Dashboard Reminder Screen needs to be more informative & interactive
The Dashboad Reminder Screen offers no real value or use with the exception that you know 'something' has to be done.
Hey, we have a link to the new dashboard from the old dashboard – it’s beta right now, but I’m going to mark these as complete because it’s really usable as of right now.
If there are VERY specific things you think we missed, feel free to comment here – but it might be better to start a new suggestion with very detailed examples of what should be added.
Give it a shot, instead of /tickets/dashboard, it’s tickets/dashboard_new
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
To all big-chain users: It looks like Troy updated the URL's for the dashboards. If you are using a location tag at the end of your URL to specify a location, you need to delete the "_new" or else it will just fail to all locations. Just an FYI.
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
Hey Troy,
We really need some way to centrally sync our dashboard settings for colors/timers/etc. We have all of our users trying to view the new dashboards from their individual workstations and they're just getting the default settings. They're running around trying to update settings on the 6 workstations we have in each store and it's absurd. Not to mention if we update one of the settings it will need to be manually deployed on ever single workstation.
Please make the settings for colors/timers/sort-order a global setting for all users in our organization. And ideally make this an admin-only feature so that everyone cannot just mess with the settings.
Thanks!
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
@Troy - OMG! Thank you! Keep my public URL in mind... :)
-
@ryan - you can now add ?location_id=123 with the number corresponding to your location. You can find it in the url from the location edit page
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
@Troy -Thanks for the location update. That's a good short-term fix.
@Rob - Yes, you can also post-fix the word -Invoiced which will make tickets green on the dashboard. -Resolved removes them completely. My recommendation would be to add a new status and not remove your existing status (as this would lose all of your history of those statuses).
@Devs - It would be great if we could actually "EDIT" statuses/referred-by/etc instead of just add new ones and then switch them. I have several things I'd like to update the name of.. -
@bigchains - I just deployed a change where the currently signed in location is the default, I'll get a url parameter added shortly too.
-
Rob - it might be better to add Canceled-Resolved, leave the other one in there, until you migrate them all.
if you just have like 100~ or so, you should do that manually yourself - if there are lots more than that - we can get a developer to do it for you. (bulk changes are coming some day)
-
Rob commented
@Troy I'm unable to rename the "canceled" ticket status. I can delete it, then make a new one.. but I'm afraid that'll mess up all the tickets that are currently in Canceled status.
Is this something I should open a support ticket for?
-
Rob commented
@Troy - Oh wow! Was not aware I could piggy back the resolved status like that.
With regards to the invoiced status.. I'm assuming there is no way to stop the automatic change in status to invoiced when an invoice is generated? We can manually go back to the tickets and change to resolved once they are done.
(Background: The majority of our business is NOT done in the shop. So, we are tracking problems by their progress towards resolution. Once a customer's problem is resolved, we invoice that out. We then track paid/unpaid invoices separately as part of A/R, not our ticketing views. I understand it's helpful to mark as resolved once a customer picks up their device from the shop, but we really don't have much of that.)
-
@Rob - if you are treating canceled as 'also done' - you should rename that to "Canceled-Resolved" and it will act like resolved. We are probably not going to support non-standard flows like that - if that is what you are doing.
Invoiced in RepairShopr does mean it has an invoice and you still have the job open - you should be changing those to resolved if they are done.
-
Rob commented
@Ryan
Absolutely. Hiding statuses would accomplish that. As to your Admin Settings... I think your intent is to be able to globally control how the dashboard is displayed by default. If that's the goal, then yes, I'm absolutely on board. I don't care where that setting is located.. Admin Settings or right in the dashboard module itself. -
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
@Rob, Troy mentioned he'll be adding an option to "hide" certain statuses. Would this fix your issue? What do you think about my other idea for the admin settings?
-
Rob commented
I think it's important we be able to filter this view.
For us, it's still not useable. Main reasons being:
1) We use a custom status "Canceled" (every canceled ticket since forever shows up in the dashboard)
2) Every ticket in the invoiced status shows up. We typically resolve support tickets then invoice them out afterwards, which the system automatically will change a ticket from Resolved to Invoiced. Invoiced is completed and shouldn't be in our dashboard.
If there's a filter available in the dash, then I think it's definitely something a wide variety of organizations can use.
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
Hi Jason.
This is an issue with not being able to refresh the screen without the location setting being lost. I've already brought this to Troy's attention, but his response was simply "don't refresh it"... Something he may be working in is adding a string to the URL to specify the location(s) you want the dashboard to display, therein allowing refresh to not affect that setting.
I also voiced suggestions to move all dashboard settings (location, sort order, color settings, etc) to a section under Admin settings.
Looking for everyone's feedback on this idea... -
Jason Miller commented
trying out the new Beta and i love it... I just cant get the Location to stay set per location. It wants to deault to ALL. Can you have this auto set based on the location that your singed into? Especially for big chains?
-
Rob commented
I went through the wall of text and just have a few comments. My apologies if my comment missed something that was already mentioned.
1) We don't put a diagnosis on 90+% of our tickets. Only computers that are dropped off. Everything else, we troubleshoot, notate with updates, and eventually resolve.
2) There are plenty of times where a ticket going stale is okay and shouldn't be alarming out on the dashboard. I won't touch how to handle weekends or other non-work days, because that's probably an impossible endeavor. BUT.. we might open a ticket and schedule an onsite appointment a week or more out. I don't want that ticket going all "pay attention to me because I'm lonely" RED for a week. It's been put into the scheduled status and it shouldn't be on any radar except for the service calendar.
3) We invoice as the last step (and not at all for contracted customers.. but that's a different discussion). We resolve a problem then invoice it out. Right now, when an invoice is generated it takes our Resolved tickets and puts them into Invoiced status which puts it right back on the dashboard. It's a manual process to go back and make sure it stays in the resolved status. This is clearly different across every business, but I just wanted to mention how there needs to be some granular controls in here.
-
Ryan (Power User A7, RepairShopr) commented
Hey RS,
Any update on these ideas?
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
LINK TO MOCK-UP IMAGE: http://i.imgur.com/6qQO0z5.jpg
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
[[PART 1 OF 2]]
Okay, LOTS of feedback/details here, so I’ll try to be as brief and descriptive as possible, without making it TL;DR. (Update: Sorry, couldn't help myself). I know that the RS dev-team wants to keep the overview clean and simple (I do too), but I’m starting to feel a weight more towards utility than simplicity. These are all just suggestions, and I’m really looking for other’s feedback and rebuttals. Please, give me some devil’s advocate insight!
I’d like to make a point that the dashboard is an AMAZING tool that isn’t close to its full potential. Like most shops, we have this displayed on our 50” LED TV on the back wall, in view of the entire repair area, as well as the customer check-in area. Not only is it great for tech’s to see where we’re at for the day, but we can even show customers that we have a good insight on what’s going on – which they always find impressive. Here are some things I’d like to change to make the dashboard more intuitive:
STATUS vs TIME PERIODS: Currently, the dashboard handles both statuses (invoiced and in-progess) as well as time periods (“fresh”, 2-day stale, etc.), however, it does not handle both in co-op. By that I mean you can’t tell if something is ‘invoiced and stale’, or if a ‘customer reply is going stale’. My solution to that, use light and dark shades of the same color. The actual color will represent the status (like blue is customer reply and green is invoiced), while the shade would represent the time period (like light is updated recently, dark is going stale). The exception I would make is with red/yellow. They work really well, and because light-red is kind of pink. So I’d leave white as fresh, yellow as 2-day, and red as 3-day.
Here’s a couple examples: LIGHT blue would indicate a customer reply in the last 24 hours, while DARK blue would indicate a customer reply that hasn’t been answered for more than 24 hours. LIGHT green would indicate invoiced in the last few days, while DARK green would indicate something has been invoiced (an is unpaid) for more than a week.
ADDITIONAL COLORS: With the correlation between different shades of the same color, there’s room to add more colors without it getting confusing. I don’t want to add every other color; I just want to MATCH the colors from the ticket list in the rest of the app (where purple is awaiting diagnostics, etc).
Therefore, I’d add purple for ‘not diagnosed yet’ – where LIGHT purple is ‘not diagnosed yet – less than 2 days old’ and DARK purple is ‘not diagnosed yet – past 2 days old’. Then you can tell not only WHAT needs diagnosed, but more importantly what needs diagnosed FIRST. Additionally, I’m waiting for a new topic to be completed, called No-Fix Resolution. I’d like to reserve LIGHT GREY and DARK GREY colors for this.
LOGISTICS and SHIPPING: Tickets are not the only important things I want on our constant radar. Shipping is as important as anything, if not more important, to always know where you’re at. Any shipments taking longer than 2-3 days? I DON’T FRIGGIN’ KNOW! How do I tell? Wait for the customer to call and complain? NO! The dashboard is smart and can alert me that I’m about to look dumb! BOOM!
This is simple, add relevant logistic (any that are linked to a ticket) to the right side of the dashboard. After all, there’s really no reason to need to see all the green “invoiced” tickets. They’re already “money waiting to be delivered”. Logistics are essentially “money waiting to arrive”. I made logistics items brown (yes, because UPS is brown) and you can still have DARK and LIGHT brown based on how long something is taking. I don’t know – LIGHT brown for less than 3 days, DARK brown for more than 3 days. Sounds good to me!
((Sub-topic to this @Robert and @Troy – One of my tech’s is a software integration developer and has tons of experience working with UPS/Fedex and their API’s. He said one of his current projects involves exactly what I’m talking about and he’d be happy to collaborate and send you a general mock-up of what he’s done for a client that you could use.))
APPROVALS: Okay, this is just some simple genius. What do you call it when a customer approves an estimate (that is linked to a ticket) through their online customer portal? BINGO – A “customer reply”! Guess what I’d like to happen when a customer approves an estimate online? That’s right – trigger their ticket to turn blue, so I know that something happened, and then they won’t call me tomorrow asking “Why haven’t you started it yet? I approved it online without mentioning it on the phone.” (gun to head)
Again, this fits in with the DARK and LIGHT colors, too. LIGHT for approval/reply in the last 24 hours, DARK for over 24 hours. Very easy to associate blue with a reply, very easy to associate colors shades with time periods.
-
Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
[[PART 2 OF 2]]
CUSTOMIZING COLORS: Message to everyone: This is NOT critical. Don’t even ask! It will just make Troy angry!
I can’t believe you even asked…
WEEKENDS: I feel like working on Sunday is cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t know what to do about making the dashboard NOT factor in certain days that we’re closed. Not the end of the world right now. As it stands, we’re always braced for Monday when there’s a ton of red tickets. It would be nice if the dashboard were smarter and knew that Sunday’s aren’t real and it could just ignore them. Maybe there needs to be an entire heading under the Admin panel for Dashboard?
In there you could specify hours to be factored into time periods. Hmmmm.
PUBLIC URL: This is so simple it’s annoying. We have a dedicated 50” TV on the back wall for customers. It’s running off a thin client and is always logged in as a user. We even have the “auto-refresh” extension installed in case RS goes offline for a minute, the dashboard will keep refreshing until it’s back online. The problem is, once in a while it logs out, and then we have to connect via RDP or remote assistance portal, log back into RS, and re-open the dashboard. Very annoying and it’s always happening. Sometimes we take all day to fix it and I hate it.
Easy fix: Make a public (non-clickable) link to the dashboard. Kind of like a Google doc or calendar. Something ridiculously random that no-one could guess, and even if they did, they can’t click on any of the blocks or visit any of the links. It’s simply a version of the dashboard with zero privileges. View only, no ticket details, no customer details, no invoice details, no logistics details. Heck, make all the links go to / so it just refreshes to the same page. I only want this because it’s annoying to have the store manager leave their account logged in (with all of their high-ranking privileges on their account).
OVERVIEW METRICS: While it’s nice to see ‘hours to close’ and other numbers like this at the top of the dashboard, these aren't the “best” metrics to see at all times. One reason – ‘hours to close’ incorporates ‘hours for a customer to get their a$$ in here and pay for their crap’. Sometimes people take a week to come in and pick up, and that negatively effects that metric. Some things are out of our control, so the metrics should only show important details that we can improve. Here are my ideas:
[Hours to diagnose]: How long on average from when a job gets checked in (purple) until it’s diagnosed (white). “Hi, we’re currently sucking and are on a 48-hour diagnosis window. We’ll try to get our sh*t together and get your computer diagnosed quicker. Sorry”
[Hours till invoiced]: How long on average from when a job gets checked in (purle) until it’s completed and ready for pickup/payment (green). This is a replacement for ‘hours to close’. Like “Hi, we’re kicking a$$ and are averaging a 8 hour turn-around from drop-off to completion. We rule!”
[Tickets resolved]: This already exists and I like it, however, instead of “where we’re at right now vs last month’s total”, I’d prefer “where we’re at right now vs where we were at this date last month”. “Hi, we’re doing better than last month right now. Horray!”
[Tickets resolution]: This goes back to my other (separate) topic on No-Fix tickets. Basically, this could let you know what percentage of tickets you’re throwing money away on. How many tickets are making you money vs how many aren’t going to make you any. “Hi, we say we can’t fix it less than 10% of the time because we’re not retarded. I’m not getting fired this month.”
[Shipping ETA]: I didn’t know what to put here, but this was about the logistics in my mock-up, so I figured WTH. This just shows how much UPS/FedEx suck, using their API integration for reference. “Hi, sorry your package isn’t here yet. We’re averaging 4-days on shipping because UPS is a monopoly and can be horrible without going out of business.”TL;DR: Remember when I said I’d make this short?
(shut your dirty mouth)
Please also see this forum topic for overlapping/additional feedback that went into this post:
http://feedback.repairshopr.com/forums/165658-general/suggestions/5455401-change-dashboard-colors