Timer Talk
January 8th, 2007 by abeStop right there, provider. Were you about to email support to ask about the work order timer? Or, perish the thought, call OnForce to comment or complain about the timer? Don’t! This post will answer all of your questions. (In fact, if you attempt to contact us about the timer, I will direct you to this very page!)
Let’s start off with the basics. The work order timer is designed to ensure that all providers read work orders before accepting them. OnForce sets the timer at ninety seconds starting the very moment that you arrive at the work order page (after you pass the “CAPTCHA”:1 that keeps out the robots). It does not matter when anyone else got to that work order. They have their own individually-timed ninety second wait.
“Balderdash,” you say. “there are anomalies, I’ve seen them myself….” Here are some popular ones I hear at least once a day.
Let’s say you are second to a work order page, and the provider ahead of you has a mere one second advantage. Perhaps both of your timers will hit zero at almost the same time, and perhaps you will click accept before the button or page disappears… and you still do not get the order. Does this mean that the timer made a mistake? Or that OnForce has biased the timer against you?
No! You had ninety seconds, and so did the person ahead of you. The one second gap was enough for our system to do its assignment-thing for them, but not long enough for your internet connection and browser to draw a new “missed order” page. While we strive to represent the state of the marketplace as accurately as possible in your browser, there is the lag time inherent in pushing or pulling data across the internet.
Another scenario: Let’s say you sit at the computer, get an order notification, rush to the page, start your timer first, and still you miss out on the order. But it said you were first! You were actually not first. Indeed, while the timer has started with impeccable punctuality, your browser, or our server, has failed to keep the HTML side of the equation updated, and someone else was first. They only had to be first by the thinnest slice of a second, after all.
Even if you feel as though there is no way you were not first given how fast you reacted, remember that OnForce is polling this data billions of times a second (well, Ok, may a little slower than that, but fast nonetheless). If your cell provider or ISP has a larger spam blacklist, or physically larger data-center, than a nearby technician, then just a few extra Bayesian comparisons, or feet of light-speed transmission, might make the difference between first, second, and third. Then again, a larger ISP may have faster servers. The scenario may change daily, hourly, or by the minute. Truly, we live in fascinating times.
If you must question the timer, ask yourself this first: Is it more likely that OnForce is micromanaging every routed provider’s timer on every work order, or, is the timer as represented on your work order page perhaps not up to the billionth of a second? There, every timer-accuracy-related question… answered!
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha
January 8th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Nice, now OF is getting cocky about their place in the world.
Remember OF, you are a wonderful place for many of us. Very few use your service as their sole means for a reason.
Tomorrow, a larger company could come and create the same thing, advertise en masse and put you out within a years time.
Remember who keeps you kicking. Your customer’s and your service providers.
January 8th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Quick question. I’ve noticed that sometimes when I arrive to a work order immediately after notification, I’m second, third, etc…. No problem, but the 1st, or 2nd, 3rd, technicians timer is already at 0 and mine is at 90. Is this because the wo was routed to those techs first, and they did not accept, and then the wo was re-outed to more techs, but we still see the original techs timers?
January 8th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Hi nice,
I do not mean to sound cocky, I just want people to understand that the timer is a timer, and nothing more. We do not tilt the marketplace towards certain buyers or providers, but, instead, take what we hope is a neutral stance.
In this case, I am a provider-side client services representative, so I spend between three and five percent of my day answering questions about the timer. Why, for example, did the timer go from twenty seconds to zero without updating, or, why was I first and I didn’t get the order…things like that. I don’t have hard numbers, but I answer no less than three timer-related inquiries a day, often more. I was hoping to cut down on that number.
No offense meant to Tim, but you can see what I mean directly below your own post. I answered that question in the second paragraph of this post;
“OnForce sets the timer at ninety seconds starting the very moment that you arrive at the work order page (after you pass the CAPTCHA that keeps out the robots). It does not matter when anyone else got to that work order. They have their own individually-timed ninety second wait.”
So, you can see that there is rampant confusion about the timer. I was hoping to resolve it.
Abe J
January 8th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Hi Abe,
You did a good job of explaining and I am one of those who get frustrated and blame it on OF. Most of us get bleeped by our cells when a call comes in and we rush to the site and find ourselves at about third in line. &^%#&$ we say. If we are lucky the first two do not grab it and we get it. We have to blame someone and we blame OF. So, thanks for the explaination and we will still complain !!!
Mike
January 8th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Abe,
One bug-a-boo that I have noticed is that sometimes when my timer reaches zero it may take several seconds for the submit button to become active in the accept workorder section. When there are many sharks at the feeding frenzy, every second counts.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:18 am
We should not blame the timer, but the guys who are sitting on their pc dispaching other techs. I went on a job the other day, that required 2 techs and the other tech was not the one who got the wo. I guess there is nothing that can be done about dispatching.
January 9th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Wow, some how i feel responseable for this…. i was screaming about this just friday…
January 9th, 2007 at 6:00 am
The timer is essential for folks that want to understand the *scope-of-work* before a call is accepted. Although I have seen many complaints about this issue, I was personally happy to see its implementation. A good example is a $45 call that is a one-hour drive - I now have time to review the work order and realize that I don’t want to accept it and instead make a conditional offer. If someone else that is closer can take the call at the same price; good for them. The buyer benefits by having a provider that has read the terms before the work order was accepted.
One issue that I see as a problem, is the buyer that includes too much detailed information including warnings about how the provider will be kicked from the platform if they don’t follow the instructions exactly as their lawyer wrote them. I don’t have the time to contact my lawyer or determine the meaning of the legal paragraphs in the time alloted. Should the timer be extended to 2 hours, or should constraints be put on the buyer side to limit the excessive and useless text? Do we really need threats of non-payment if Mr X is not called within one hour upon acceptance or the tech does not fax the paperwork within 12 hours after competition of the job?
Another Example - Since I accepted the $45 work order that clearly stated that it can take up to 8 hours, it is not the buyers fault that I did not understand the scope-of-work even though the on-site time was buried in the lengthy document. Of course the limits are not stretched quite that far, but I am seeing a a few work orders offered that are clearly intended to ensure a very low hourly pay to the provider.
The intent of the timer is to allow a provider to understand the scope-of-work,. Constraints need to be made on the buyer side to ensure that we do not need to filter useless text to understand the task.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Just a quick note to say that while none of us are overthrilled about the timer, I for one am in favor of it staying as is. I believe that Onforce is doing a fabulous job handling both sides of this fence. They can make the buyers happy by doing what they can to avoid “bots” as well as “technicians” that will jump on anything just to have some work. I’d be surprised if most of those people aren’t just taking the work away from the honest souls here and having one of their other techs doing the work for them. I believe that is against rules and regs isn’t it?
Thanks for the air time.
Ed
January 9th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
No problems with the timer here other than a rare 1 second delay for the cubmit button to show, no worse than trying to grab snipe an auction on ebay waiting till 7 or 8 seconds exist so no one slides in. I do have to agree with Rick on the garbola that some buyers include - the ones that want us to cover up tatoos, long hair, have starched trousers and unmarked shirts of a specific material need to go find someone else - I don’t accept those nor do I accept ones posting $180 SL but in the body will tell you way down that they pay only $45 per hour which does not include travel and it’s a no-more-than one hour job - they make it sound super good to get people sucked in and if you don’t read well enough then you get to drive an hour, work 30 to 60 mins and bill them $45 then see the 10% fee drop that to a net 40.50 which isn’t inclusive of gas or wear/tear on the vehicle. Pfff - let them and the ones that want you to go out of the way to chase parts at a Fedex office find someone else, I get better buyers than that both here and through direct outsource outside of OF besides my regular direct clients to be messing with that idiotic stuff.
At first I though maybe the 90 seconds was too long but it’s about right but that anti-robot graphics thingy when logging in on the web is a SOB sometimes to read although Yahoo’s is worse. Just a problem of getting used to it I guess. I dislike the new forms but I’m making due and have gotten used to the timer and it’s quirks. If I miss something then it leaves me open for other things anyway.
January 9th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Not everyone is going to be happy at all times with everything.
Onforce is still the best thing going. And, if a bigger company does come along and figure out that this is a billion + dollar enterprise to be tapped, they will surely screw it up and make it more confusing that it is now.
The bottom line: Onforce and the people there are still the best thing going for this whole scenerio.
I appreciate them, but sometimes we have to keep them on their toes by complaining about things don’t we? Otherwise, things wouldn’t change.
So far, I must say. Most of the changes have been adapted for the provider. They don’t have to do that, and for that I say A++++ Onforce! Thanks!
January 9th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
I agree with “Nice”. OnForce needs to remember who pays their paycheck. THE PROVIDERS! If it weren’t for the hard working providers doing what they need to do, OnForce would not exist.
I am not happy with the Timer, but agree something had to be done and will deal with it. I do believe that OnForce need to get on the people who Dispatch. This is clearly in violation of TOS and those people need to be released from the platform.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:25 am
In regards to Ricks post earlier - some buyers route WOs as a flat fee, but hide some small hourly rate in the notes. Not fair!
January 10th, 2007 at 1:56 am
I suggest OnForce move their servers to Arizona, a block away from my office if possible
Just FYI, the OF website has become AWFUL slow lately and I think its due to the fact that people can “see the marketplace”, this must put a great strain on the servers.
Hey, the website looks better now by the way, I know you guys take our suggestions with a great deal of interest, keep it up.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I thought the timer was a good idea. Now when I rush to the work order, I have no choice but to take a minute to go through it, instead of trying to be the first to hit the submit button as soon as possible. This has saved me from making some of the mistakes I use to make when I first started with OF such as quickly grabbing a work order that was too far, too few details, or takes two hours or more to complete for just $50 bucks. It has its quirks, but definitely something I can deal with for the opportunity to add more revenue options to my tech business. Overall I think OF does a good job of trying to balance provider and buyer needs.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Fortunately I have more business than ever outside OF, I only count this as instant gas money, and it is nice to be able to pick up something in the area around another SC or project. I believe that what should be changed is the 60 mile max considering that I travel outside of my 60 miles almost daily for work. Perhaps a schedule of what zip code I will be in on any given day could be updated daily to be reflected for the buyers when they pick their 20 providers. This would allow me the opportunity to get a quick sc when in that area. The timer is a pain, although I do understand the value of it. I agree that the buyers should not be hiding details in a bunch of onforce 101,onforce 102 garbage. Isn’t that why we certified for those classes? This should be seriously changed with buyers. We only need the SOW and the time date. Short simple and understood. That is all. Fix this and we will be in good shape.
January 10th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I changed my mind. The timer is flawed. I could have had a particular job, unfortunately the submit button would not become active even though I had at least 10 seconds on everyone else. This problem will need to be addressed.I am beginning to feel like there is more scam than reliability here. And by the way my ISP is fiber optic with a 10mbps up and down. One word to sum it all up comes to mind. Ridiculous!
January 10th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Abe,
There are still some very serious issues with the timer, such as it not appearing at all for a provider, or more techs than have been routed to showing timers in the WO body.
Belkis & Lauren have been advised of these issues, but I have yet to hear of a bug fix for them.
Regards,
Randy
January 11th, 2007 at 1:44 am
This is probably going to sound silly to everyone else but I want to suggest that the 90 second timer become a 3-5 minute timer. The catch is still to get to the work order first so it being 90 seconds makes no difference if its 5 minutes.
How does this help? Well, OF imposes most of the time frames to two hours. If I had 3-5 minutes I could call my private non-OF clients and re-arrange my schedule with them in order to be able to accept the w/o. As it stands right now, I can’t call my client and within 90 seconds convince him to change the appointment time so I can accept the OF w/o.
What do you guys think? Maybe this is not such a bad idea after all.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Wow , these problems with the timer sound bad. I myself have never had any problems with it. the accept button comes active when there are 4 secs left on the timer. but you still cant click on it till time runs out. it has always worked fine for me. now that’s not to say there arent any bugs with it, just that I have never seen it myself.
I think the timer is great because before it, Techs would snatch up WO’s without even reading them. Leading to a multitude of problems on both ends. This at least gives time to safely scan over the WO before accepting without fear of some “tech” swiping it up without reading it first..
I mean come on guys, whoever you are(Techs who swiped WO’s without even reading them first). why in the world would you want to enter into a contract without even reading it first. you could be getting into anything…….. just CRAZY!!!
January 11th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Im really glad the 90 second timer has gone in. Its made life a lot better around here, despite its few quirks. Ive not really run into many issues, over the past almost 200 WOs with the timer. Then again, Im also running a moden day PC (read Athlon x2 4200 overclocked to 2.8 GHz with 2 GB of DDR2-1066) with a nice 10/1 mbps connection too.
As far as work orders that have too many details, I completely disagree. You do have the option of submitting a counter-offer, which in my experience generally gets accepted by the buyer. Granted, if they were willing to pay that extra $10 or $20 in the first place, I think the buyers would attract a lot better provider base by just offering it in the first place.
Overall, the timer has made things much more level here. As far as dispatching, yeah, thats something that really needs to be addressed. But the only way that can be done is by giving OF what they need to do their job, which means we as providers have to police ourselves for things like that.
January 11th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Hate to interject here but today I noticed something different with the timer - wondering if this is on my end (doubt it, never happened before) or a change with OF…Opened a newly routed WO but instead of the previous tech’s timer boxes I only see text above that says 2 techs viewed this before me - and it doesn’t show any timers after mine - I used that to see the history of some of them that were way low and bid on it accordingly since we can see how many techs it was routed to and see if anyone had any interest. Showing how many people viewed it before me but without their timers (or expired grey box with 0) in text and only my timers is as bad as the system prior to the timer.
If this is a change to the timer - WHY? It worked great the way it was.
January 11th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I like the timer…but I would too like to see it increased or modified. There are dispatchers in my area that stay logged on constantly and you can NEVER get a workorder. I went to a site with mutliple techs, the guy I was expecting was not there. He sent his employees. They were not registered with Onforce, just the main guy that wasn’t there.
I would like to see some changes. Maybe a wait before you can even look at the workorder. Send an email with the info…3–5 minutes before you can hit the workorder, then a 90 second timer. This would help compensate for people using POP mail as oppossed to exchange type mail and HOPEFULLY the dispatch people would end up getting a phone call to distract them and give other providers that actually do the work and understand the workorders a chance to accept them.
As it is now. There is NO way I can accept workorders anymore (I’ve even tried the txt message thing to get past POP email delays - didn’t work). The only ones I get are from clients (prior to the dispatchers snagging them all) that send them to me only. I would like to get more….and still try. But I always fail. I have not once “won” in the timer count.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Off the subject…
Today I noticed another example of a recurring problem. I receive an email stating that a WO is no longer available 2:48PM, and later receive the original WO email 3:15 PM.
Just recently I received an automated call about a WO, then an email that stated the WO was accepted by another technician, then the original WO.
How do you explain this sequence of events.
SG PowerPro
January 11th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
I have seen the issue just a couple times where my timer has gone down to zero and it was another 3-4 seconds before the Accept button became active. Aside from those times has worked prefectly. Sometimes I got to a WO and there are already 1-2 providers at zero, but I know that is related to when my cell service notified me with the text message. I am surprised that many people hate the timer so much. Without the timer it was horrible, you had to rush to read the highlights of a WO before someone else accepted it before you. If there are some issues/bugs with the timer hopefully they will get fixed but certainly there is no way it is better to go back to the way it was. Now I have time to read through and check the google map to see where the location is. That is really the main issue I see lately, the google map is giving me directions to the center of the city, not the specific location for the job. I don’t know if this is because the buyer put the address in wrong or if we aren’t meant to get the see the specific address until after accepting. However for me, location is very important to accepting. One end of the city to the other can be a huge amount of time in some cases and the deciding factor in accepting, rejecting or making an offer.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I’ve been getting my sms alerts lately after the WO has already been accepted by someone esle.
(But what irks me more than the timer is the lack of loyalty and the worship of the mighty $$$ by the buyers.)
January 12th, 2007 at 12:39 am
Bet the delays in SMS and POP mail are due to your carriers/ISPs. I used to get notice by SMS on my old service 2-3 mins after the message date/time - switched to Cingular and it happens as the WO is sent - I’ve heard the ding-ding of an SMS just about the same time as I hear the enter key hit when talking to a buyer dispatcher who’s increasing spend limit. I have both ISP and my own mail server for POP mail and I get mail from my own server 2-3 mins before my ISP’s server picks it up. Don’t even use POP anymore anyway other than to store the messages for info until they are closed and paid then I delete them.
Still can’t figure out why the timer boxes aren’t displaying for those viewing before me and after me like it used to do as little time ago as yesterday yet the text above still states they will show for those before and after me. Tried on 4 different PCs here so not something with my machine and not with my network as it does it with my laptop connected to the internet by cellular. Argh, guess it’s just a transition and modification period like the forms.
As for a wait time to even see the workorder - it’s hard enough to get in now just to read it and many times I have to pull off the road, put on my flashers and amber strobe to login and read - enough time wasted just getting past the graphics based anti-robot thing and the 90 second timer to see that the WO is padded with BS and wasn’t worth the time to pull over and login despite how good it sounded in the brief SMS.
January 12th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
I am new to the platform and did 101.
I am wondering what these other techs are doing in my area, I am sitting here with mailserver 70ms from onforce/computerrepair mailserver, I see it come in, I click on a wo, validate and there are STILL people way ahead of me. Its too fast to be human almost.
But it sounds like things are much better than they were.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Hm seems the missing timer boxes was temporary, showed up again today.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I just got a work order and within less than 5 seconds I had validated, I notice that inside there is someone who had 20 seconds ahead of me. The w/o was on its first round of routing so we can discard people from a previous route being already there.
This timer has issues, I’m sorry. Why don’t we act responsibly and take that timer off and whoever takes a work order without reading it flat out gets kicked off the system.
January 16th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
maybe instead of initially routing the buyers work request to 20 techs and watching them fight over them just to get the business, maybe there should be more strict criteria to determine who is the best qualified to handle the job and maybe it should only be routed initially to , lets say, 6 - 8 techs…if nobody accepts, then route to the next block of 6-8 techs…i believe the comment made by one of you, that dispatching is happening because if you look at the time alot of techs “accepted” a job after it was initially routed…like only 2, 3, 4 min….sounds like dispatching by someone sitting at a computer all day or they are lucky to be sitting in front of a PC (with obviously no life) conveiniently when a work order arrives….hummmmm.
January 16th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Hello, I wanter to repeat what a previous poster posted as i have the same question and i did not see it addressed….THANKS!
Tim Says:
January 8th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Quick question. I’ve noticed that sometimes when I arrive to a work order immediately after notification, I’m second, third, etc…. No problem, but the 1st, or 2nd, 3rd, technicians timer is already at 0 and mine is at 90. Is this because the wo was routed to those techs first, and they did not accept, and then the wo was re-outed to more techs, but we still see the original techs timers?
January 17th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Chris,
While dispatching is against our policies, its important to understand what “dispatching” is:
Dispatching is accepting a work order for one provider, and sending another provider — whether part of the same provider company or not, and regardless of whether that other provider is registered on OnForce — out on site for that work order.
However, if as an provider administrator, you accept a work order routed to one of your provider technicians on behalf of them, and that provider goes out on site and completes the work order, then that is not dispatching and is allowed on our platform.
So some of the providers that accept work orders very quickly are doing just that. And others are just really fast to login and get the work order.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:19 am
Lou (and Tim),
The reason(s) why you might arrive at a work order and find that other providers already have expired timers ahead of you (meaning they got to the work order more than 90 seconds before you did) is simple:
* your email notification or your SMS notification might have been delayed by your email provider or your cell phone provider, and that delay plus the delay in logging in and entering the CAPTCHA code might cause you to get to the work order just more than 90 seconds after the other providers
* or, the buyer might have first routed to a few providers, and then a few minutes (or hours, or days) later, routed that same work order to you.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Farid S.,
As Abe pointed out, the timer doesn’t have issues. Its worked properly and without bugs for many months.
First, you, as a provider, have no way of knowing what “routing round” a work order is in. Just because you first got the work order routing notification a few minutes ago doesn’t mean that that work order wasn’t routed to any number of other providers over the last few minutes, few hours, or few days. And during that time, it might have gone through several routing rounds.
Each time a work order goes through a routing round, the list of providers is effectively wiped clean, so you won’t see the timers for those providers. You will only see timers for providers that were routed during the same routing round as you.
Routing rounds are a complex internal mechanism OnForce uses to make sense of the multiple states and instances of routing that a work order goes through before it is accepted and the work performed.
Second, as I explained above in my answer to Lou and Tim, there are two common reasons why someone might have arrived at a work order 20 seconds before you did, even if you just received a work order notification SMS and/or email.
January 17th, 2007 at 1:47 am
I believe there is still to be some kind of development that needs to be made especially for the perferred partners area. Which I’m sure no one from onforce will read this because all my other comments about things that would help them have gone unanswered, but Two things - 1. If you are a preferred client I believe when they submit a W.O. that the first 30 minutes should be limited (and not shown to non-preferred) to preferred clients and if we do not take the job within 30 minutes then have it available for all. 2nd. BOTS I hate them. Sometimes I will see a job come open and I’m online already I get there - Sidenote: I have a 15 Mbps Download and 512 Kps So I have a fast connection I immediately go for the job and it has already says one person has gotten ahead of me - That is not possible. The Job was immediately taken after the clock. What needs to happen be sides the clock is…..Well the clock needs to be there for people to fully read the workorder 2nd part of it to have an audio randomly play a word and the person then has to type it or since I believe bots might get that then have a keyboard sentencing test. Meaning a person has to type out a sentance and if the server detects the text was type in faster than someone can type then kick out and reset of 90 seconds. Otherwise if it falls within human expectations then allow them in. As far as the Cell Phone acceptance. It is ridiculous. I believe the clock needs to be there, but it is hard enough to type on a cell phone. Leave out the word that is different and the check box. These are still only opinions which I know can be approved from what I have just said, but it is a start. And I do agree you need to have a system that is talyored to us because as someone said another company can start up and if they have more benefits to there providers we will go there. Like one idea. I know we are not employees but have a discount for us for different things like INSURANCE. Not necessiarly paying ya’ll but we are a Workforce that would be able to get Group Insurance because individual insurance is hard to get. Even if you only allow it to be with members that have been with y’all for over a year that is fine, but something besides certifications needs to be a benefit to stay with Onforce - Contests, Appreciation Gifts for completing over a certain amount of work orders and have 6 starts, and etc. I have thousands of ideas. I know I have personally have gotten you thousands of dollars last year and I’m greatful for y’all - I know we are not employees of Onforce but contractors and once more comptetion comes up things like these are going to help you. I go to some other places for contract work, but I’d rather be with Onforce. Please help your contractors before it is too late.
January 17th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Sam,
Thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately, I don’t believe any of your suggestions can be implemented.
# we cannot favor PowerPros to the detriment of all other providers by blocking those other providers. This is a marketplace, and if a buyer wants to send their work order to both PowerPros and non-PowerPros, that’s their choice.
# Please re-read the comments I left above yours. What you claim isn’t possible in terms of when other providers arrive at a work order in advance of you is entirely possible. I won’t waste space explaining again as its covered above.
# Using an audio CAPTCHA is an interesting idea, but not really workable, especially considering all of the adverse conditions under which a provider might attempt to accept a work order (for example, in a noisy, crowded public space). Besides, the textual CAPTCHA works well, and we haven’t had any issues with it. And we have other protections against bots.
# While the idea of offering group health insurance is an interesting one, its not something that we’re interested in pursuing right now. We’re a small company and we (and I hope our providers) want us to focus on making a better marketplace. Besides, there are a number of other places you can get discounted group health insurance (New York has the Freelancers Union, which I belonged to when I was working as an independent contractor). All of which is not to say that one day we wouldn’t offer group health insurance, just not in the near future.
# Most of what keeps providers (and you, from your comments) with OnForce is not “perks” like health insurance. Its work. Plain and simple. Our marketplace is a great way to get contract work orders, and many providers sign up and stick around because we offer not just lots of work orders, but also make processing and “invoicing” buyers effortless.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:18 am
While not related to the timer issue there are tons of small business resources for insurance if you want it (I pay cash and get a lot better deal to 1 time in every 6 yrs or more that I need a quack or tooth puller) such as NASB, which many people have probably heard advertised by the guy that used to be an actor on Little House on the Prairie. Other sources that are sponsored by small business groups such as Entrepreneur magazine, American Express small business services, etc and even direct with insurers like Blue Cross or Humana exist.
Remember like Dana says - this is a marketplace to get work as a self-employed technician, essentially a freelance. This means not having some of the perks of employment but also means not dealing with the routine, low wages and hassles of being an employee. I worked for UPS-SCS in their Toshiba Depot and while I got a regular check and outstanding benefits (opted out of them as I never use medical or dental) I hated working for $15 hr knowing I can make more in 3 hrs on my own than I could make in a mandated 10 hr shift there. I also have the opportunity to not accept work and take a deserved day off once in a while if I need - i f I did that without prior approval of a monkey they made manager I got counseled, reprimanded and was looking at possible termination.
Being self employed means being broke sometimes, it also means you are the boss and the worker. I personally enjoy this despite the drawbacks of not having some of the pseudo-perks you get as an employee.
As for the timer….most of us dislike it but it has a purpose and so far seems to work and in some cases has it’s benefits. I’m watching a workorder that no one has taken yet that is almost 36 hrs old. I can tell by mousing over one icon that 12 techs were routed and also see that I was first to see it and laugh at the low SL and that only 3 other techs have looked at it. That tells me it’s stagnant and the buyer is choked without a provider to take care of it so I posted a conditional accordingly. Still no response but if they don’t accept then they are still stuck. If they do it brought the SL to a realistic amount but not too high for the buyer and they make an end user happy at the same time. I still would like to see a coments box in the conditional in addition to or in place of the comments box in the rejection area.
January 18th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Dana…
Your email timing explanation does not address the issue I described earlier…
Today I noticed another example of a recurring problem. I receive an email stating that a WO is no longer available 2:48PM, and later receive the original WO email 3:15 PM.
How does this happen?
I have a “cable” speed email connection and SMS configured on my cell phone. Yet other techs still frequently beat me to the WOs, even when I’m sitting at my home PC.
I think Onforce should address this issue in more detail. Stating that email and cell services vary is not helpful. Onforce should strive to create a fair access platform for its techs.
SG PowerPro and PPN provider
January 19th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Stu,
There are really two possibilities for how such a thing can happen:
# Your email server delayed the arrival of the first work order notification.
# The email you received at 3:15 wasn’t the original routing notification, but rather a re-notification that gets sent out when a work order is accepted, cancelled, and rerouted.
(I think #2 is far more likely in your case, but since I don’t know the work order number, I can’t look at the routing history.)
Also, we are looking very carefully at email and SMS delivery issues. Over the past few weeks, our development and sys admin teams have been looking at a number of incidents where providers have complained about late emails and SMSes. What they’ve found is that in all instances, we sent the email (or SMS via email-to-SMS gateways made available by cell companies) immediately. There were no delays in getting out the notification emails. In all of these cases, the email or SMS was delayed by a server further down the delivery chain. And unfortunately, we have no ability to do anything about this, since our servers acted expeditiously.
We are keeping an eye on things, especially with some cell companies. We do see issues on occasion with Sprint where their email-to-SMS gateway prevents our email server from connecting for a couple of minutes since we have too many connections (we sometimes send a lot of SMSes!). We are also looking at ways to get closer to the cell carriers so we can do a better job of making sure our SMSes are promptly delivered.
January 19th, 2007 at 6:01 am
If you are receiving late SMS notifications on your cell, it is probably your cell service. There are three other techs on my team, and we don’t use the same cell provider. The difference becomes obvious when we are all working on the same job and a SMS notification of a work order arrives. One of my team members always gets the notification within seconds of mine - sometimes before and sometimes after. The other team members will get the message at the same time, 5 to 60 seconds later, or sometimes never.
When the team is together, I can ask a tech to take the service call, even if he/she didn’t get the notification yet. If we are not all working at the same location, it ends up being a free-for -all and the call is typically taken by the other tech with the fast SMS or myself. I am sure that many cell carriers do not realize that some uses of SMS are time sensitive to the point where seconds can make a difference.
January 19th, 2007 at 9:06 am
I would like to address the issue of “creat[ing] a fair access platform for…techs.”
If we queue up our SMSes based on average delivery time, then the providers on the “best” (most efficient, fastest) services would complain loudly, and correctly, that they were being unfairly punished for something they could not control. The providers on the slower services can switch to one of the better cell companies “any time” (in practice, it can be expensive), but that is not a reasonable expectation.
The same thing is true of e-mail servers, except multiply the possible differences in routing by a factor of ten…
So what is the answer? I don’t think there’s a good one right now…
January 19th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I know that OF really doesn’t care who gets all the calls as long as they get there cut, but I am pretty frustrated at the person or persons in the Durham area who seem not to have any life other than sitting in front of their screens waiting for calls and taking anything that comes along. It would be nice if those persons would give others a chance !!
January 20th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
One thing I have noticed is if you are using SMS notification and your cell service signal is dead or weak such as bad location (regular thing is rural areas), in a building that shields the signal, etc that you won’t get the SMS until you have a decent signal. I can deal with that and is beyond anyone’s control. I used to have a local KY cell provider that claims to have the least drops and signal loss yet I couldn’t get SMS with them and more than not I was in a “no service” area. I switched to Cingular and have very few problems at all even in the boonies where I travel a LOT. I’ve also since added an external antenna to my van so that when on the road I get signal in places others don’t. Things to consider as problems with delays or non-receipt of SMS. As for email some providers bounce through multiple servers slowing things down, others delay sends to bulk sends to preclude system bogs and leave more time and bandwidth open for incoming mail. Also check your settings for your email client - change the send/recieve to a smaller period - most are default for 10 to 30 min increments. I have mine set to check my mail server (POP3) and send anything (SMTP) every minute. I also have a rule in Outlook to send Onforce mail to a specific folder under the inbox that way I can look over and see that I have Onforce mail without seeing what has come in.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I find onforce to be a hassle. I do know that some jobs get routed directly to certain teachs. I have yet to get one job from this service as the jobs are alaways taken. I am not happy so far withthis. I to have had it where i was able to get in and there is always1-3 techs before. I wish they would do this in a differnt way as to route a call directly per tech if the don’t get it the next one gets it or somthing tio make it fair so everyone can get a piec of the action. The other problem is i get a call 50 miles away for a flat rate of 50 bucks.. I put my area down. I am thinking maybe we should all boycott and then service calls will come to our individual compnanies. AGAIN I KNOW SOME CALLS ARE routed to specific individuals.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I have to say that i have no problem with the timer… I use both a desktop and my phone to accept wo’s and they both work like a champ. I have a motorola Q and it works great for both notification and acceptance of work orders! In Houston with over 300 providers, so there is plenty of competition to get to them. And if you are relying on email notification to get your wo orders… well there’s your #1 problem, use text messagin on your cell… faster by a long shot!!!
January 24th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I am also frustrated with the timer. The other day, I got a “ticket” that was a few blocks away from me and the there was only one other tech before me. I tried to accept the ticket but the “Accept” button was still grayed out. After I waited for my 90 second timer to get to 0, the “Accept” button was enabled. After I clicked it, I got a message stating that the “ticket” was taken 4 seconds ago. That is so crazy. There is no way that anybody can tell whether they will be able to get a “ticket” they try to accept. Must one leave it up to sheer luck? That is so crazy! Don’t get back to me telling me that there is a clean cut science to this clock. Argh, it makes me so mad!
January 25th, 2007 at 7:24 am
I would like to defend OnForce’s position on their inability to control how the site is delivered to you and how email/SMS notifications are delivered.
As the former Director of Technology for a major ISP in Pittsburgh and the owner of an IT Outsourcing Company specializing in network deployment and security, I can attest to the uncanny nature of the internet and delivery of information.
SMS:
Email-to-SMS gateways vary greatly between cell providers and since there is no standardized or central SMS gateway to the world, it’s impossible to account for inconsistency in SMS delivery times. This gets compounded by the general email issues I’m about to describe.
Email:
There are so many factors that affect email delivery times that I couldn’t possibly list them all here. Take into account this concept. OnForce sends an email to a provider. This email is generated by the system and is sent to OnForce’s main ISP gateway. That email is then routed through any number of routers on its way to your ISP. Once it reaches you ISP, it then has to be processed by your ISP’s mail server, spam filters, anti-virus filters, and then is deposited in your inbox on the ISP’s server. Then, once your mail client checks for new messages (Outlook, for example, has a default receive interval of 5 minutes.), you receive the email. According to a study I conducted involving tracing the route of an email message from LA to Pittsburgh, the average number of routers passing along that single email ranged between 10 and 16. The number of routers between source and destination varies by the second depending on each routers determination of the “best route,” taking into account current router response times and any routers that may be unresponsive along the way. If an email should reach a dead route, the handling router could take a minute or more attempting to determine a more suitable route. If you live in a rural area with limited router density, this time frame can be even longer. Once you take a moment to realize just how complicated routing the internet really is, you begin to wonder how we receive any of our emails at all. This is also how some emails (initial notification, acceptance, etc) are received out of their original order. If the first email gets sent on a dead end route, the second email could pass right by it on a good route before the dead route is corrected and the first email gets passed along.
Web:
The website is held under the same messy routing scenario as email, as the information is passed through the very same routers. Even as you sit on the same site, the pushed or pulled data of that site could be coming to you via a number of routes that change by the second. For example, open a command prompt and ping google.com. Then wait a few minutes and ping google.com again. You will often times receive different IP addresses. This is often because a faster route (or a less busy server) between you and google.com was determined in those few minutes and the routers are now passing the information along the new “better” path.
As far as the timer is concerned, it may seem to have it’s glitches, but I think it serves it’s purpose, for the most part. It will never be perfect as the internet will never be perfect. The internet is like a never ending rush hour…you can always expect delays, construction, and the occasional idiot blocking your lane; so get used to it.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Hi Guys,
it is not the timer what is the real problem, it is the was how the buyer route the workorder.
The gray timer in front of you is from the first route, look at your emai/sms it say’s for sure re-routed.
Also I don’t see why onforce has make us power pro’s, The buyers still routed the workorder to 20 quick routed, instead giving the power pro first pick.[The will get the better tech, but maybe not the best bang for the money]
I thing workorder must be routed to power pro first and then to all,not only 5 or twenty
January 25th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
There are many buyers that choose to route work orders to PowerPros only; to members of their PPN; to providers with specific certifications and background checks; to providers they have tagged as the result of previous work with them… It is up to the buyer to whom they wish to route work orders. We provide tools to providers to showcase themselves (PowerPro, certifications, background checks, OnForce training modules, etc) and buyers the tools to make their decisions. Beyond that, we believe that it’s up to the buyer to determine the routing list - not OnForce.
That said, we are noticing a trend (I don’t have the firm data yet) that suggests buyers highly value both PowerPro and the background checks. Of all open work orders somewhere between 50% - 90% of the providers are either PowerPros or have completed background checks or both.
So PowerPros are getting work orders - but so are other promising providers. You should continue to see benefits of your PowerPro status. We are grateful for all that you do for the platform. But other providers who are equally talented will also have the opportunity to do work through the marketplace.
February 1st, 2007 at 5:38 pm
The playing field is not level. Guys with smartphones(including me) have an upper hand. Depending on the area, and amount of workorders generated, each provider should be limited to “X” amount of work orders a week/month. If no one accepts the workorder in 10 minutes then the provider that has reached his weekly/monthly limit can then accept or reject it. This will give some of the other guys a chance to build up thier numbers as well. The timer is a good start, but not the total fix to share the wealth.
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I just went to look at a workorder that just routed. I was the third in line…..no prob. The other providers that came in after me timers were counting down faster than me and faster than provider 1 and 2.
I can provide the wo upon request.