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SmartTrade Blog

News and views from the SmartTrade crew.

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Posted by on in Smart Tips

SmartTrade incorporates many time saving short-cuts, some of these are standard Microsoft short-cuts, others are SmartTrade short-cuts.

Below is a list of SmartTrade's short-cuts

SYSTEM-WIDE TIPS

Help



F1 key

Pressing the Function 1 key from anywhere in SmartTrade opens up the help file at the relevant place.

Searching



Use ENTER when
searching


If you are typing search data into a search field you can press ENTER at any time to start the search, you don’t have to scroll across to the SEARCH button.

Working in a field



If the field name has an asterisk*

Right clicking into the field will allow more features.

Home key

Move to the beginning of the current field.

End key

Move to the end of the current field.

Tab key Move to the next field in the tabbing order.

Shift+Tab keys Move to the previous field in the tabbing order.

CTRL+C keys
(Copy)
Highlight text in a field then hold down CTRL and press C to copy it to the clipboard, the text in the field is unchanged.

CTRL+X keys
(Delete)
Highlight text in a field then hold down CTRL and press X to copy it to the clipboard, the text in the field is deleted.

CTRL+V keys
(Paste)
Click into a field then hold down CTRL and press V to paste text from the clipboard into the field.

CTRL+A keys
(Select all)
Click into a field then then hold down CTRL and press A to select/highlight all text in the field.

Working in Rich     text fields

 
(i.e. those where you can choose a font and size)
CTRL+D key

Click into a rich text field then then hold down CTRL and press D to insert a data/time/name stamp into the field.
CTRL+F key Hold down CTRL and press F to open and edit a rich text field in a separate window.

Screen tips

Hide the expanded tool bar to create more screen room Click the small up arrow on the top black menu bar to hide the expanded toolbar and give you more room on your screen.
Click the arrow again to restore the menu bar.
CTRL+Tab key Move between SmartTrade screens when you have multiple screens opened.

ESC key Click on the ESC key to close the active SmartTrade screen.

Grid tips



Customising the grid

Right-click on any column HEADERS of a grid for many options for hiding columns, pinning a favourite column etc

Filtering in the grid

All of SmartTrade’s grids have a small ‘filter’ symbol on each column heading. Click this symbol to choose options to further reduce the items shown in the grid.

View the latest note in the Find Jobs grid or Find Clients grid

Right-click on a Job in the Find Jobs grid, or a Client in the Find Clients grid and choose View Latest Note from the menu. The latest note that has been added or updated will be displayed in a small box. This will let you quickly read the latest information without having to edit the job or client first.

Email tips



Choose a different email address Clicking on the “TO” button when emailing any report (e.g. invoices, quotes and orders) opens a small search screen allowing you to find all other contacts to select from.
Keep a record of the quote or invoice emails sent from the SmartTrade

While a user can confirm if a quote or invoice has been emailed out of SmartTrade by looking in the History tab as per below, they are not able to see the actual contents of the email.

To keep a “sent” record of emails dispatched from SmartTrade set up email preferences in the BCC list to send a copy to your email account.

Administration      



Monitoring who is logged in

Go to Administration => License Keys => Logged in users tab to see who are all the users currently logged in – and force them to log off if necessary.

SPECIFIC SCREEN TIPS

Working in the Job Sheet tab of a job

Select only items that have quantities to an order or invoice Ticking the top tickbox on the jobsheet twice will un-tick the items that have a zero quantity to either order or invoice.
Adding bulk line items to a job

When adding line items to a job, you are able to multi-select many rows on the “Add New Line Item” form using Shift/Ctrl keys, and then click Add to add them all in bulk (all with the quantity shown in the quantity field). This is much quicker than selecting one item and adding, then selecting the next item and adding…
Working in the Find:Invoice/Orders
/Quote screens
Open the job from the Find Invoices, Find Orders or Find Quote screens Right-click on an invoice in the Find Invoices grid and choose “Edit Job” to open this invoice’s job. You can do the same from the Find Orders and Find Quote screens.

Create a credit from the Find Invoices grid Right-click on any invoice in the Find Invoices grid and choose “Create Credit Invoice” to make an exact reversal of the invoice.
Working in the Quote screen

Accepting a Quote straight after creating it

When you have created a quote and you want to accept it straight away, create the quote and click Save, then go straight up to the Quote Status field and change to “Accepted”. This is much quicker than closing the quote, then having it find it again to accept it.
Working in the Schedule

Floating Schedule 
menu


Clicking on the Floating schedule icon in the Jobs menu opens up a floating schedule that can be moved to a second screen. We recommend using two computer screens for working in the schedule, that way you can continue working in other areas of SmartTrade while still having the schedule open.
F5 key Pressing the Function 5 key refreshed the data in the schedule.

ALT+J keys Hold down ALT key and press J to open up a list of jobs to schedule.

ALT+R keys Hold down ALT key and press R to refresh the data in the schedule

Sync the SmartTrade schedule to a Google calendar Set up Google calendar sync with SmartTrade and then set up in the preferences in Google to:
  • Receive an email with an agenda for the day – Google will send an email at 5AM each morning with the days schedule as set up in SmartTrade
  • Receive reminders – Google can send an email reminder before an appointment is due
Sync the SmartTrade schedule to an Outlook calendar If using Outlook – use the Google Calendar Sync software to add Appointments/Jobs to your Outlook calendar – this works only one-way from the SmartTrade schedule to the Outlook calendar.

Posted by on in Smart Tips

We have prepared a “tips” sheet to assist our customers successfully mobilising their business.

The “tips” sheet itemises a number of common sense strategy points, suggests possible responses to employee and employer soft issues and outlines possible device factors. It also includes a sample agreement for the use of both company owned and BYOD mobile devices.

Please click here to view the full document.

Posted by on in Software Products and Updates

In recent times we have added the following features/functionalities to SmartTrade.

SmartTrade Mobile

Kitsets are now available on SmartTrade Mobile making it possible for SmartTrade Mobile users to utilise this timesaving functionality in the field.

Occupants can now be synced on SmartTrade Mobile.

SmartForms

SmartForms are attached to jobs in SmartTrade Ultimate or Essential in the office. The jobs are then dispatched to SmartTrade Mobile users in the field who fill out and upload the forms to the cloud.
SmartTrade customers must be running version 6.1.19 of either SmartTrade Essential or Ultimate to be able to use SmartForms.

{modal https://www.youtube.com/embed/v7pEhBxrmFc|width=640|height=505|title=Argus Fire Protection Case study}Watch this video case study with Argus Fire Protection using SmartForms {/modal}

Google Calendar integration

This feature enables SmartTrade users to dispatch appointments from the SmartTrade schedule to the Google Calendar schedule on smart devices, great for sending appointments to your staff on their smart phones. It is not yet possible to sync appointments from the smart device’s Google Calendar back to the SmartTrade schedule.

Read more about the Google Calendar integration

SMS Messaging – available with SmartTrade Essential and Ultimate

We have now made SMS texting a standard feature of SmartTrade Essential and Ultimate. In earlier versions of SmartTrade Office SMS was licenced as an add-on module.

SMS users will still need to purchase SMS credits.
New functionality list for mobile and version 6 users.

Listed below you will find a new set of functions and features now available to all those using SmartTrade Mobile and SmartTrade Version 6.

V6 essential and ultimate
  • Sub Jobs. Now you have the ability to create sub-jobs . They are a complete stand-alone job, but can share the same job number plus a unique identifier for each sub-job. To create a sub-job, edit the job and click Other action => Create sub-job

  • Ability to unaccept a quote. This will allow you to change the quote before accepting it again, or accept a different quote. 

Mobile
  • Job Pictures. Photo capture for Jobs.

  • Ability to Create new Quote jobs on your device, or dispatch existing Quote jobs to your device that either have or don’t have an accepted quote. The Add Job page on mobile asks if you want to add a Quote job or a Charge-up job.

  • Ability to Add/ Edit / Delete Costing line items for a Quote job.

  • Ability to Create a new Quote on mobile.

  • Ability to Find Clients that are not currently on your mobile device and download them to your device. This would then allow you to add a new job for the client and/or view all details for the client including notes and customisable fields.  If a client is downloaded to your mobile device, ALL the sites for the client will be downloaded. Each client has an action to allow you to no longer keep the client on your mobile device, e.g. if you only downloaded it temporarily to view some details for it.

SmartForms
All forms linked to a job, or linked to an asset which is linked to a job can have any or all of the following flags. These flags are maintained in the office. Forms that are not applicable will not be sent to the mobile devices. The flags are:
  • Form is mandatory

  • Form will pop-up when the job is opened on the mobile device

  • Form is not applicable for this job.

There have been many more additions to this list however these are the ones we felt were most anticipated. 
Read more about the full list of recent features and upgrades please click here.

Some great Feedback just come in from one of our valued clients Kylie of Coral Coast Plumbing:
 

I spoke to you in regards to feedback for integrating Smart trade mobile into our plumbing business.

Well we are now 4 weeks along from our original trial and have all of our plumber’s using the system.

We have found implementing the mobile version to our office has created time across our entire staff’s workload, especially the administration side.

Our invoicing process is savings us at least 3-4 hour’s every week as all of our job sheets are pre-entered onsite, which makes Invoicing a breeze rather than a mammoth task each week.

The best part is our Plumbers are happy with the system and are no longer having to complete entries twice on their timesheets and manually on their job sheets, bonus!

All round implementing from the administration side to the outside staff has taken us a little over 2 weeks and we are experiencing our first week paperless.

I would like to say thanks to Smart trade for helping us through this stage as we have had a lot of phone call’s to the support team ironing out all of the little things we are not sure about.

Considering we were so nervous about shifting so many staff from a paper system we feel that overall it has worked out really well and would happily recommend Smart trade!

Kind Regards

Kylie
Coral Coast Plumbing

Some excellent feedback there from Kylie, if your business is interested in SmartTrade Mobile please give us a call on the number above or send us an email at [email protected] and we can discuss a solution to propel your business.

 

Tagged in: mobile Review