Did you know that we have a monthly meeting with the members?

Bet not.

In an effort to increase the level of communication about the things that go on behind the scenes, we thought we’d introduce the council (including some new members that were just inducted).

This team of folks represents the collective community of providers to the OnForce management team. Issues that are of particular importance to the community are raised and we often test product and program ideas with the Council as part of our research (we also engage non-Council members, buyers, and other related parties).

How do they know what issues are pressing? First and foremost, they are providers themselves and they work with the OnForce platform every day. Second, they use our provider-only forums to communicate with their peers to learn about pressing issues, general sentiment, and more. Not active in the forums? Want to be? Go to your Online Office and “sign up in the lower right-hand corner”:1 and then ask for access to the provider-only section (click on the link in your OLO and you’ll be redirected to the right place).

So here is the Provider Advisory Council (with their forum screennames) - reach out to them, tell them what you think. You can always “contact us”:2 to tell us what you think. We love to hear from members of our community about how we can improve their experience on the platform.

h3. Jay Austin (jayaustin)

My name is Jay Austin and I run Austin Computer Solutions located in Black Mountain in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. I started doing IT work professionally when I was in high school over 20 years ago. I opened my own business in January of 2004 and have loved every minute of it. I have been involved on the OnForce platform since July of 2004 and have been a member of the Advisory Council since September 2005. I service residential and small/midsized businesses throughout Western North Carolina. I am currently a single person shop that uses contract help when the need arises.

h3. Dave Hayden (alltechnw)

Hi everyone. I just wanted to take a minute to introduce myself. I live in Portland Oregon and am a single father. I have been running my computer repair business for 2 years. Before that I worked providing tech support to HP’s corporate customers and their authorized service provider techs. That was both fun and very frustrating but was important in my skill development. I hold Comptia A+, Network+, Microsoft Server, HP Mastertech, and Dell DCSE certifications. I’ve completed 750+ work orders for OnForce since joining. A good portion for one Client that I very much like working for. In the last year the volume I’ve been doing has slacked off somewhat and I am doing more independent work for my own customers. I was very surprised to have the opportunity to join the AC but take it very seriously and hope we can continue to make OF a better place. Any questions, concerns or issues please contact me. It is only with your help that we can make OF all that it can be. Thanks very much!

h3. Charles “Chuck” Kuntz (Cfkdsa1)

Member of OnForce since January of 2005. To date, between myself and the other technicians at our company have closed 37 work orders. I have over 17 years of computer experience and combined with the other technicians in our company, we have 38 years total.We are located in Erie, PA which is in the northwest corner of the state on the shores of Lake Erie. I have my A+ Certification and also several service authorizations from manufacturers including Dell, Acer, HP, Okidata, 3COM, and Cisco

h3. David Lay (dalay3)

David Lay has been in the IT industry since1982 where he began working for the Harris Corp doing component level break-fix work on mainframes and minis. David’s background includes Unix, AS400, Apple and the ever popular Windows based systems. David currently teaches the CompTIA A+ and MCSE certification courses for the local community college. David’s desire to teach others began with Fujitsu Network Transmission Systems where he taught fiber optics and telecommunications to the leading BOC and RBOC. David began building a successful business as A PC Geek in January of 2001. In October of 2004 he found ComputerRepair (currently OnForce) and has worked diligently to become a leading provider for the DFW area. Aside from owning and operating his own business and teaching certification classes; David is also the Pastor for Cedar Hill Church of the Nazarene in Cedar Hill, TX.

h3. Kapi Love (pandoralove)

My name is Kapi Love and I’ve been working in the technology industry for about 10 years now. I have been with OnForce for close to two years though I didn’t start picking up a lot of work orders till this past June when I started my own computer repair company. I have completed 197 work orders and am active in the advisory council of an OnForce PPN. I currently reside in Salt Lake City, Utah, where we have pretty much gone from Summer to Winter this year. I hope as part of the advisory council that I will be able to bring the concerns of the provider community to OnForce in a constructive way.

h3. Robert Martin (bamajr)

HELLO WORLD:My name is Robert Martin, however online communities know me as BAMAJR. “Roll Tide!” I have been working in the IT industry for about 11 years now, and continue to enjoy what I do. My business is currently located in Marion, Iowa and we offer our services to customers in the neighboring states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas as well. “HAVE TOOLS, WILL TRAVEL!” I became affiliated with OnForce sometime prior to June or July of 2004. My Tech ID is 4907. My company has over 120 closed work orders, and I have well over 550 posts on the OnForce forums.

h3. Charles McLeod (pcparamedix)

_update coming_

h3. John Rice (ricecomputersolutions)

John J. Rice, owner of Las Vegas based Rice Computer Solutions, has been a member of OnForce since June 2004. Since that time John has personally completed over 522 work orders, with complexities ranging from break/fix pc work to server installations and troubleshooting. Also, John is a member in good standing of various PPNs. Currently John is seeking his masters degree in computer engineering, John has been in the information technology field for over 12 years.

h3. Don Ridings (bsreg)

Educated as a Electrical engineer and specialized as a Video engineer Don started in the Computer/electrical industry in 1976 and was awarded a First class Radio Communications License that same year. Don opened his first computer store in 1983. His computer certifications include DCSE Cert, TAT Cert, HP Trained. Ingenico trained, Cisco Trained, Adtran trained. Number of POS training courses. ATM trained, Kiosk trained, Metro Area network trained. Don has also worked with and trained computer techs in the basics of computer repair and has taught A+ certifications courses. Don has created a number of courses for computer technology training for senior citizens Don became involved with OnForce during November of 2003 and accepted his first work order in January of 2004. Currently he has run approx 224 work orders and only regrets two of them. Don’s desire is to continue to grow with OnForce .

[1]http://forums.onforce.com/profile.php?mode=register
[2]http://www.onforce.com/contact

_We have updated the policies and rules that govern our Forums. I’d like to thank the Moderators of our Forums for their hard work to put these rules together._

These Forums are provided by OnForce for the use and benefit of our Providers and our Clients, as well as a tech support resource for the general public.

General Rules

This is NOT a hacking/cracking or warez forum, anything related to these topics unless it is pertinent to a current discussion or is security related is not welcome.

• Please do not post copyrighted material - instead post a link back to the material with a short description.
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• Heated debate is always welcome as long as it is structured and sensible and doesn’t devolve into personal insults and repetition.
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• Nothing offensive/overtly sexual or deemed of bad taste (outside the realms of common decency) will be allowed. Politics, Religion and sex outside of a industry related discussion is not permitted.
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Client and Provider Rules

There are areas of these Forums that are marked as Private. Access to these areas are granted on an individual basis to active Providers and/or active Clients by OnForce. Discussion of any topic specific to OnForce or the work performed through the OnForce platform is only allowed in these Private areas.

OnForce believes in open communication and criticism by our Providers and Clients. These Forums are intended to be a place where Providers and/or Clients can discuss any topic that relates directly or indirectly to OnForce and work executed through the OnForce platform. The rules specified below are intended to create safe and open discussion areas for such communication and criticism. OnForce will act upon these rules only when absolutely necessary in specific circumstances.

• Discussion of OnForce, employees of OnForce, or OnForce products or practices are allowed within Private areas as long as such discussions are conducted in a professional and respectful manner. Any such posting that is found to be unprofessional, disrespectful, libelous, slanderous, speculative in nature, or erroneous may be edited or deleted at the sole discretion of the Forum Moderators or OnForce.
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• Some Clients have private areas on these forums that are accessible only to selected Providers. Access to these areas is granted on a request basis. If you believe you should have access to one of these Client specific areas, please contact a Moderator, an OnForce Moderator, or that Client directly. Any postings requesting access to specific Private areas may be edited or deleted at the sole discretion of the Forum Moderators or OnForce.

Any violations of the above rules will be edited or deleted, and the poster warned. Repeated violations will result in temporary or permanent bans.

The OnForce Client Service Team handles all Work Order related issues. Sometime, one of their unfortunate responsibilities is to deactivate a Service Provider from our system. They follow a strict set of guidelines when they receive a complaint from a Client, and they require documentation for all issues before they will start their investigation into the circumstances of a Client complaint.

We generally don’t like to deactivate Service Providers, and often times there are more agreeable ways to deal with Work Order related complaints. However, the Client Service Team is required to automatically deactivate a Service Provider under the following circumstances:

* If a Service Provider doesn’t show up for an appointment and doesn’t call the Client or OnForce.
* If a Service Provider cancels a Work Order because they accepted the Work Order without reading the scope of work.
* If a Service Provider sends another person to perform the work.
* If a Service Provider attempts to circumvent our network and do work for a Client outside of the OnForce platform.
* If a Service Provider has a number of Work Order ratings that are lower than 4 stars.
* If a Service Provider does not return parts to a Client when specified in the Work Order.
* If a Service Provider, after a reasonable amount of time, does not respond to communications from either a Client or OnForce.
* If a Service Provider acts unprofessionally, and such behavior is documented by a Client.
* If a Service Provider does not update a Work Order in over 3 weeks once it has been accepted.
* If a Service Provider does not complete a Work Order for payment within 3 days of receiving a final notice from us. OnForce will reinstate a Service Provider after a policy review.
* If a Service Provider has incorrect contact information in their On-Line Office. OnForce will reinstate a Service Provider once they provide us with updated contact information.

We realize that there may be instances where our view of events and a Service Provider’s view of events are at odds. In such cases, we are implementing an Appeals Process that will enable a Service Provider to appeal their case to a Provider Advisory Council. The Council is made up of experienced Service Providers from the OnForce network, and in this role acts as a peer review board. This is one of our “checks and balances” that empowers our community to self-police to ensure the quality and integrity of our Service Providers.

Service Providers can submit a 1 page written appeal to the Provider Advisory Council. OnForce will submit the reasoning for the decision to deactivate a Service Provider, along with all evidence that was used to come to that decision.

*To ensure that the Appeals Process is a real peer review and to maintain our neutrality in our marketplace, OnForce will not argue for or against the deactivation of the Service Provider.* If the Provider Advisory Council determines that the Service Provider should be reinstated, OnForce will reinstate that Provider.

*UPDATE:* We have received a few comments here that are actually appeals for getting reactivated. Please do not post your appeals here. They will be moderated and discarded. Instead, please email them to support@onforce.com and OnForce Customer Support will be able to help you.

Recently one of our Clients was refusing to pay Client cancellation fees to service providers. According to our “policies”:https://www.onforce.com/view/useragreement/:

As a Client, you are obligated to complete the transaction with the Service Provider if you:
…
3. In the event that a Work Order is cancelled after acceptance, but prior to a technician taking any action, the Work Order is subject to a cancellation fee if the Client cancellation occurs less than 24 hours prior to the end of the response timeframe or a set appointment time.

A number of providers were understandably upset with this Client for not following these policies, and with OnForce for seemingly not enforcing them. So they posted about it in our “Forums”:http://forums.onforce.com. Until we read about it there we didn’t know about the issue. Thankfully, our Providers brought it to everyone’s attention and felt comfortable enough to discuss it.

We have policies for a number of reasons, but one of the most important ones is to ensure that providers using the OnForce platform can feel confident in their expectations for the work orders they receive. In addition to accelerating the response rate to Work Orders, it cuts down on miscommunication and establishes a base level of service that can be expected both by Providers and Clients.

In this case, the Client was not abiding by our policies. At least some of the blame belongs with us, for not properly enforcing them with this Client from the start. We have addressed this issue with this Client, requiring them to follow our policies (i.e. pay Client cancellation fees) for all past and future Work Orders that are sent out through our general marketplace. We will be moving this Client to a Preferred Provider Network where they will be able to have Providers agree in advance with their policy not to pay client cancellation fees.

We want to highlight this situation and its resolution because we feel our Providers handled things well. The community found an issue and highlighted it so that we could address it, and they felt safe enough to talk about it publicly. Their discussions drove much of our thinking about how to resolve the matter. So if you are a Provider, log into our “Forums”:http://forums.onforce.com and participate. Its the best way to have a voice in how our marketplace operates. And if you are a Client, your participation and voice is equally important.

When lines of communication are open and public discussion takes place, problems are solved to everyone’s benefit.