Synchroteam

PARIS, France. 30 May 2013 – Synchroteam – the top-rated cloud-based app for Field Service industries – has launched an app “ecosystem” that extend the power of Synchroteam with built-in integrations that connect with the most important Cloud business apps to become a central command center for business users.

Ranked number one in the “Field Service Management” category on GetApp.com (the world’s largest SaaS and cloud-based business app marketplace), Synchroteam’s new connectors – powered by CloudWork – enable companies to better manage the flow of information through their Field Service Management operations. Synchroteam is dedicated to helping customers to grow service revenue and to maintain a focus on providing high-quality and timely, on-site service responses while limiting the costs associated with managing a mobile, technical workforce.

New Synchroteam integrations allow for seamless transfer of customer information between a range of common cloud business apps including email campaign apps (Campaign Monitor and MailChimp), book-keeping apps (FreshBooks) and customer relationship management (CRM) tools (including Salesforce, SugarCRM, Highrise, capsule CRM and Zoho CRM). Integrations also help field services management businesses automate backup of site photos to Dropbox and Google Drive, and can integrate job delivery with Google Calendar, giving a time visualization of all works carried out.

“More and more of our customers are using several cloud-based apps to manage their field services management business. In particular, we have seen the explosion of CRM apps amongst our business users. Our integrations mean that the workflow for mobile workforce and job allocation managers doesn’t need to change, yet details of their customer engagement and details of job progress can now be integrated with the enterprise-wide CRM database,” said François Pichon, Director of Development at Synchroteam.

“Service companies can stay focused on providing an exemplary service to their customers, while automating the flow of information through their business operations. Customers can be added to email subscriber lists, contact information can be automatically added to invoicing systems, job completion photos can be automatically saved to a cloud backup service. All of these new integrations put the field services manager at the command center of their business operations, without adding to administrative resourcing requirements,” said Mr Pichon.

The new integration features provide Synchroteam with an initial catalog of 27 app integrations to choose from. Each one is modeled on an exact business case and allows users to simply click-and-connect to start integrating data, without any coding requirements or complexity.

The 27 integrations are available as part of the monthly services provided to Synchroteam subscribers.

List of new functionalities

• Barcode integration (Mobile App)
• Job description optional
• Linking job type and priority
• Job Creation in the Back-Office (Technician profile)
• Blocking Customer/Site/Equipment creation
• Job Creator ID
• Job report: new numerical and conditional field
• User Address
• Meeting time

Functionalities in detail

Barcode integration (Mobile App)
A new Barcode icon is available in Photo section on the Mobile App. Technicians will be able to scan Barcodes using the camera. Both the barcode photo and barcode value will be captured and associated with the Job and displayed on the Back-office. They will also be available for Export using a Custom Export Template.

Job description optional
A switch will be added (on/off) to cancel mandatory description for Job creation (same function on Mobile)

Linking job type and priority
Default Job priority will be determined by Job type. It means we will add the possibility to define a default priority for a Job type in the detail view.

Job Creation in the Back-Office (Technician profile)
A technician will be able to create a Job on the Web Back-office interface (same workflow as on a mobile device). A field worker can create a job for himself, or in “to be scheduled” status.

Blocking Customer/Site/Equipment creation
A configuration option will be added to turn on/off customer/site/equipment creation on mobile and Back-Office.

Job Creator ID
We will record the job creator ID in our Database. The name of the person the created the job will be displayed in the job detail (Mobile and Back-office)

Job report: new numerical and conditional field
The numeric item type will be added to job report templates. If used as a Conditional item, you use comparision operators (equal to, greater than, less than, etc.).

User Address
We will add a geocoded address for each user. In the Map tab this address will be considered as the starting/ending location. We will add a “Distance” column in the “Technician Activity” report.

Meeting time
When creating a job, the user (technician or manager) should be able to specify a meeting time. We will add this information in the “job creation” view and in the “job detail” view. When scheduling a job the starting time will necessarily be the meeting time. This rule should be managed in the planning view and in the schedule “pop-up”.

Release note January 17th, 2013

For Administrators:

Additions

• New Customer view

• Functionality to manage job appointment conflicts

• Integration of Push technology to notify technicians equipped with an Android or iOS mobile device

• Regional Settings Management: Date format, Time format, Numerical format and Currency

• Customer portal: Provide your customers with a read-only secure link to view job or customer information. Your customers can also request a new job

• Quotation and Invoice Management: Create quotations and/or invoices from scratch, or using the parts/services usage recorded in the field. Track if Invoices have been sent, paid, etc.

• Integrated tutorials (January 23rd)

Updates

• Many design and workflow tweaks to increase your productivity: More compact display, new icons, optimized navigation, etc.
• Import/Export functionality: supports various CSV formats for import and export. Capability to export to Excel. PC and Mac encoding support
• Improved job report design view: Define fields as private or public to gain better control on the information you share with your customers
• Improved license management module
• Improved the map view
• Updated web services

For Mobile Terminals:

Additions

• New job creation function
• Receiving Push Notifications (Soon – will be available when our updated clients are released)
• Customer phone numbers are clickable: launches the telephone application and calls the customer
• Customer address is clickable: launches the map application and show the customer location
• Custom field values are now visible next to the job information
• Photos: photos taken are saved in the device’s photo gallery
• Photos: new function allowing the device’s camera to capture barcodes and QR codes (iOS only)

We are happy to announce that Synchroteam is now available in German. As usual, the entirety of the application has been translated.

The addition brings the total number of languages supported by Synchroteam to six. The languages supported are:

• English;
• French;
• Spanish;
• Czech;
• Romanian; and,
• German.

If you are interested in using Synchroteam but need to have in a language that is not yet available, don’t hesitate to contact us or request it via our support site. We will be able to tell you if the translation is already in the works. If not, we will be happy to keep you informed as to when the new language becomes available.

As you can probably tell with all our latest posts, we are hard at work to ensure that Synchroteam is (and remains!) the best Mobile Workforce Management solution on the market. There’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipe for our next major release, but for now, let us tell you about the latest improvements:

Display Traffic on the Map

We have added a new ‘Show traffic’ button on top of the map – just click it, and live traffic traffic information* will be layered over the map.

(*) Real-time traffic data from Google is subject to availability in your area.

New Currencies

We have added the complete list of world currencies to the back-office. We’ll be surprised if you cannot find yours. You can change the currency by going under Configuration, then choose Options.

Other Updates and Tweaks

• Teams: You can add administrators to teams
• Custom Fields: We have added your custom field label next to the stored value in your job or customer details screens
• Job Screen: the E-mail, Print and PDF buttons are hidden when they cannot be used (for example, if you have not entered anything into the invoice yet)

We have made additions to our API that now make it one of the most flexible and complete in the industry.

On top of existing capabilities that open access to manipulate your Synchroteam data over our secure API link, you can also access information stored inside the custom fields* you define. On top of opening access to your custom field values, the API also allows you to manage your custom fields (create/modify/update/delete).

As an example, you may want to create custom fields to store job related expenses. With our new API addition, you can now manage these new fields, push data into these fields, or read the values they contain from another application.

Enjoy!

*Synchroteam’s cloud based back office and API allows you to create custom fields in relation to Jobs, Customers, Customer Sites, Users or Equipment.

New features deployed in our August release are summarized below.

Your First Administrator License is now FREE

(To take advantage of this offer, you need at minimum one paid technician account)

We have decided that since all our customers need at least one account to manage the system, the first admin account is now provided free of charge. This will allow smaller businesses to operate Synchroteam.com and only pay for one or two technician licenses.

Self employed entrepreneurs can also use Synchroteam.com for the cost of one user license per month (or pay yearly at a discounted rate). They can use the admin account for complete back-office access, and the technician account to connect on the road.

For larger businesses, you can create Manager type accounts for staff that need to oversee operations or manage teams. Your main administration account will always remain free.

New Layout for Job View

We have created a completely new screen to display job information. You now have access to all the information on a single page.

Easily access and manage:

• Job Details
• Job Duration
• Job Location
• Invoice
• Job Report
• Pictures and Signatures

Grouping Technicians into Teams

You asked and we listened! You can now create teams of technicians within the configuration area of the application.

By defining the team members and one or more managers, you can now create work units that will have application views specific to them. For example, when a manager logs in, they will only see the team members they work with.

You can also control whether or not technicians in a team and view all their team’s jobs. This is done under configuration -> options.

Mobile clients : Technicians can create, decline & reschedule jobs

More power in the palm of your hand! Your mobile workers can now create new jobs on the fly. They can also decline or reschedule jobs directly from their mobile application without having to call your main office.

Mobile clients: Location tracking and navigation.

We have added improved the app by adding live location tracking. You can now see in real time where everyone on your team is located. Moreover, our updated mobile client can tie directly into your phone’s native navigation app to make getting directions to the next job painless and easy.

General Fixes and Minor Improvements

Back-Office:

• Plan jobs spanning more than one day
• Duplicating a job (from the job details screen)
• Two new item types in the custom report templates: “Date” and “Time”.
• Can export late and upcoming jobs to Excel

Mobile Clients:

• Alert message added when a non-technician account tries to use the mobile client.
• Android : Improved data entry functionality

Research firm Software Advice recently completed a comprehensive review of mobile applications for field service and picked Synchroteam as one of the best.

Their expert team culled through hundreds of applications to identify their favorite Android and Apple iOS options based on ratings, reviews, social shares, downloads and functionality.

The Synchroteam application – available for Android and iOS – was recognized for its clean user interface. Mobile app users can easily scan through the day’s activities at a glance with jobs distinguished by color code and simple text indicators. Once the technician clicks on a job, they are taken to another easily scannable screen with address, description and contact information.

Software Advice analysts also liked how the app is backed by Web-based software that dispatches, schedules, maps and compiles reports from job notes collected in the field. The application is best suited for companies in utilities, pharmaceutical, maintenance, telecommunications, delivery and transport. The software is hosted in the cloud, so it’s accessible anywhere with an Internet connection. The company has been used to manage more than 23,000,000 jobs since 2000.

Check out the entire report here.

Back-Office

• New – Subscription plan: a new (hard discounted) yearly pre-payment plan is offered to new or existing customers
• New – Weekly Jobs: new view under the « job » tab to display jobs for a given week
• New – Export Data: new preset template to export daily travel distance per technician
• New – Report: Display the name of the person that signed the report
• Update – Data Import and Export: Your imported/exported CSV files can be mapped to our default fields AND to your custom fields
• Update – QR Code: Added security layer – Access by PIN (Personal Indentification Number)
• Update – Job creation: Can now add complete contact information (name, phone, e-mail) from the job creation screen
• Update – Mandatory fields: mandatory fields are much more clearly identificated in the forms

Mobile Clients

• New – Job creation: geocoding and reverse-geocoding to automatically retrieve the job address or to tag a new customer
• New – Job #: The Job # is now displayed on both the job list and job detail
• Update – Job creation: The job description can now be entered

Welcome to the May Release !

Back-Office

• New – Schedule tab: Weekly view is now available. Move jobs between days or drag new jobs onto the correct day. Use the Daily view for adjustments
• New – Schedule tab: Online access for Field Workers that don’t have the Mobile Client installed (PC+mobile)
• New – Invoice: Invoices can now be sent directly from Synchroteam to the customer by e-mail
• New – QR code: Customer, Site and Equipment can be labelled with a QR Code tag for automatic identification or proof of visit

Mobile Clients

• New – Job creation: auto completion added for Customer, Site and Equipment names
• New – Notifications: decline/reschedule a job
• Update: Optimized the Job creation process

Localization

• New – Czech language: Synchroteam is now fully localized in Czech, English, French, Romanian and Spanish