New Release: OnForce version 2.9
April 11th, 2006 by danaWe are excited to announce the launch of a few new features for both clients and providers that improve the platform’s functionality and ease-of-use.
h2. Custom Routing
Custom routing allows clients increased flexibility in routing work orders while simplifying the process by adding options such as “previously used providers”, “closest providers”, or the ability to “see all available providers”. Advanced sorting features and detailed provider information is available to make more accurate routing decisions based on the client’s business need.
On the Work Order confirmation page, new buttons have been added on the top of the page. These buttons allow you to quickly route your work order, automatically pre-selecting the most appropriate provider for the service event need.
The platform now supports manual selection of providers for greater routing flexibility. Simply select the “See all Available Technicians” option, to be taken to the Routing page.
!http://blog.onforce.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/routing.gif!
Once on the Routing page, all Providers that offer the category of service being requested for that area, will be available. This list of available Providers, can be sorted, and filtered by Name, Tech Id, and certification using the “Filter” text box. To select Providers who fit the criteria, click the “Add” button to include your choices into the routing list. As Providers are added, the “Selected Technicians” list grows. The new interface allows for easier reviewing and removal of your selections.
Once the routing list is completed, press the “Route to These Technicians” button, and the Work Order will be sent to those Providers. Additional providers can be added by returning to the Routing page.
Greater functionality is added when a work order needs to be re-routed. On the routing page re-routed work orders will be pre-populated with the providers that were previously selected and will enable users to “Add” or “Remove” Providers to further customize the re-routing list.
If you have a Tech Id of a particular Provider that you’d like to manually add to the list, click the “Add Providers by Tech ID” button and enter the Provider’s Tech Id to the list.
The list of routed Providers is always available at the bottom of the Routing Page.
h2. Alternate Logo
With our Alternate Logo feature, clients have the ability to save multiple logos within a Client Command Center and load an alternative logo on a work order for privately labeled on-site services.
!http://blog.onforce.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/customlogo.gif!
You can upload a new logo by using the File Manager, which is available under the “Preferences” menu in your Client Command Center.
h2. Additional Certifications
We’ve added a bunch of new certifications, including Dell and CEDIA certifications. The new certifications are:
* Dell Associate Server Certification V7.0
* Dell Associate Server Certification V8.0
* Printers - Dell 1600n
* Dell Printers - Dell 1700 / 1700n
* Dell Printers - Dell 3100cn
* Dell Printers - Dell 5100cn
* Dell Printers - Dell M5200 N
* Dell Printers - Dell P1500 and S2500\S2500N
* Dell Basic Wireless Technology
* Dell Basic Wireless Technology
* CEDIA Certified Professional Installer I
* CEDIA Certified Professional Installer II
* CEDIA Certified Professional Designer
* CEDIA Certified Professional Home Theater Designer
* Toshiba Associate Technician
* Toshiba Certified Technician
If you have specific questions on how to use the features, please send an email to “info@onforce.com”:mailto:info@onforce.com.
April 11th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Can we as techinicians become certified on the list of certifications?
April 11th, 2006 at 10:48 am
This is great. I love the fact that you guys keep improving the network.
These features are beneficial to both clients and providers. The logo feature will now allow clients to represent more than one company under one account. Manual selection is a plus, the technicians who are continuously doing a great job will most likely get selected manually for more jobs. Remember guys customer service is the key.
Keep up the good work!
Phanel
April 11th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Please put the work order history View Back.
April 11th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Tina,
That’s a bug that slipped by us. Look for this to be fixed tonight.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:04 am
When are the Certifications (other than Dell) going to be available? If they are available, where do I go to access them?
April 17th, 2006 at 9:21 am
rdavidc,
The certifications have been available since last tuesday. To access them, edit your service profile. From this page, you can add new certifications.
April 17th, 2006 at 10:50 am
ok thank you
April 18th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
For some reason since these new features came up I stopped receiving Networking jobs altogether, all i get now is Hardware work orders.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
I would like to see in the Conditional Offer section when accepting a work order the ability to request a higher dollar/hour rate in the case that the work order isn’t a flat-rate fee.
April 21st, 2006 at 12:54 am
love it if i could except/decline a work order through reply to text message.
April 21st, 2006 at 5:59 pm
It would be nice if you could see the company thatissued the work order. Some of the clients that you select ask for rediculous payment options as well are not very professional in nature.
April 21st, 2006 at 9:37 pm
I agree with Crystal. The companies can see us when they are routing, so we should be able to see them.
April 22nd, 2006 at 2:10 am
How about an update to the WAP setup? I find I spend at least 5 minutes just trying to get to the bottom of a page to accept/reject WO’s. Perhaps smaller info screens for faster transfer, but add more options (pages) to view other details. ie; first page - available WO’s, 2nd page - when and where and type of job, 3rd page - WO details, 4th page - client specifics, 5th page - accept/reject.
Basically, less info per screen, multiple pages for faster navigation. Most clients have the same ’specifics’ on thier WO’s so I don’t need to waste time scrolling down 100’s of lines of text to get to the bottom to accept/reject. Since if one is aware of the client already, they can skip reading it and go for the heart of the WO and accept/reject it.
April 23rd, 2006 at 3:39 am
I strongly agree that the customer name should be available. As mentioned some of them aren’t very good to work for and it seems they attempt every thing possible to try adn trick the providers into accepting work.
It would be very helpful to be able to write a short note or explaination for conditional offers.
April 24th, 2006 at 8:08 am
I agree that the client’s name should be available before we accept, or we be allowed to cancel if it is a client we do not wish to work for with no penalty.
Tricking the provider into accepting is not the answer.
April 24th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
I agree with the concept of suppling the client name on the accept/reject work order postings. Also some of these larger clients are taking to long to close a completed work order. One to two weeks is just too long. When you consider the provider has to wait an additional three to five days just to get the funds they are due to a point where they can spend them. But overall you have done a fantastic job with this service in connecting clients with top notch providers. There are still a few uninitiated providers who think they can just skate by taking jobs they are not qualified to be preforming but they are beginning to thin out.
April 25th, 2006 at 7:59 am
My suggestion is that there be an interactive comment box on the conditional side, that is available for everyone to see. If there are valid questions about the job… everyone who is trying to bid for the job would be able to see it in black and white, and act on the information accordingly.
For example, as I saw in a recent job offer, a networking job that looked as if it were turnkey ( all parts included), but had checked another box stating that the technician would be required to supply any additional parts at a cost out of his own pocket! What’s up with that???
I had no way of responding over the regular conditional offer section, so I rejected it (conditionally) with a note in the rejection comment box. Never got any response. Obviously I did not get the job either!
Another suggestion, one of the vendors has parts shipped to FEDEX, and left at the depot. That is fine if the job is going in the direction of the FEDEX depot. In one recent case, this policy would cause me to drive 40 miles out of my way to run a call that is only 6 miles away.
My solution: FEDEX does offer FREE in transit re-routing, but it must come as a request from the SHIPPER. When the person who gets the bid finds that the job is going in a different direction from the depot, there should be a “redirect” request box…. and then the FEDEX package is delivered to your doorstep, saving gallons of gas and DOLLARS!
April 25th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
These are all great suggestions. I’d request that if you have a suggestion, you email it to “suggestions@onforce.com”:mailto:suggestions@onforce.com, so that we can track it properly and prioritize it for implementation.
April 26th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
I would love it if all work orers could be phoned in to my personal cell number.I miss a lot of work orders trying to get to a pc before someone else gets the job.
April 26th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I also agree with wanting to see who the vendor is before accepting the assignment.They can see u, why shouldnt we have the same option.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
SPECIFIC TIME FRAME FOR RATING.
SOME PEOPLE RATE ALWAYS GOOD, SOME ONE SAY WE RATE GOOD IF PERSON WORK GOOD BUT THEY NEVER RATE GOOD. I HAVE 26 WORK ORDER DONE BUT ONE COMPANY I DID JOB 1 MONTHS AGO YESTERDAY RATE ME VERY VERY BAD.BECAUSE THEY GET CALL AGAIN FROM SAME CLIENT. AS JOB ASSIGN TO ME IS FOR DIAGNOSE ONLY.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:43 am
If the Client is able to see the Provider’s information before sending a work order, then it is only fair for the Providers to see the Client’s information before accepting the work order. In the least, the name of the client must be on the routed work order.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:50 am
Many techs that are quite job specific capable, do not have certs. Clients need access to job capabilities when routing - especially when it comes to Apple and electronics. Also, there are 1.5 tons of techs who seem to have signed on, and passed on. Adding a column showing when the tech last accepted a work order would be of benefit to the client.
I’m also in favor of a more interactive conditional process. Techs need to be allowed a little room to say why they’re putting in a conditional, so the client can do some homework and submit a response.
May 3rd, 2006 at 5:39 pm
There should be the option to conditionally accept a work order using wap.onforce.com.
May 8th, 2006 at 6:41 am
I agree with Rick Shultz. I recently had a WO for about $120 for which I had to drive 50 miles from D.C. to pick up this LCDTV and then drive back 50 miles back and 10 miles to location. At this point I would have spent $70 in gas tank of an SUV (to transport a 60″TV) then it required 2 techs to do the job. Now thats leaves me with $50 that I would have to split with someone else now leaving me with $25 plus no gas and spent about 3-4 hours. Sale Reps need to know theyre area before gettings these work orders becasue it would seam more profitable to turn down a WO.
One more thing; I understand that there are times you need to cater to the customer but sending a tech in the middle of rush hour to do a 1/2 hour job is not worth it. Im in Bethesda MD and Ive turned down jobs in VA because of this reason alone. In rush hour (3PM-8)PM it would take about 1-2 hours to get to the location and coming back is pretty much about the same so now I’ve spent nearly half a day for a $35-70 job.
Onforce should be considering Emergency Rates.
May 8th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
I have joined several PPN’s and honestly I see no diference in call volume or the number of techs being routed PPN calls. This is my second year and I have closed alot of calls and PPN or not it always seems the same. I see the call was opened and routed to 5 techs, then re routed to 20-30 techs by an employee before I am even notified the call exists. Maybe we can shrink the coverage area to say 20 miles and have the calls routed directly to us? This gives the tech a chance to read the work order. When work orders come through now we have the chance to glance at the price, location and a brief description(eg pc install) and hope there are no work order notes to the contradictory before we accept. I’m sure it is frustrating to the companies sending the work orders out to have a tech call and cancel a work order because he or she was unable to fully read the details before accepting it….
May 16th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
We would love to see a way to exclude technicians based on technician ID rather then doing each one manually.
May 18th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
I am in agreement with adding emergency rates. Also, shipping directly to the technician is an option that would be very useful. Often, a part is shipped to a fedex location that is not enroute to the client site. If the part could be sent directly to the client or the technician a great deal of unnecessary travel time by the technician could be spared. Another possibility is to utilize a shipping destination that is near the technician’s location as opposed to the client’s. Of course, these suggestion will only work when the work order is sent out prior to shipment of replacement parts.
May 25th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
1) I would like to select zip codes to work in.
2) I would like to set a minimum flat rate per zip code. For example: $40 for this zip code, $50 for that zip code etc.
While I can take a $50 work order 5 miles away, I cannot make money on a $50 work order 40 miles away.
3) I would like to see miles to job in the wo notification before I accept or reject a job.
4) I hope more priority goes to closest provider.
June 5th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
I agree with people on here about being able to reject w.o’s better and quicker when you see a job come up that is not feasible to do at that time. Also, the flat fee is not good when I travel all over the state and parts of New Hampshire..Gas is $40 + bucks for 13 GALLONS ! I can not afford to go and work my butt off and only make like 5 - 10 bucks in the end
I need to get more jobs than printers, I do fix some printers not all of them.Need more jobs that are good paying. One company threw me in to some things as I was the only one available,1 or 2 of those jobs did not work out right for me at that time. Now I have tools, laptops, ect…with more coming to do these jobs right 
I am in-love with computers and that is why I stay with this.
June 19th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
I agree there needs to be bigger payouts on work orders. Its not really worth my time to accept anything below 100.00 anymore. Gas is way to expensive now with all of the traveling all over the valley area. There is also one vendor in particular who seems to have alot of problems with thier jobs due to neglicance on the sales people part in selling services and wong or unecessary product. I really will not accept any of thier jobs unless it is 100.00 min for putting up with all the frustration. Also it would be helpful to see nearest cross street on work orders before excepting. I have had some stating they were in phoenix but ended up being much farther out and not in phoenix. It would be very helpful especially if job income is going to be very small payouts.
June 21st, 2006 at 12:44 pm
I agrre with being able to see the client before we accept. I would have a perfect rating if it wasnt for my very first work order being rated by some person I never even met or talked to, and who was going off the end users comments and the end user was upset because the clients phone diagnosis was wrong. I was just there to install the part and I got the negative feedback. Also being able to accept the order via text message would be awesome.
June 21st, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Also, things somrtimes happen that we can not control and being able to cancel a work order, if sufficient time is left to re-route, with out the risk of being deleted would be nice.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:21 pm
I have been losing jobs for 5 - 10 or 15 seconds. There should be some way to avoid this. Sometimes, the ‘no longer available’ mail comes before the order. Is there some way to make this job offers more flexible or somehow not to run to gain 5 or 10 seconds??
Thanks