Service Sidekick

ServiceSidekick Blog

Assign multiple techs to jobs

August 17, 2008

We've just added support for a very highly requested feature: the ability to assign multiple techs to a job.

Before today, one tech could be assigned to a job. Now, you can assign one, two, three, or more techs!

Assign multiple techs to a job

Multiple techs on a job
Mobile additions

July 10, 2008

We've just rolled out a couple great new additions to our mobile site.

First, now the whole customer list is accessible with filtering.

Also, the widely requested feature of allowing new jobs to be created through the mobile site is now in!

Enjoy!

Filter customers by first letter

Create a new job
Custom Fields

June 29, 2008

Need to track customer and job information that doesn't map to existing fields in ServiceSidekick?

Well then you're going to love the new custom field support we are rolling out.

To activate this feature click on the "Settings" tab and then the "Custom Fields" link.

Check out these screenshots to see how easy it is to define and use custom fields!

Create some custom fields

Edit a record and set some custom fields

Custom fields now appear on the record
New job reports added

June 24, 2008
Two new reports were recently added to ServiceSidekick.
- Job snapshots by scheduled date
- Job snapshots by completed date
Enjoy!
IT Services case study

April 21, 2008

Vista Information Systems is a leading IT company specializing in systems integration, internet solutions, and telephony.

Read the case study on how Vista Information Systems saves time and money and organizes for growth by using ServiceSidekick.

Case Study

Also: Don't forget to read the Anchor Tree Service case study.
ServiceSidekick goes gold!

April 10, 2008

Pop the champagne - ServiceSidekick has just been certified as a QuickBooks Gold Developer - the highest level within the QuickBooks certification program!

We are extremely proud to be recognized for our current achievements in offering simple and compatible QuickBooks software for service businesses. It's likely that our customers save more time with our QuickBooks integration features than with any other part of ServiceSidekick. So rather than rest on our laurels, we are looking forward to rolling out many new features in 2008 to further our goal of offering the best software package for service businesses.
Export reports to Excel

March 25, 2008

Microsoft's Excel is a great tool for slicing and dicing information.

As such, we've added support to export reports directly into a format that Excel can read.

Here are a few screenshots:

Export options

View report to screen (default)

Export to Excel
Filter by customer name

March 20, 2008

Filtering by the first letter of a customer name is now available on the customer board.

Here is a screenshots of the new functionality - hope you enjoy!
Duplicate jobs and estimates

March 15, 2008

Another hot new feature has just been added to ServiceSidekick - the ability to duplicate jobs and estimates.

How can this help your business?

Do you ever have recurring jobs or work that is very similar at the same location?

If so, now you can simply click "Duplicate job", set a scheduled time and a new job (or estimate) will be automatically created. Even job charges are copied over.

Here is a screenshot of the new functionality - enjoy!
Custom estimate and invoice templates

March 13, 2008
Today we are pleased to announce that one of our most highly requested features has been introduced - totally customizable estimate and invoice templates!

Many of our customers have already spent some time customizing estimate and invoice templates from QuickBooks and obviously didn't want to settle for our former pre-canned options.

Thankfully we now can support nearly any template style, color, or format that can be imagined!

The best part is that custom templates in ServiceSidekick are created using HTML & CSS - the building blocks of every web site on the Internet. Using basic HTML & CSS, you can design your template in any one of the thousands of html editors and then copy and paste the template into ServiceSidekick.

If you need help translating an existing template from QuickBooks into HTML or need some pointers to get started feel free to contact us and we'll help straight-away.

The Details

Let's walk through building a custom template by first looking at a very simple example.

Example 1 - Simple template (without formatting)
```
<html>
    <body>
        Estimate #
        <span class="estimate_number"></span>
        <div class="job_charges"></div>
    </body>
</html>
```
Example 1

Now this template is not very pretty but it serves as a good starting point to begin explaining the process of designing a custom template.

Enclosed in the standard HTML opening tags of html and body are the following lines:
- Estimate # Just plain text and will print out as shown in the estimate.
- span class="estimate_number" A span HTML tag with a special class of estimate_number. This class instructs ServiceSidekick to replace this tag with the actual estimate number.
- div class="job_charges" A div HTML tag with a special class of job_charges. This class instructs ServiceSidekick to replace this tag with all the estimate line items.
The reason this template looks jumbled is because it contains no formatting at all.

But before we add formatting, let's take a look at the basic format of a custom template that can be used as a starting point for any template.

Custom template skeleton
```
<html>
    <head>
        <style type="text/css">
            FORMATTING GOES HERE...
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        TEMPLATE GOES HERE...
    </body>
</html>
```
Again, those familiar with HTML & CSS will recognize this as the basic skeleton of a web page.

So now we are ready to give our example template a much-needed makeover...

Example 2 - Simple template (with formatting)
```
<html>
    <head>
        <style type="text/css">
            body { margin: 20px 50px; }
            table { width: 100%; margin-bottom: 20px; border-collapse: collapse; }
            table td { vertical-align: top; }

            table#charges { margin: 25px 0; border: 1px solid #555; }
            table#charges th, table#charges td { text-align: left; padding: 3px 10px; }
            table#charges td { border-top: 1px solid #dcdcdc; }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>
            Estimate #
            <span class="estimate_number"></span>
        </h1>
        <div class="job_charges"></div>
    </body>
</html>
```
Example 2

Now our template is starting to look a lot better. Let's break down what is going on here:
- body { margin: 20px 50px; } Setting up our margins (px = pixels).
- table { width: 100%; margin-bottom: 20px; border-collapse: collapse; } Set tables to fill the width of the page and streamline the border.
- table td { vertical-align: top; } Align text in table rows to top.
- table#charges { margin: 25px 0; border: 1px solid #555; } Set margin on line items table and draw border.
- table#charges th, table#charges td { text-align: left; padding: 3px 10px; } Align text to the left and pad (make margins) in the line item text sections.
- table#charges td { border-top: 1px solid #dcdcdc; } Separate line items with a line.
This example should serve as a good starting point for your own custom templates.

Special CSS classes

The following special classes can be used to instruct ServiceSidekick to replace it with the actual account, customer, estimate, or job data at the time the template is processed.

Account information
```
logo
company_name
company_billing_address
company_billing_city
company_billing_state
company_billing_zip_code
company_billing_phone_number
```
Customer information
```
customer_name
customer_number
customer_service_address
customer_service_city
customer_service_state
customer_service_zip_code
customer_billing_address
customer_billing_city
customer_billing_state
customer_billing_zip_code
customer_email_address
customer_phone_number
customer_fax
customer_alt_phone_number
```
Job information
```
job_name
job_number
job_created_on
job_scheduled_on
job_completed_on
```
Estimate information
```
estimate_name
estimate_number
estimate_created_on
estimate_scheduled_on
estimate_completed_on
```
Job or estimate job charges (line items)
```
job_charges
```
Examples

Add company logo (must be uploaded first)
```
<div class="logo"></div>
```
Insert company name
```
<div class="company_name"></div>
```
Insert customer email address
```
<div class="customer_email_address"></div>
```
Insert date job was completed
```
<div class="job_completed_on"></div>
```
Conclusion

We hope you really like this new feature. Again, feel free to contact us with any questions regarding custom templates at support@servicesidekick.com
Multiple location support

February 8, 2008
You spoke and we listened. One of the most requested features of our customer base has just gone live.

ServiceSidekick now supports managing multiple work locations for a customer!

This is great for businesses that do:
- sub-contract work
- maintenance work at multiple locations for a management company
- any work where the customer to bill is different from the customer/person/business at the service location
Here are few screenshots of the new functionality - enjoy!
We have a blog!

February 5, 2008
Welcome to the first post of the ServiceSidekick blog!

No, up until now we haven't tried to be secretive. We've just been busy adding great new features to the product. But great features aren't so useful if new and existing customers don't know about them.

So here we'll be posting product updates and other happenings in the world of ServiceSidekick.

You can follow this blog a number of different ways:
1. Subscribe to our email updates. This means when we post a new article, you'll be notified via email.
2. Subscribe to our RSS feed. This is a bit more advanced as it requires an RSS reader. There are many great free readers out there:
  - Google reader (web-based)
  - FeedDemon (Windows)
  - NetNewsWire (Mac)
3. Just go to our blog and read it!
We have an exciting lineup of new changes coming in 2008 so stay tuned!

ServiceSidekick Blog

The Details

Special CSS classes

Conclusion