We’re happy to announce the launch of version 4.7 of the OnForce marketplace. This release includes several new features for both buyers and our provider community. In no particular order, here are the highlights:

Giving Consumer Electronics Its Due: OnForce has split Consumer Electronics out separate from IT into its own category. This will enable providers to specify their CE skills more accurately, and buyers to find the pros with the right skills for CE work like installations of flat panel TV, home theater or audio devices.

Provider Skills Selector: As part of splitting CE into its own top-level category, we’ve revamped our skills selector that pros can use to profile their skills.

Work Order Templates: Buyers can now create work order templates that contain pre-defined information. This will save buyers time, hassle and keystrokes in creating new work orders from these templates. When a buyer creates a new work order, they can select a template to pre-populate some or all location, attachments, and routing rule info for that work order. Buyers can use templates that do or do not specify price, address or custom fields. Work order templates can be accessed in the BCC under “Company Settings”. Learn more.

Document management: You asked… we listened. Now, providers can submit work order documentation by uploading and emailing scanned versions of documents. Providers can print, complete and submit a doc by uploading the scanned TIFF files to the online work orders, by emailing the TIFF as an attachment to documents@onforce.com, or by submitting them via fax. Learn more.

*New Certifications: Based upon feedback from our buyers and pros, we’ve added new certs to the OnForce platform. Going forward, providers can add (and buyers can find pros with) the following certifications:

·Dell: Point of Sale Product, Foundation 2008 Desktop, Foundation 2008 Portables
·CompTIA: PDI+
·HP: MasterTech TV, MasterTech PC
·Apple: Apple Certified Macintosh Technician

As of today (that’s v 4.6.2 for those of you keeping score at home), providers can now include comments when they make a conditional offer to a buyer.

This enables buyers and providers to interact directly, so buyers can better understand the reason(s) behind a conditional offer. Our intent is to help establish greater communication and trust early in the process. Learn more about how this feature works.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of version 4.6 of our platform. This release includes several new features that will make the platform more powerful and easier to use for buyers to find, manage and pay contract IT service pros, and for OnForce providers to manage the work they receive.

Buyer Routing Rules: The routing rules feature enables administrators, managers and staff members to save routing requirements and apply them when routing a work order. This simplifies routing when creating work orders or when using the API. Learn more by contacting your account manager or clicking here.

New WAP Functionality: Conditional offers can now be made through the WAP site, and when rejecting a work order, providers have the ability to request that they do not receive future notifications concerning that work order. For details, check out the related provider help topic.

Renamed and Redesigned Provider Command Center: The Online Office is now the Provider Command Center - and more than just the name has changed. The navigation now resides on the left side of the page, and the look and feel is aligned with the design of the Buyer Command Center. This brings us one step closer to our future vision for a unified Command Center for all OnForce users.

New Provider Command Center Features: New Provider Command Center functionality has been introduced with this release, including:
*Provider Supervisors can now manage multiple technicians through the calendar view.
*The work order search now allows providers to search by work order title.
*The withdrawal amount has been increased from $999 per day to $2500.
*Service through AT&T has been added as an SMS option.

OnForce is excited to announce the launch of version 4.5 of our platform. This release includes features and enhancements that will make the OnForce marketplace easier to use and enable our buyers and providers to gain even greater financial benefit, including:

Buyer Rebate Program: This is a newly created volume-based rewards program that enables buyers to earn rebates of up to 30% off the $11 OnForce access fee when their monthly work order totals hit certain volume thresholds. Based on the volume of work orders routed per calendar month, buyers will receive a portion of their OnForce access fees in the form of credit that is applied to their Buyer Command Center. Learn more about the Buyer Rebate Program.

Canadian Expansion: As we continue to grow our presence in Canada, we want to remind service buyers who need contract IT professionals across Canada that they can now use OnForce to find, manage and pay these service pros. We are actively recruiting more providers and continuing to build our marketplace, but we already have strong coverage in key metro markets like Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton and Montreal. Check out the Canadian marketplace at www.onforce.ca.

Revised Provider Commission Structure: Over the past year, OnForce has observed a dramatic increase in the number of high-value work orders in the marketplace (eg – micro-staffing engagements, weeklong work orders, etc). In these instances, our providers and buyers alike gave us feedback that the 10% fee was too high a price for providers to fairly incur. In response to this trend and the feedback from the marketplace, OnForce has implemented a revised provider commission model for work orders that are greater than $1,000.

This new commission structure is tiered and based on pre-tax work order price, including parts. It affects only those work orders that close at $1,000 or more. This new structure will be automatically applied to all work orders and providers. Check out the full details of our revised provider commission structure.

Active Work Orders Page: The Active Work Orders page in the Online Office has been updated to enable our providers to better organize and manage their work orders. Work orders are now grouped by status: Routed, Open, Problem, Cancelled, Awaiting Payment and Missed.

This new design also enables a provider’s work orders to be sorted by ID, Date Added, Date Scheduled, Appointment, Scope of Work, Location and Price.

Updated Oct 12: Fixed links to Buyer and Provider Activity Report Samples at the bottom

In our upcoming v4.3 release (scheduled for mid-October), we’re making some significant changes in buyer and provider Activity Reports. These reports are used by many buyers and providers for offline tracking of both open and closed work orders, and some of these users have even built Excel macros that use the data in these reports.

*The nature of these changes will break most macros, and will require all buyers and providers to review their reports to ensure that they contain all of the data they depend upon.*

h1. Information Groups

One of the big changes to Activity Reports is that we are consolidating the selection of columns that can be displayed in a report into “Information Groups”. The purpose of Information Groups is to collect all related information together, while simplifying the Activity Reports interface.

!http://blog.onforce.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/activity-report-screenshot.jpg!

When you select an Information Group, all columns contained in that Information Group will appear in the Activity Report. For example, if you select the Feedback Information Group, the columns Buyer Rating, Provider Rating, Buyer Comments, and Provider Comments will all appear in the Activity Report.

The Information Groups displayed in the screenshot above contain the following columns, in the listed order:

*Work Order ID*
Work Order ID

*Buyer Information*
Created By (_buyer only_)
Closed By (_buyer only_)
Buyer Company Name (_provider only_)

*Provider Information*
Provider ID
Provider Name
Provider Company Name (_buyer only_)

*Work Order Status*
Status
Sub-Status

*Work Order Dates*
Service Date
Appointment Date
Date Created (_buyer only_)
Date First Routed (_buyer only_)
Date Accepted
Date Completed
Date Closed
Date Cancelled

*Work Order Description (pre-v4)*
Title
Service Category
Service Subcategory
Model #
Operating System
Serial #
Manufacturer

*Work Order Description (v4)*
Title
Tasks

*Work Order Pricing*
Pricing Method
Spend Limit (US$)
Initial Spend Limit (US$)
Hourly Rate (US$)
Parts Included

*Work Order Location*
End User Name
End User Phone (_buyer only_)
Location Name
Location City
Location State/Province
Location Zip/Postal Code
Location Country

*Work Order Custom Fields*
Custom Fields (_buyer only_)
Custom Fields for Provider (_buyer only_)
Custom Fields (_provider only_)
Buyer Custom Fields (_provider only_)

*Work Order Completion Information*
Resolution Notes
On-Site Dates
Total Hours On Site (calc.)
Hours Worked

*Work Order Service Fee*
Access Fee (US$) (_buyer only_)
OnForce Commission (US$) (_provider only_)
Parts Total (US$)
Labor Total (US$)
Other Total (US$)

*Taxes (US)*
Access Fee GST (US$) (_buyer only_)
Sales Tax (US$)
Service Tax (US$)

*Taxes (Canada)*
Access Fee GST (US$) (_buyer only_)
Service Fee GST (US$) (_provider only_)
Nova Scotia HST (US$)
New Brunswick HST (US$)
Newfoundland/Labrador HST (US$)
British Columbia PST (US$)
Alberta PST (US$)
Saskatchewan PST (US$)
Manitoba PST (US$)
Ontario PST (US$)
Quebec PST (US$)
Prince Edward Island PST (US$)
OnForce GST Number
Provider GST Number (_buyer only_)

*Feedback*
Buyer Rating
Provider Rating
Buyer Comments
Provider Comments

We’ve also removed the following columns, since they are easily calculated in Excel using the expanded information columns available in the new reports.

*Buyer Activity Reports*
Total Charges
Total Credits
Time Frame

*Provider Activity Reports*
Closing Charges
Amount Paid
Time Frame

h1. Re-ordered Columns

To ensure that the columns in each Information Group appear properly, we’ve re-ordered the columns in the Activity Report so that all of the columns in a given Information Group appear together.

h1. Sample Excel Export Spreadsheets

You can download sample Excel spreadsheets that show all of the columns in the buyer and provider Activity Reports:

“Buyer Activity Report Sample Excel Spreadsheet”:1
“Provider Activity Report Sample Excel Spreadsheet”:2

h1. Saved Activity Reports

We will upgrade all saved Activity Reports to be compatible with our new Activity Report format. Once upgraded, a saved Activity Report will contain any Information Group that contains the columns that were in the old saved Activity Report. If you have any saved Activity Reports, please check them when v4.3 is released to ensure that they contain all of the information you need.

_*If you use Excel macros on any saved Activity Reports, or you depend upon the particular columns and column order in a saved Activity Report, you will have to update your macros or other systems to handle the new formats.*_ The sample Excel Export spreadsheets provided above should assist you in updating any systems.

[1]http://blog.onforce.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/buyer-activity-report-sample.xls
[2]http://blog.onforce.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/provider-activity-report-sample.xls