From XU Magazine, 
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Easier than Ever

September 21, 2022

ServiceM8 11 is all about making it easier than ever to manage your jobs, staff & customers. To help you succeed.

This article originated from the Xero blog. The XU Hub is an independent news and media platform - for Xero users, by Xero users. Any content, imagery and associated links below are directly from Xero and not produced by the XU Hub.
You can find the original post here:
https://www.servicem8.com/uk/september-2022-update

Bundles

A new way to streamline and systemise your pricing, quoting & invoicing. You can now roll several items of labour, materials or services into a preset ‘bundle’, with a single description for clients to see on your quotes & invoices.

Bundles makes it easier to accurately charge for your services and systemise your pricing, while guiding your clients to focus on the value and outcomes they’re paying for.

Learn More

A new way to streamline and systemise your pricing, quoting & invoicing
Save Time & Systemise

Save Time & Systemise

Build fixed-price bundles to streamline quoting & invoicing, and systemise pricing of your popular service components & options.

Search & Add Bundles

Search & Add Bundles

You can easily search a Bundle by number or keyword (just like normal), to add them to jobs.

View Bundle Contents

View Bundle Contents

Hover over a Bundle to quick-view its contents, and click to open it up.

Optimise per Job

Optimise per Job

Make one-off changes to a Bundle to suit the job — add or delete items, adjust quantities or modify pricing.

Help Clients See Value

Help Clients See Value

Set a customer-facing description for each Bundle, to help clients understand the value of your services.

Keep Pricing Current

Keep Pricing Current

Bundle items will automatically update from your Materials & Services database, so your pricing is always up-to-date.

Expand Job Card

To make it easier to work with larger jobs, quotes & invoices, you can now expand the job card for a maximised view, giving you more space to work in the Diary or prepare quotes & invoices.

Expand Job Card

Side-by-Side Mode

To streamline how you open and work with PDF documents (such as work orders), you can now instantly maximise any PDF to a full-screen Side-by-Side view, making it faster to review key info and extract it to the job card.

Side-by-Side Mode

Section Lines for Quotes & Invoices

For large or complex jobs, it can be hard to format the quote or invoice in a way that clients can understand. Now, you can insert simple description lines between items, giving you the ability to break up your quotes & invoices into sections. To create a description line, just set its Quantity, Cost & Price to zero.

Learn More

Section Lines for Quotes & Invoices

Room Scan

A revolutionary new way to capture & store the measurements of a room, then interact and understand the space you’re working with. ServiceM8 Room Scan lets you scan & save an interactive 3D model of a room, straight to the job diary, then get instant measurements to help scope the job, estimate materials & deliver the best outcome for your client.

Requires iOS 16 & LiDAR Compatible Device.

Room Scan
Capture in 3D

Capture in 3D

Scan & save an interactive 3D model of a room, straight from the job card, automatically saved to the Diary for reference.

Get Instant Dimensions

Get Instant Dimensions

See the Floor Area, Wall Linear Length & Wall Surface Area of the scanned space instantly, in the Diary.

Tap Surfaces & Objects

Tap Surfaces & Objects

Open a Room Scan model and tap individual walls or objects to see their dimensions.

Improved Calendar for iPhone

A major update of the Calendar view in the iPhone app, with a better experience and more functionality to help manage your schedule. You can swipe left or right to change the day, swipe the date bar to change weeks, or tap the date to jump to a specific date. Tap & hold a free space to schedule a job, or tap & hold a booking to change its time or duration.

Improved Calendar for iPhone

Custom List Order in Jobs View

Last year saw the introduction of the Jobs View, a powerful mission control in the iOS app. However, if you often need to check staff member schedules, you’d have to scroll to the bottom every single time. Now, you can tap ‘Edit’ then drag-n-drop to rearrange the vertical order of your Jobs, Queues & Staff lists to suit.

Learn More

Custom List Order in Jobs View

Image Text Recognition

Transcribing text between screens & apps is time consuming. Now, you can interact with text in photos saved to the Diary, such as copying long serial numbers, calling written phone numbers, or searching a product’s model number online. Just open & tap the image.

Requires iOS 16

Image Text Recognition

AI Time Tracking

A completely new time-tracking engine, powered by artificial intelligence, to make tracking and charging for your time easier, more consistent across your team, and less of a chore. ServiceM8 will automatically Clock you On & Off your shift, and Check you In & Out of jobs throughout the day, so you can focus on your work & clients.

AI Time Tracking

Undo Time Action

If you get automatically Checked In/Out of a job, or Clocked On/Off your shift, you can now just ‘Undo’ the action and revert back to your previous state.

Undo Time Action

Roll Back Clock Off Time

To help with payroll and keep your shift times accurate, we’re introducing the ability to ‘roll back’ your Clock Off time. If you don’t Clock Off your shift manually (or automatically), ServiceM8 will then suggest Clock Off times based on your activity and movements, such as when you left the office, or your last job.

Roll Back Clock Off Time

Trip Suggestions on Checkout

If you make a supplies run while Checked In to a job, ServiceM8 automatically tracks this time as an offsite ‘Trip’, which you can add to your billable time when you Check Out. But if you forget to add them, these Trips become lost billing opportunities.

Now, when there’s a tracked Trip on a job, it’s presented as a step of the Check Out process, so you can choose to add the Trip as billable time, or not, without having to remember.

Trip Suggestions on Checkout

Turn Off Automations by Client

The Automation Add-on is incredibly powerful for automating your customer service, winning work & helping jobs run smoothly. But, some automations don’t suit every client, which could lead to deactivating them altogether for the sake of a few clients.

Now, you can disable a specific automation from sending to a specific client. If things change, you can reactivate it for them.

Learn More

Turn Off Automations by Client

Google Reviews Improvements

Google Reviews really help attract customers online, which is why the Customer Feedback Add-on lets you set your Google Review link. However, clients were only asked for a Google Review after providing feedback already.

It could do more, so we’ve changed it. To drive more Google Reviews for your business, if you have a Google Review link set, the Customer Feedback Add-on will direct clients straight to Google only.

Google Reviews Improvements

Feedback Request Delay

The Customer Feedback automation is great for automatically asking for feedback after job completion, but for frequent or recurring clients you don’t need it every day or week.

Now, if a client provides feedback, they won’t be asked again for another 30 days.

Feedback Request Delay

External Secondary Call Group

A small but powerful improvement to the Secondary Call Group feature of ServiceM8 Phone. Til now, for those times you can’t take a call, ServiceM8 Phone could ring through to a secondary group of staff in the business. But if you use a virtual assistant or call-answering service, it couldn’t help.

Now, you can set an external phone number as a backup for when you can’t answer the phone. Plus, the call’s still recorded, transcribed, summarised & saved in ServiceM8.

Learn More

External Secondary Call Group

Email Forwarding

Sometimes you just need to forward an email you’ve received, or one you’ve sent previously. Now you can, in the Online Dashboard — just click the drop-down in the Diary item, or open the email & Forward.

Email Forwarding

Multi-Contact SMS

For jobs where you need to text multiple people at once, such as two or three tenants to arrange access, you can now paste in multiple numbers to message them all at once. Just paste in the numbers, and Send.

Multi-Contact SMS

Set Email & Mobile

To help capture contact details as you go, we’re introducing the ability to set a client’s email or mobile number, right when you realise you don’t have it. If you’re on site with a client and start drafting their quote or invoice, but don’t have their contact details, you can now ‘Set’ and save their email or number, then and there.

Set Email & Mobile

Save-as-you-Go Contacts

For those times you don’t get a contact’s email or phone number the first time round, or misspell their name, you can now simply add or edit these details on the job card, and it will update the client card. This way, you’ll have the new details on future jobs for the client.

Learn More

Save-as-you-Go Contacts

Property Manager Contact

If you do work orders for real estate rental & letting clients, these jobs involve a property manager you might need to contact about issues or approvals. Now, you can add a Property Manager as a third type of contact for a job. Just hover & click to add, and they’ll be available to email, text & call just like other contacts.

Learn More

Property Manager Contact

Quick-Switch Contacts

For larger clients with several possible contacts, which can change from job to job, when creating a new job, you can now choose between the available contacts stored on their client card. Hover & click to add a contact, then choose from the dropdown. Or, delete out the first name of a selected contact to choose a new one.

Quick-Switch Contacts

Single Job Contact

To avoid double-entry when creating jobs, we’re simplifying contacts. Now, new job cards start with just one contact — a Job Contact! If you need to add a separate Billing Contact or Property Manager, just hover & click to add them. When you have a single Job Contact, they’ll receive all communication that would normally go to a Job or Billing contact.

Single Job Contact

Open Client from Job Card

When you’re working in a job and need to view, edit or add info to the client, it’s not as quick or easy as it could have been. Now, you can instantly open, view & edit the client card, directly from a job card — just click the customer’s name.

Open Client from Job Card

Suggest & Autofill Additional Contacts

Sometimes you need to work with a different Job Contact for a client e.g. the original Job Contact is Jayne (who’s still around), but on the next job you’re dealing with Mark. So, you replace Jayne’s details with Mark’s.

If you’ll be dealing with Mark again in future, you can open the client card, add an additional Job Contact, and Mark’s details will be suggested for you to auto-fill. This way, when creating new jobs for the client, you can easily choose from several possible contacts saved in the client card.

Suggest & Autofill Additional Contacts

Collapsing Queues & Staff

If you have a small screen or lots of Queues and Staff Members, the top containers of the Dispatch Board expand and make this core interface harder to use. Now, when your Dispatch Board doesn’t have space to fit your Queues and Staff, it will collapse them down. To drag jobs onto hidden Queues or Staff, just drop them onto the collection.

Collapsing Queues & Staff

Queue Ordering

Time to delete those alpha/numeric prefixes! You can now customise the order of your Queues, as they appear at the top of your Dispatch Board, and in your Queues board. This custom order can be set per user, so you can order queues to suit your role and preferences.

Learn More

Queue Ordering

Staff Ordering

You can also customise the order of your Staff Members, as shown in the top container as well as top-to-bottom in the Staff Schedules tab. This custom order can be set per user, so you can order your staff to suit your role and preferences.

Learn More

Staff Ordering

Visibility Out of Business Hours

It can be easy to miss very early or late bookings which are outside your standard business hours. Extending your hours in Preferences is a workaround, but it has many downsides & side effects. Now, when you have a booking outside business hours, ServiceM8 will adjust the hours visible to show it, so you can stay aware of these special bookings day-to-day.

Visibility Out of Business Hours

Calendar Display Optimisation

The Calendar tab has been improved to use more vertical space, making it easier to see and work with your bookings.

Calendar Display Optimisation

Create Job from Schedule

When potential customers call, it’s a common workflow to check your booking availability before going ahead. To streamline the job creation & scheduling process in the office, you can now drag out a time on the Staff Schedule or Calendar, then click ‘Create New Job’ at that date & time.

Create Job from Schedule

Job Allocations Improvements

The Job Allocations Add-on is a simple but powerful tool for optimising your scheduling efficiency and flexibility, by allocating jobs to staff which don’t require a fixed-time booking. This year, Job Allocations is faster to use, more intuitive & more powerful.

Job Allocations Improvements
Better Visibility

Better Visibility

Allocated jobs now show on the Staff Schedule, just like fixed-time bookings, giving you the full picture of a tech’s schedule & capacity.

Drag-and-Drop

Drag-and-Drop

Instantly allocate jobs during Business Hours. Just drag, hover and drop the job onto the shortcut box on the far-right in Staff Schedules.

Stack-and-Shuffle

Stack-and-Shuffle

Allocated jobs automatically stack and shuffle around fixed-time bookings on the Staff Schedule, to keep themselves visible.

Prioritise

Prioritise

Drag allocated jobs left and right to prioritize a staff member’s schedule, which will update the display order in the app.

Recurring Jobs Support

Recurring Jobs Support

Activated Recurring Jobs which are scheduled in an allocation window (e.g. Early Morning) will also show on the Staff Schedule.

Email & SMS Support

Email & SMS Support

Use the ‘Next Scheduled Booking Time’ merge field in your templates to autofill the time window in customer emails & texts. Learn More

Recurring Jobs Improvements

The Recurring Jobs & Reminders Add-on is a core scheduling feature if your business manages repeat service and maintenance work. This launch, Recurring Jobs is getting significant improvements to make it easier than ever to schedule and manage your recurring work.

Recurring Jobs Improvements
Recurring Jobs Improvements

Search

You can now search the Recurring Jobs tab to find the job you're looking for, fast. Search by service type, client name or recurrence pattern.

Schedule to Multi-Staff

Schedule to Multi-Staff

Auto-schedule Recurring Jobs to more than one team member! Just click & add from the dropdown.

15 & 45 min

15 & 45 min

There are new 15 & 45 minute booking duration options to choose from when creating a Recurring Job.

Sort by Suburb

Sort by Suburb

You can now activate an additional 'Suburb' column in the Recurring Jobs tab, to sort & view jobs by locality.

View in Past & Future

View in Past & Future

A Recurring Job's bookings in the preview pane now always stay in 'Past' then 'Future' order.

Double-Click to Activate

Double-Click to Activate

To activate a "TBC" future recurrence of a Recurring Job, you can now just double-click it in the preview pane.

New Recurrence Interface

New Recurrence Interface

Setting a job's Recurrence Pattern has been improved, to make it faster to set up or adjust the auto-scheduling pattern.

Open Client Card

Open Client Card

Instantly open, view & edit the client card — just click the customer’s name.

See at a Glance

See at a Glance

Easily tell which upcoming jobs are recurring, on the Staff Schedule. Hover over the symbol to see the recurrence pattern.

Open from Job Card

Open from Job Card

In a job card, you can see whether the job recurs, and how often. If you need to view the entire recurring job’s settings, you can open them in a single click.

Drag-n-Drop Updating

Drag-n-Drop Updating

Change the Time, Day or Staff of a recurring job on the Staff Schedule, and choose to apply the change as a one-off, or to all future bookings.

Skip Future Bookings

Skip Future Bookings

If you need to skip an “unactivated” future booking, you can now double-click it on the Staff Schedule, then Cancel Booking.

Daily Shift Summary

An all-new tool to catch billable time and avoid missed billing opportunities, across your team. The Shift Summary appears in each staff member’s Activity Feed at the end of the day, where they can review their tracked time & allocate lost time.

Daily Shift Summary
See Productivity

See Productivity

Get a daily breakdown of Shift, Job, Travel & Other time, tracked throughout each day.

See Productivity

Find Lost Time

See smart suggestions of ‘Lost Time’ at different locations, which hasn’t been added to a job as labour time.

Allocate Time

Allocate Time

Choose to allocate Lost Time to a job, supplier, food stop, fuel station or other.

GPS Highlights

The ability to see your technicians' live locations & status is a powerful tool for maintaining visibility, making smart decisions & reacting to opportunities. This GPS functionality is also vital for automatic time tracking. But, it all relies on the ServiceM8 app having the right Location Access.

Now, you’ll see when a staff member’s GPS is being throttled by their device settings, and work with them to fix it.

GPS Highlights

Smart Labour Improvements

It’s now easier to charge for recorded time as Smart Labour in the Online Dashboard. You can choose to include/exclude Travel Time, the duration column is more intuitive, and it’s faster to Add Time.

Smart Labour Improvements

Default Staff Labour Rates

You can now set a Default Labour Rate per staff member in Settings > Staff > Edit > Options. The selected labour rate is preset when adding tracked time as Smart Labour, to help streamline the invoicing process.

Learn More

Default Staff Labour Rates

Automated Timesheet Sync Improvements

To make payroll and exporting technician shift times to your accounting software easier, we’ve improved the Automated Timesheet Sync Add-on. You can now round shift durations, choose from more pay frequencies, and include/exclude Break time.

Learn More

Automated Timesheet Sync Improvements
Round to 15 mins

Round to 15 mins

A simple rounding option so you don’t have to edit this in your accounting package later.

Breaks Option

Breaks Option

Set whether you want to include or exclude Break time from total shift durations exported to your accounting software.

Choose Frequency

Choose Frequency

Support for more payroll calendar frequencies, now including weekly, fortnightly & monthly.

Xero UK & NZ Support

Xero UK & NZ Support

The Automated Timesheet Sync Add-on now supports Xero users in the United Kingdom & New Zealand.

Job Diary Filters

For those larger or complex jobs, it can be time-consuming to scan and find what you’re looking for in the Diary. Now, you can simply filter the Diary down to the type of info you’re searching for, such as files, images, job notes or correspondence. Available in the app & online.

Job Diary Filters

Edit Notes in iOS

You can now edit Notes in the app, up to 15 minutes after saving. So, if you make a mistake or typo, you can just reopen the note from the Diary, tap ‘Edit’ and fix it.

Edit Notes in iOS

Booking History

Sometimes, jobs are rescheduled by accident, or cancelled without the client committing to a new time, and you can’t go back to understand what happened. Now, you can see the history of booking changes on a job — just filter to Bookings & Queues in the Diary, then click ‘Show hidden diary items’.

Learn More

Booking History

Job Edit History

For peace of mind, whenever you make a change to a Job Description, Work Completed, or a contact’s details, the previous version is stored. So, if the job’s scope changes over time and you need to see what the original Job Description was, you can. Or if someone accidentally removes contact info, you can find it again. Just filter the Diary to ‘Edit History’.

Learn More

Job Edit History

Paste into Diary

To make it faster to get job info & history into ServiceM8, you can now copy/paste a file or image from your computer, straight into a job’s Diary. Just click into the notes field, and paste.

Paste into Diary

Change Invoice Date

Invoicing ASAP is great for finalising job admin and getting paid. But sometimes, you just can’t send the invoice on site, or the same day (e.g. waiting on suppliers or subcontractors). If you have 7-day payment terms and it takes a week to finalise the invoice, it'll be overdue as soon as you send it. Now, you can click ‘Change Invoice Date’ to suit.

Learn More

Change Invoice Date

Invoicing Improvements

ServiceM8’s invoicing functionality is something you depend on every day to get invoices out fast, ensure you get paid, and push to your accounting software for reconciliation. So, the Invoicing tab of the Online Dashboard’s been improved to make these workflows faster & easier.

Invoicing Improvements
Search

Search

You can now search the Invoicing tab to find the job you're looking for, fast. Search by client, job number or purchase order.

Add New Columns

Add New Columns

You can now add the new Purchase Order, Address, Category & Invoice Due Date to get more info at a glance.

See Overdue

See Overdue

With the Due Date column active, overdue invoices show in red text to draw your attention.

Click & Action Faster

Click & Action Faster

You can now click an invoice line item anywhere along its row (not just the checkbox), so you can action it faster.

Right-Click to Action

Right-Click to Action

You can now right-click an invoice line for quick ‘Approve’ & ‘Mark as Sent’ actions.

Filter Overdue

Filter Overdue

A handy invoice search term — type ‘is:overdue’ to search and filter all overdue invoices. You can then bulk-select and action!

Filter Unsent

Filter Unsent

Type ‘is:unsent’ to search and filter all invoices which haven’t been marked as sent.

Bulk Select

Bulk Select

To save bulk time sending, following up & approving invoices, you can now bulk select all visible invoices, then action!

Set Default for New Items

Set Default for New Items

Set a default income account to save time when approving invoices containing new items. See Settings > Preferences > Invoicing. Learn More

Bulk Email Template Selection

It’s now possible to choose from your various email templates when sending emails in bulk from the Invoicing tab, so you can bulk select and send just the right message.

Bulk Email Template Selection

Awaiting Payment Note

If a client hasn’t paid for work you’ve done already, it’s worth being aware of it before you do more work for them. So now, when you create a New Job and select the customer, the Client Diary instantly loads on the right, showing the number and value of any outstanding invoices, and highlighting overdue invoices.

Awaiting Payment Note

Live Statements

Live Statements are a simple, automated way to send your high-volume clients all their outstanding invoices. This year, we’re making Live Statements easier to use, and more compatible, while providing a better experience for your clients.

Learn More

Live Statements
Show without Send

Show without Send

To avoid the need to send clients every invoice before it shows on their statement, invoices will also show if they’ve been Approved. Learn More

Bulk Activate

Bulk Activate

It’s easier to activate Live Statements, and for multiple clients at once. In Clients, tick or bulk select, then Actions > Apply Live Statements.

See Scheduled & Processed

See Scheduled & Processed

The breakdown of scheduled & processed Live Statements has been improved, including the recipients and ability to cancel.

Show Last 14 Days

Show Last 14 Days

The time a client’s recently paid invoices will remain on their Live Statement has been increased from two days, to two weeks.

Send Statement Link

Send Statement Link

You can now include the new {statement} merge field link in your email & SMS templates, so you can manually send and follow-up statements as well. Learn More

Reports Improvements

To help you understand your key metrics and the type of jobs & clients behind them, ServiceM8’s range of standard & snapshot reports now let you easily see the jobs which make up the numbers, so you can gain actionable insights.

ServiceM8 job cards on iOS with new job action bar
Business DashboardDrill-in

Business Dashboard
Drill-in

You can now click almost all of the Business Dashboard snapshot metrics to see the jobs they’re based on, with relevant info per report.

Standard ReportDrill-in

Standard Report
Drill-in

You can now click values in standard report tables, such as Revenue in May, or the number of unsuccessful jobs in June, to see the jobs behind the numbers.

Sort byColumn

Sort by
Column

Quickly sort values in report columns to search for insights, such as which job types are most profitable, or which categories were unsuccessful.

Sign in with Google

If your business uses Google Workspace, you can now log in to ServiceM8 with your Google account, saving you from needing to enter your password.

Sign in with Google

Global Search Bar

Global Search makes it easy to search your entire ServiceM8 account — clients, job history, everything. It’s now faster to start a search, plus there’s a keyboard shortcut so you don’t have to take your hands off the keyboard.

Global Search Bar

Activity Feed Post Visibility

A lot of important but sensitive info comes through the Activity Feed, like payments, customer feedback & snapshot reports. It’s now possible to see which security roles can see sensitive posts — just hover over the icon, and it’ll tell you.

Activity Feed Post Visibility


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