on this work order management software took seven to eight steps. The search was renewed; several members of the MCC team discovered BlueFolder online and signed up for free trials of BlueFolder's web-based solution.

"The BlueFolder interface looked clean and pleasing to the eye," said president Joseph Merino. "Compared to the other products we tried, we found it to be very user friendly. It only took a couple of steps to schedule an appointment. We were really impressed with the product."

The automated export to QuickBooks further sealed the deal. That meant that, as engineers entered project data at client sites, the office manager could automatically bring those complete details right into the accounting software. It meant immediate time savings (approximately 10 hours a week) and faster billing.

Easy to Learn; One Location for Managing Client Service

Within a day of launching BlueFolder, team members were up and running with minimal training, using the solution to schedule appointments, track client hours, log the details of client visits and support billing. Network engineers could log on from any location to see a client's network infrastructure and histories, and update the system with new details. A time-tracking feature of BlueFolder allowed them to track labor hours accurately.

And not only did the Quickbooks Integration compress billing time, it automatically imported data from the BlueFolder side, such as engineers' notes, which let customers share important details about the services. One click now brought all service ticket information into QuickBooks, increasing invoice accuracy and speeding the process by an average of 2-3 days.

Simpler Service Agreement Tracking

MCC also benefits from a valuable feature that BlueFolder incorporated as a result of customer feedback - tracking of service agreements. Before, MCC logged work against service agreements by noting time spent in Excel™, which was not always accurate.

With BlueFolder, the team now had a category for service agreements. As engineers work with a specific client, the time logged in that category is subtracted from the total service agreement hours to ensure that everyone always has an exact record. MCC can view the total at any time, and can easily generate reports for clients.

As a manager, Joe Merino also appreciates the detailed information that BlueFolder offers. He regularly reports on labor hours in BlueFolder to understand workloads - insight that supported the decision to hire another engineer. MCC also elevated client response times with the ability to look up information immediately, instead of having to call clients back after sorting through paper files.

ROI in Just Weeks

Merino expected to reduce costs with BlueFolder, but the savings exceeded expectations. Combining time saved by the office manager, as well as by engineers in noting and locating details about client service, the team has recouped $1,100 per week in staff time. With an additional $3,600 in printing costs, savings over the course of a year add up to around $60,000 - helping pay for another billable network engineer to improve service.

"Within a couple of weeks, BlueFolder easily paid for itself," Merino said. "We're very happy with the product, and service from BlueFolder has been excellent. They always respond immediately."

BlueFolder's New Signature Capture Means Paperless, Instant Customer Approval and Streamlined Billing

To help BlueFolder's field service solution users speed approval and simplify their documentation, we recently added Signature Capture to our list of field service management features.

Signature Capture lets BlueFolder customers sign a Billing Summary electronically. The customer signature is easily captured with any touch screen device, such as an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone. BlueFolder's Signature Capture saves the signature as a file, along with a copy of the document the customer signed. The document and signature image are saved into the BlueFolder account for safekeeping and are available for viewing, emailing, or printing at any time. BlueFolder automatically date and time stamps the signature.

This completely paperless and streamlined process makes billing and verification even easier for our customers — and easier for them to deliver good service to their customers in return.

Web Based Scheduling Software Keeps the Pulse for Agfa Heartlab Cardiovascular

Heartlab is a world leader in digital management of images and information for cardiologists faced with the challenge of improving patient outcomes while striving to reduce the cost of healthcare. Its digital image and information management for cardiology give physicians fast, easy and seamless access to patient information. Heartlab streamlines workflow and drives more timely diagnostic decisions that lead to improved patient care and more effective cost control.

To ensure smooth operations, Heartlab provides installation, training, project management and comprehensive support to its growing customer base. In 2006, the company explored resource scheduling software options to improve the scheduling of customer appointments from installation dates to service calls. At the time, departments were manually logging appointments in Microsoft Outlook™ to a more efficient system.

"Field services reps could only access the appointment calendar in the office; there was no way to track the status of specific customer issues," said Tracey Bewlay, Cardiovascular Product Support Manager at Heartlab.After researching various scheduling applications, Heartlab selected BlueFolder. The web-based solution would free the company from the costs and hassle of implementing and maintaining software in house, and let them get the solution up and running immediately.

"BlueFolder had everything we needed," Bewlay said. "It was the easiest solution to use and wouldn't require a huge training process. Anyone can use its web based scheduling software features, and we can keep and easily access detailed customer information."

Real-Time Information for Enhanced Customer Service

BlueFolder immediately demonstrated its ease of use; Heartlab users could pick up the system and start customizing customer information in about 10 minutes. Adoption began with Product Support and is now used by Support, Installation, Interface, Training and Project Management teams.

Now anybody who interfaces with customers can see and update customer appointments and status in real time. They can see when a customer issue has been resolved. And with an accurate view of all schedules, departments like Project Management give customers more precise estimates for services like installation and training. BlueFolder's resource scheduling software functionality simplifies daily scheduling for managers, allowing them to focus on more strategic aspects of their jobs. They immediately know who's available and can create tighter, more organized schedules.

"Real-time visibility with BlueFolder saves teams time," Bewlay said. "There's a lot less emailing and calling back and forth to track down customer information."

Product Update: More Detailed Labor Tracking

BlueFolder now supports the ability to track service labor in 6 minute increments, in addition to the existing 15 minute increments. In fact, you can customize which type of labor increment you want to use by going to "Settings > Customize > Service Requests". You can turn on both 15 minute and 6 minute increments, or turn them both off if you want to force all labor to be entered in whole hour increments.

Product Update: Signature Capture!

Introducing Signature Capture for BlueFolder. Now you can have your customers sign a Billing Summary without ever printing one! Just use a touchscreen device, like an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone and let your customer sign their name right on the screen. BlueFolder captures the signature and saves it as an image file, along with a copy of the document the customer signed. The document and signature image are saved into your BlueFolder account for safekeeping and are available for viewing, emailing, or printing at any time.

How It Works

Signature Capture is available for our Premium Edition customers. We've updated both our main application as well as our mobile application to support this new functionality. To access it, you simply click the new "Sign" button at the top of a printable document like the "Billing Summary", or "Entry Form". A box will appear with an area that lets your customer sign their name, and then type it below. BlueFolder will date/time stamp the signature when you click the Submit button. It's that easy. Saved copies of your signed documents will appear in the "Files" tab within a Service Request for easy retrieval at a later date. Also, if you have a signed copy of the "Billing Summary" for a Service Request, the "Billing" tab will also contain a link to the signed copy.

We hope you enjoy this exciting new feature. Thanks for using BlueFolder!