Monthly Archives: May 2012

So you carry your mobile phone with you everywhere, so do you workers. Why not connect your office to your mobile workers, with a streamlined app available in the Play store?

Connect2Field is a relatively new player on the Cloud scene in Australia with a passion for streamlining the processes of service businesses. With workers out in the field and maybe a small but busy team back in the office trying to keep it all together, a typical day in a small/ medium service business is hectic to say the least. Most revolve around perhaps an Outlook Calender of some description and a large Jobs Board that the Service Co-Ordinator scantily attempts to keep under control.

Getting your workers to the correct job site, on time, and well informed is one thing, but knowing exactly how long they were there, how long it took them to travel to site and getting around to doing the invoicing is another story all together!

So what if there was something simple that could run on your HTC, Samsung, Motorola, or dare we say it, your iPhone? And that the back end didn’t require thousands of dollars worth of difficult, poorly coded software that doesn’t communicate as it did in the pre-sales process? That you could log on from anywhere and check where your workers are and how their jobs are going?

Well we have the answer. Our Consulting Partners at Axis IT Consulting brought us in to demonstrate Connect2Field running on their fleet of Android devices, and we have come away very impressed.

The process begins as soon as the job comes in via either telephone or email.

Instead of entering the job into the Calendering program of choice, we open Google Chrome (our Browser of choice of course), log into Connect2Field via the web and instantly we are presented with a dash board view of our current jobs, clients we are dealing with and current rate of work and income. Nice! From there, we simply Click “Add Job”, select the client, enter the job details, address, date and start time and a few notes to let the worker know what to expect when he/she gets to site. From there we save the job, which does three things. 1) The job is entered into our system and logged with a job number, 2) A job confirmation email is sent to the client with all the details including a job number and 3) Our assigned worker is sent an SMS straight to his mobile phone. That is where the magic begins.

Once our Worker accepts the job, it is entered into the Schedule on their phone, as well as the Calendering app. Reviewing the Connect2Field Android app on the phone gives the Worker all the necessary information, ie Job Number, Address, Name, Start Date and Time, and Notes about the job. There is even a Map to graphically display where all your jobs are on at, to better organise your day! When the Worker starts to drive to the job, they bring up the job in the mobile app and click Start Travel, this counts the travel time. Arrive at site, click Arrived, and update the Job from Accepted to Started. This then starts the billable hours clock against the job. Once the job is finished, you mark the job as Finished and can even capture the customer’s signature against the job (which is instantly uploaded back to the server and stored against the job).

The job can then be marked as Completed, at which time, the invoice can either be raised and emailed on the mobile phone, or back in the Office. Easy.

Connect2Field is not a bookkeeping program though, however, there is no re-keying of data required by your Bookkeeper, as Connect2Field can transfer information to most popular accounting programs, such as Reckon’s QuickBooks, MYOB, Xero, and more. We are told Connect2Field will soon integrate with the online QuickBooks Hosted as well.

What it is though, is an extremely simple, extremely powerful and cost effective field worker/ service business solution, that requires no powerful hardware apart from an internet connection and some mobile phones, preferably Droids! For a small monthly fee, imagine the time and stress something this accessible could save you.

Why wait? There’s a free 14 day trial available on Connect2Field’s website and the App is available free on the Android Play Store.

Oh, if you would like a more personal demonstration of Connect2Field in action, contact Nathan at Axis IT Consulting for more information.