OnForce 3.4: What’s the difference?
December 12th, 2006 by gregSix or eight guys working late, yelling at each other, sweating… for a whole month. And, visibly, there’s not much difference to the OnForce platform. OK, so maybe the part about yelling and sweating was a lie, but, believe it or not, we’ve gotten a lot done in 3.4 — behind the scenes.
You may notice some snappier performance; we’ve reorganized some of our key data to be more responsive and scalable. Our new hierarchical menu is also faster and smarter; the old one was adding a few unseemly milliseconds to page loads, so we ditched it.
December 12th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Most of the time I am out on the field when orders come in. I would like to see these changes:
1. move the word puzzle at the end when and if we accept the order. The reason, we have 1.5 min to pull over and accept the order. Now the way it is, i know i will have an accident trying to type in the word puzzle while I am driving.
2. Put a timer in so we can see when we are able to accept the order through wap.
3. Allow on the main site to change the appointments on the calendar for the onforce work orders and allow us to insert or own.
Other than that the main site loads faster now. Keep up the good work.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Hopefully 3.4 will support CRICKET? That would be great!
Also in response to wap needs work, honestly if they remove that word puzzle, you won’t get any work orders as people will setup an automated acceptance system. The puzzle enables those less web coding savy to accept work orders.
I AGREE , please put a timer in the WAP if possible! The fine people at Nokia could help you guys with this in a jiff.
ANOTHER addtional I would LOVE to see is, WHEN the wo is schedule for and WHO (company).
on… TEXT, Website, and WAP….
December 13th, 2006 at 12:44 am
The new version is the cleanest I have seen so far. It is nice to see that you are now moving from redecorating to actually furnishing the site for us. =-)
Some key areas I would like to see for providers would be :
A more behind the scene role for onforce when it comes to technicians we have listed under our companies service profiles. I have yet to add any of my 7 techs, soon to be 21 techs simply because there is no way for us to choose who we assign work orders. In addition if you add a provider to our company he sees exactly the service fee’s. It makes little sense to get work for our providers from onforce if as a company we cant make money off the administration as provider supervisor.
Another positive change would be allowing work orders to be routed to a COMPANY profile, then the provider supervisor could route the work orders to internal staff. If the concept that you cannot resell onforce work orders is due to clients wanting specific people they routed to, then it would equally be prudent to allow us who act as entire service companies, to build the same relationship but on the company level.
Development of a linked Debit card program that allowed Onforce payments to be available for immediate use on a visa logo card would eliminate the drag time of transferring by ACH. The back end is basically the same and Onforce could partner with a company to produce revenue from the transactions that providers make with the payment funds. It also would allow Dual users, Buyers/providers to use the Onforce payments they get to immediately fund new work orders on the onforce system.
The linked system would be much like the Paypal Debit Card program.
Another suggestion for the marketplace would be to have two types of work orders. One work order would be the current system. Additionally buyers could place work orders out for actual bidding. This would allow the providers to have more control over the spending process and possibly create more competition within the community which in turn produces a long term lower cost to the buyer.
A buyer could list a work order for a week out, set a five day bid cycle. Providers would see updated bid information and bid lower or equal to other providers. This give the buyer control to accept a bid price, have a reserve level and even trully turn the marketplace into a market place.
A bidded system would obviously allow much larger work orders to be bid on, allowing more control of the PROVIDER COMPANY to route larger bids internally or out to other onforce providers, would really increase opportunity .
Have a great day
Stan Ashford
December 13th, 2006 at 11:07 am
1) fix the http/https certificates - I keep getting an error: name on certificate is invalid or does not match the name of the site
2) optimize the graphics and web stuff for a high-speed loading web-page (provider.onforce.com) - that way providers can use the website to login instead of WAP and get all the regular functionality, etc. provider.onforce.com could be a minimally-sized graphic web page providers could log on to!
3) ditto on the word puzzle being at the end of the work order acceptance policy - when and if we decied to get the job
4) fix the SMS message delays - Email to text/SMTP relay to text is SLOW - use SNPP: it’s faster, provides Onforce with receipt confirmation and the providers get the SMS messages in less than 10 seconds instead of 45+ seconds
We’d prefer you guys sweat and swear at each other behind the scenes, but everything you guys put your mind to is greatly improved, thanks!
December 14th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
The main thing that I would like to see in the wap interface is the ability to accept work orders for my technicians. Right now I can only accept a work order for myself.
I would be willing to pay a fee if I could use the OnForce system for routing and tracking my internal (non-Onforce) field service work orders. I have spent a lot of time looking at other online ticket tracking systems and found that the OnForce interface is the most intuitive and easy to use.
December 14th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
I would like to leave a comment on the forum about having two accounts to direct deposit. It would be nice because Part could go to Checking and part to Savings so that when Onforce work is slow that I can pull from my savings. It would be a great help because usually if I see it in the business checking account I spend the whole thing on my business for improvement or I go out and buy more electronics for the business.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:39 am
I see all kinds of changes but what I need is a way to do a conditional thru WAP other than that I will have to wait till I get to a computer to do it and most of the time that is a long wait for the buyer
December 15th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Please tell some of those companies to not put all their policies and procedures in every single work order they route. I would LOVE to see a simple and clear box that reads “scope of work” and not find a bunch of useless information. Of course it may be useful for a company to let the techs know what their procedures are but a clear window of the scope of the work order would be MUCHHH apreciated. It’s getting really hard to read these work orders lately.
Also, ditto on the WAP, I don’t use it that much but yeah, would be great. I have a secret system of figuring out which tech is coming under, but I’m not telling!!! (seconds are priceless with this type of work)
One last note, your website has become EXTREMELY slow, before I could pull all the info in a flash; I think the “explore the market place” features go too far and its killing your servers and bandwidth. Now it takes about 3-10 seconds to load a work order, sometimes even worse, especially at night.
Best wishes and thanks for all the work you keep sending my way.
December 16th, 2006 at 12:25 am
I agree completely with the conditionals via wap. I’m sure the buyers are fretting about contractual service response times when we can’t make offers while in the field. Sometimes I can’t post my conditional until 5 hours after the WO is offered.
It looks like the developers are gonna be wrapped up in wap!
December 17th, 2006 at 2:26 am
I agree. The ability to make conditional Offers through the WAP site would be a GREAT help. I almost never use the WAP site because of not having this function.
I would also like to see an option to change a flat fee WO to an Hourly WO, and vise versa when doing a conditional offer. With the ability to add comments as to why, not just a list of preset answers.
December 18th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Things I would like to see. When trying to access the current WAP with a conventional 10 key cellphone, it is a real pain to type in passwords and such. if you were to put a menu to the puzzle, so you would select 1, 2, 3 to select the correct one it would make things much easier. You could take a lead as to how Verizon lays out their main page as a lead. Using navigation by number, kind of goes back to the old “menu driven” software of 15 years ago, but it does work better in a key pad.
Using Caller ID off of the cellphone, as part or all of the password process would make things much better for the field tech instead of typing in the password. If you used caller ID and a numeric password the combination of the two should allow for sufficient security. You are just accepting work orders, not having full navigation…. so I don’t see the need for fort knox security levels here.
Also the link that leads to this page has some strange characters in it. You may want to check your coding….
December 19th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
I use a laptop tethered through the cell with GPRS so I see the same as I do in my office so things work well in that respect. I do wish the 90 seconds would drop to 60, I’ve missed a few nice workorders that I read twice waiting for the timer.
The person asking about 2 bank accounts - send your money to checking then use your online banking feature of your bank’s website to transfer from checking to savings. you get both of your accounts tied and someone compromises security and you have double trouble if someone gets access to your account. Not likely to happen but you have to stay semi-skeptical to remain safe.
As for the PDF allowing fill-in signature on a tablet I personally think that’s a bad idea despite being convenient - if you were delivering packages it would work but this is a permanent record and pen-and-ink on paper is always best. If you want backup you can always scan your paper original to PDF when completed, just as easy.
Also as mentioned in the new PDF comments - could a fill-in block be added to the conditional accept to allow us to make a brief statement to why we are asking for more than posted, like the block on the rejected WO side? I rarely use the block for the rejected side but I would make a better impression on the buyer if I could explain to them why a $150 conditional was submitted on a $50 flat that will more than likely be one trip to troubleshoot and one to fix, is 40+ miles away and that OF takes their well deserved fee and that gas is X dollars per gallon making it a loss to take at their posted rate. Many don’t know that a site is way in the boonies and takes twice as long on state roads to reach as a city site despite being the same or less distance and we all know longer trips equal less jobs can be done in a day.
All in all it’s 300% better than when I registered 2 or 3 yrs ago and getting better everyday.
December 19th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
I do have to agree with Stan on the company profile routing - if I accept direct outsourced work from a vendor they let me specify who goes as long as the tech has the required skills. I’m presently a 1 tech shop but unless it’s a workorder at a secure site (had one of those already requiring background check, drug test, specific person’s name and SSN or DL #, arrival time, plate number, etc on a military base) then letting the buyer know in the appointment notes that technician X is going to be onsite at Y time on Z date should work.
December 19th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Oh yeah - Jason’s comment about the option of flat rate OR hourly is great and should be considered, of course most low bid buyers will still go flat with ridiculous low rates to see if they can find stupid people to do long installs while not showing tatoos or long hair, wearing specific non-logo’d clothing that is pressed, etc. Most of you know the firm(s) that put out WO’s with that in yet immediately reject bids that are more in line with what a seasoned pro knows jives with the hours it will take in reality.
Sorry about the multiple note ramblings but I see most of us see the same things and want to have it work for both buyer and provider as easy and professional as possible and still have OF run smoothly and efficiently and therefore benefit more in the fees collected.
December 20th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Hello - I agree, the WAP certainly needs work.
I don’t know about other markets, but here in Boston, WO’s are accepted almost instantly, and its a real pain because buyers are putting out flat fee WO’s that don’t cover the actual time/scope listed, but there is no way to communicate with them about that. Somebody that needs $ at all costs usually swoops in and accepts the WO for the too low fee, then completely screws up the job because they didn’t know what they were doing, and the buyer has to send out another tech. This has happened many times, as I’m usually being called out to go back.
you end up with a frustrated client, buyer, and tech. Conditional offers dont even work here because the WO is accepted before one is even put in. I have seen many WO’s that are easy 3+ hour WO’s being put up with $50 flat fee SL’s. Really need to tweak this somehow.
And a note about the bidding comment; that would be a horrible idea. Nothing good has ever come from getting the lowest bidder.
December 20th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
You are in a market with a lot of part timers and those with nothing better to do so the conditional comments box, or the conditionals altogether, don’t work. If someone wants a 3+ hr job for $50 minus 10% let them have it, they won’t be doing that very long. Here in semi-rural Ky though there is a mix - some get snatched up and some sit. The comments box on a conditional here and other places would work well for both individualizing why a tech is requesting a higher spend and for the buyer to see the rationale in a tech asking for more. I don’t see the need on a rejection area though for comments - most people click reject and send and barely do the drop down let alone add comments. It merely needs to be moved from reject to conditional. That irritating 90 second timer needs to go to 60 seconds as well. I can see it to cover OF’s butt with techs crying that they didn’t have time to read the scope but had to accept to get it but I can read it 2x usually within the 90 seconds. From what some of the dispatchers tell me they still get those saying they didn’t read it anyway.
December 20th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
If the timer has to be set at 90 seconds, doesn’t it only seem fair that the buyer be required to input more detailed information about the w/o? I read the description of the w/o in about 5 seconds and then end up having to wait the other 85 seconds to accept. How about requiring model numbers, brands, OS…
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Ed I wholeheartedly agree, many workorders have very vague and lame info that can be seen at the countdown period - then you get nailed with the brunt of what the actual details are when you accept and find the main info is in 4 downloadable PDF attachments that you have to print 60 pages each and that the scope shown matches but is very minimal compared to the realistic scope you get when you accept. Of course OF has recourses for this but then you end up with problems with the buyer that they end up showing as being your fault in feedback and you look like a jerk instead of them.
Speaking of feedback - Ive noticed that buyer feedback isn’t showing (if they left it when they completed and paid) until we leave provider feedback…you might feel that you did 110% for the buyer but they left lousy feedback but you don’t see until you post all 6’s for the buyer. If I remember corrrectly the old system showed the feedback left by the buyer if and when they posted it.
December 25th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
I agree with many about the wap site. It needs more work to bring it up to the level of the main web site. There needs to the ability to accept on conditional options. The other thing that I find hard to cope with is the low pricing by the buyers on jobs that are requiring a lot of additional work they don’t consider in their pricing. It seems they are now trying to get the providers to provide work at their scheduled rates. Why should we go to the trouble to place a set of rates on our profile when the buyers are ignoring those rates and offering jobs at increasingly lower hourly rates. One example is a large buyer on the service that charges their customers three times what the offer me to provide the actual work. Why should a buyer make twice as much on a service call when the provider is the one actually doing the work. Your buyers have found that they don’t have to go by the provider hourly rates to determine what to offer to pay for a specific job. For example on certain calls the buyer is offering $55.00 to the provider for the call and the are charging the End User between $130.00 to $150.00 at their stores and they are not actually providing the physical service. And yet we are restricted from contracted to these end Users by contractual agreement. Their sales clerks are over selling the EU in materials as well as gouging on the service labor and not offering the provider equalable compensation.
December 28th, 2006 at 12:37 am
Yeah Wap needs work. So does conditional Offers. I see way too much $55.00 flat fee workorders that offer little as far as scope of work. I accepted a work order for $80 flat fee. in the description it had no HD found ( i figured simple enough plus is only 10 minutes from my location). I ended up spending over 5 hours, partly because the problem was with the internet provider and i didn’t want to get bad rating. I also had to make a second visit to install the new drive and install all the software and get it activated with MS. The system is broken, and Techs who accept the $55.00 for a 2 hour job 3 to 4 if you count travel time. Needs to submit conditional offers instead so that the buyers can see they are paying way below market rate.
December 28th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
It’s been that way all along, best you can do is make a conditional - if some schmoe takes it at posted value and it’s ridiculously low then let them have it. The buyer gets what they pay for so if they are a fresh out of high school with little or no skills in service and customer service and they do a lousy job then the EU will be ticked at the buyer, the buyer will no longer use them and eventually the lowball acceptor will need real income and find work as an employee rather than entrepreneur. It’s all good, most of the buyers I post conditionals for and get accepted are good folks to work for, the occasional low bids I’ve accepted have turned out to either be clueless or just out for the biggest profit margin they can find.
I’m pushing for the comments box to be moved from the rejection area to the conditional acceptance. I’d also like to see the timer box icon go to a box with an X across it if a provider rejects but I doubt that will happen. The comments in the rejection make no sense, it’s rejected. The comments in the conditional might be of use to the buyer to explain that our particular circumstances require a raise, not that we are trying to gouge them as many buyers are trying to do to us and the EU. Many buyers don’t have a clue that we pay 10% as well as them paying a job posting fee but then I think the fees OF is getting are fair, we are getting more than just jobs in return. Many also don’t think that we are that far or that if far that we have to travel rural roads to get to the site, and that their expected time on site for that is way off from reality. Anyway there are ups and downs with this but it works many times to the advantage of all involved. Some areas you have to grab anything that comes along to even think about it and in other areas the buyers know the work is far between so they don’t blink posting ultra low rates.
What gets me is a certain PPN that thinks they should pay low AND that we should not only be liable for 30 days for labor but also parts (they generally provide parts so they can gouge the EU more of course) so if you install a video card and it fails 15 days later you as provider get to go out for free with no cost to the buyer even though it was their part that failed, not your labor or skills. Hence I won’t sign up for that PPN. Others are fair enough to state that you have to take the good with the bad - some low to get some high and failure to take any of the lower paying jobs will either get you stalled from dispatch or removed from the PPN. Makes sense in some angles, you do it with direct customers anyway. I have a set fee but I use that as a guide - many times I go flat rate with direct clients when I am pretty sure I make out while giving a break to the client. Of course I also have alternative business (signs, engraving, candlemaking with my wife, silk screening, photography, etc) to fill in the dead time so I don’t grab jobs direct or through OF that aren’t at least a litttle bit over break-even. I can work at he local Wally World or Burger King if all I need is some slave income rather than do work onsite for free.
I never use WAP so I can’t attest to it’s need for changes. I have my laptop in a floor mount tethered to the cellphone that hooks me up by GPRS to the internet and I use the same login as I do when I’m on wired broadband. I get notices of new jobs by SMS but other than that and GPRS connection to the internet I use my cell for voice. Now I need to figure out how to fax (xmit and recv) with the cellular and I’m set.
December 28th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
I agree about comments. That field needs to be in conditional acceptance box. Also Conditional should be able to be marked /hr or /job. I’ve not done this long, but are we to assume the buyer understands the entire conditional amount is to be paid regardless of the time? It says “spend limit” Is it a limit or is it a total amount to be paid. Slight difference, but in legal terms it is a BIG difference. Should be able to mark per hour or per job
Also buyer should be anonymousely rated on his work order. If he posts a really vague order (I’ve seen many) then we should be able to make buyer aware of it without it counting against us.
December 29th, 2006 at 11:40 am
My 2 cents worth: I agree, WAP needs an overhaul; allow selecting a number instead of typing in word - seconds count when trying to accept WOs. Next: A 60 second timer would be better - with the little or if any real description of the WO being provided by the buyer is easily read well before that. Plus, I’ve noticed that if the page your on, while waiting for the timer to count down, loses focus [i.e. opening a new window/tab to accept another WO that gets posted during that time and coming back to the original page], the “Accept” button will not engage [unable to click to accept WO] and even reloading/refreshing the page is no sure way to make it active again. I’ve lost several jobs because of it, thinking that I could at least open the newer WO and come back to the one I was originally waiting on and accept it and then browse back to the second WO. Wrong. Not sure if it’s a coding or browser issue. I’m not in any position to experiment or troubleshoot the issue and unintentionally lose out on any more WOs. It’s up to OF’s developers to address that one. In addition: I would like to be able to sort my accepted WO on the “Active Work Orders” page. Making each column sort able via column name/header, thus making scheduling my work load for the day a bit easier; trying to figure out which WOs need attention first. Plus, be able to show/hide each section: especially the “Recently Missed Work Orders” section. After a day or two, this section can get quite large and becomes a major factor when trying to reload the page to show new work orders that have just been posted [or instead of 24 hours, how about 12 hours?]. Lost a few jobs because of that to. Then there is the block buyer section on the same page as “Rate Buyer” page, somehow it just doesn’t feel right to have that section there. Maybe create a new page to block buyers? As for rating buyers: more or more distinctive options are needed: a way to separate the buyer from the actual customer [i.e. The buyer shouldn’t have to take a hit in their ratings because of a rude/foul mouthed/condescending/no showing/non-responsive customer]. I’ve failed to leave ratings because of issues like this. I do not want to be the guy that lowers a buyers rating when it’s really not their fault. I would also like to add: make it a little more difficult for a buyer to close a WO without leaving a “Rating” for a provider. My rating does not truly reflect the actual amount of successfully closed WOs. Lastly: web page size, monitor screen size, and screen resolutions: it really is a “not so good designing practice” to develop a web site that has its users scroll horizontally. Even on my 19 inch LCD set to 1024×768 [resolution set due to on-board video limitations], I have that problem. Being formally educated in web design, it’s just one of my pet peeves having to scroll horizontally when I know that with a little extra effort and some simple coding, it can be controlled. It’s even worse when I have to login on someone else’s system that is using a 17 inch monitor or less [often more times then not, unable to reset screen resolutions to accommodate the page being displayed visually]. Something to think about - Thanks for reading, M
January 1st, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I finally used WAP the other day when I was local and wouldn’t you know it a large job (seemed like it at first from the SMS message) came that I felt I should give an immediate look at. It probably wouldn’t be bad on something with a touch screen like a Palm or Handspring phone or even on a blackberry but on a stock Nokia flip phone it (for lack of a better term) sucks. Not so much the WAP itself but having to multikey they buttons to get the right letter and the right case. Anyway my laptop goes with me all the time now on the mount rather than deal with that again. I ended up finding out that while the spend limit was high it was a cover for an hourly job with a no-more-than the spend limit maximum so despite it being listed as an SL of $250 they put an hourly of $60 for first hour and $40 thereafter for a job that they correctly estimated as one hour. Ok but this job had an hour travel (50 m) via rural horsepath roads so if I did the job with an hour’s travel and it did take the estimated hour they’d pay out $60 and I’d get $54….I can get that for a local job direct. So I rejected it. It didn’t move for 2 days then it either got accepted or they killed it.
We really need the comments in the conditional area rather than the rejection. I’m sure a few buyers might also appreciate info/feedback that tells why a provider is asking for more or time adjustment as well.
As for the feedback you should see each side’s feedback as posted, not this buyer’s comments held until the provider does his/hers. If I remember 2 yrs ago it was that way - I could post on closure and not see the buyer’s till they paid.
Hope to get better workorders sent this year after a few things I’ve done to make my profile better and more open to those that require specific things…hope everyone has better luck as buyers and providers in the year to come.
Russ Blakeman
RB Custom Services
Clarkson, KY USA
http://www.rbcsweb.net
January 9th, 2007 at 12:44 am
I would really like to see the WAP site offer a way to put in a conditional offer. This could be very important for the buyer as well as the provider.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:31 am
I’m a small person to this grand place but i would like to see Onforce to able to be viewed on my palm pilot. I think some of us use them instead of full size laptops.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Ok bye reading all of your comments “I feel like a schmuck” i have a business at this moment been trying to work with me and he keeps upping his bid a little higher and a little higher but i cant take it for less but i cant explain to him that I am 2 hours from sight and if I do take less i will make nothing. So yes i totally agree with the comment section being on the conditional sight.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
There is something wrong with the Work Order Notes program, in some WOs, it’s out synch. It makes it hard to review the communication log between the 2 parties; if you can not tell which is the most recent notes entered. Also the button is pressed and the several notes are generated?
August 24th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I totally agree with this comment=I see way too much $55.00 flat fee workorders that offer little as far as scope of work. Plus, the buyer expecting the tech to spend a full day on site troubleshooting; network connectivity issues, looking for access points as; if going for Easter Egg hunt thru out the site? A 24Hrs deal at a $55.00-$75 flat fee, come on!