OVERVIEW
How to add a work order to the calendar
How to add a work order to the waiting list
Moving a work order from the waiting list to the calendar
Printing work orders from the calendar
Rescheduling from the calendar
Cancelling and completing from the calendar
Creating a batch of invoices from the calendar
Zone-based services
Job costing

SCREEN OVERVIEW
Filter the calendar
Mini calendar
Calendar buttons
Enter job cost
Waiting list

Overview

Every business from the beginning of recorded time has used a calendar of some description to great effect - obviously, a calendar helps business owners and employees keep track of upcoming and past jobs, and can be a boon to scheduling and invoicing as well. The Method Field Services calendar takes this to the next level by seamlessly integrating with work orders, invoices, and customer lists to make sure you and your team stay on top of all your tasks with as little effort as possible! This section will outline the great stuff you can do with your Method Field Services calendar in a step-by-step breakdown, and will also include a comprehensive screen overview to explain all the functionality of each screen!

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How to add a work order to the calendar

There are two ways to add a work order to your calendar.

Using the New work order button

1. From Method Field Services, go to My Calendar > Calendar.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click New work order. This will open the Add/edit work order screen.
3. Please see our documentation on How to create a new work order for information on how to fill out this screen.
4. When you click Save & Close this work order will automatically be added to your calendar on the appropriate days and times.

Using the drag-right-click function

1. From Method Field Services, go to My Calendar > Calendar.
2. Click and hold the left button on your mouse at the start date and time you'd like to choose for your work order, and while holding the button down, drag to the end date and time for the duration you'd like.
3. Right-click the highlighted section and click on New. This will open the Add/edit work order screen with the pertinent dates and times you've dragged to already filled in. Please see our documentation on How to create a new work order for more information on how to complete this screen.
4. When you click Save & Close this work order will automatically be added to your calendar on the appropriate days and times.

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How to add a work order to the waiting list

The Waiting List contains all work orders that have a status containing the word "Waiting", including any status you make yourself. The Waiting list can be very useful if you have a series of work orders that are waiting on an available tech, for example, or if the work order is waiting for an available time to be addressed.

1. From Method Field services, navigate to either My calendar or Work order list and click on New work order. This will bring up the Add/edit work order screen.
2. Create the work order as normal (see How to create a new work order), ensuring the Status you choose has the word "waiting" in the title. By default the only status in Method that is applicable here is "waiting on someone else", so if that doesn't fit your requirements, you can always make your own status (please see our documentation on Statuses for more information on how to do that).
3. Click Save & Close to save this information. This work order will now appear in the Waiting List grid that can be accessed by navigating to My Calendar > Waiting list.

   TIP:	You can also move an existing work order to the waiting list by editing that work order (see How to edit a work order for more details) and choosing a status with the word "waiting" in the title before saving that record. The work order will now appear in the Waiting List grid.

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Moving a work order from the waiting list to the calendar

Once a job is ready to be taken on, you may wish to move it from the Waiting list to the main Calendar. Here's how to do it!

1. From Method Field Services, navigate to My calendar > Calendar.
2. Click on an open appointment area in the calendar on the date and time of your choice. The area will now be highlighted.?
3. Navigate to the Waiting list subtab and, from the grid, locate the work order you'd like to move to the calendar. Click on Send to calendar next to that work order. It will now appear in your calendar at the date and time you selected in the last step, and the user currently selected for this calendar view.

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Printing work orders from the calendar

Wouldn't it be nice if you could print a work order directly from the calendar screen? We think so too, which is why you absolutely can do that. Here's how!

1. From Method Field Services, navigate to My calendar > Calendar.
2. Using the calendar filter to the left, choose the date range you would like to view for the work orders you want to print. The easiest way to do this for multiple dates is to hold shift and left click on the start and end dates for the range. This will update the calendar to the right to display those dates.
3. If necessary, you can also use the User filter to display work orders from multiple users by clicking on the check boxes next to their names and clicking Apply filter.
4. If you only wish to print a single work order, right-click on it in the calendar and choose Print Work Order(s).
5. If you wish to print multiple work orders, hold shift while left-clicking on each work order you would like to include, then (while still holding shift), right-click on any of the selected work orders and choose Print Work Order(s).
6. Both of these options will generate one PDF of each selected work order which can then be printed.

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Rescheduling from the calendar

The calendar is designed to make your life easy, particularly when it comes to scheduling, so it would make sense that you have several options as to how to reschedule a work order directly from the calendar.

1. From Method Field Services, navigate to My Calendar > Calendar.
2. Locate the work order you want to reschedule and simply drag it to the new date and time. If the new date and time is not visible on the current screen you have two choices:
3. Expand the date range using the View drop down menu. For example, if you want to reschedule a work order from 11:00am on January 5 to 2:00pm on January 9, select Week view from the drop down menu and drag the work order from the 5th to the 9th. Then select Day view and drag the work order from 11:00am to 2:00pm.
4. Double-click on the work order to open the Add/edit work order screen, change the dates and times to the new preferred date and time, and click Save. This works particularly well for dates that need to be rescheduled beyond a month's difference.

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Cancelling and completing from the calendar

Much like rescheduling, the calendar is designed to make changing the status of a job a job quick and easy. Here's what to do!

1. From Method Field Services, navigate to My Calendar > Calendar.
2. Find the work order you would like to cancel or complete and right-click on it in the calendar.
3. Navigate to Change status > Cancel or Change status > Complete. Clicking on the first will change the status of this work order to "cancelled". The work order will no longer appear on the calendar (unless you specifically choose to filter the calendar to view Cancelled work orders), and will appear as "cancelled" in the Work order list. Clicking on the second will change the status of this work order to "complete". The work order will still appear in the unfiltered calendar view, but it will be marked complete and the colour of the entry will change to reflect the completed status. It will also appear as "complete" in the Work order list.
4. If you want to cancel or complete multiple work orders at once, hold down shift and left-click on all work orders you'd like to change. While still holding shift, right-click on one of the work orders, and navigate to Change status > Cancel or Change status > Complete. This will have the same effects as above, only it will influence all selected work orders.

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Creating invoices from the calendar

Often you will want to turn one or more work orders into invoices all at once (perhaps at month's end, for example), so Method Field Services makes it easy to do that right from your calendar.

1. From Method Field Services, navigate to My Calendar > Calendar.
2. Using the calendar filter to the left, choose the date range you would like to view for the work orders you want to turn into invoices. The easiest way to do this for multiple dates is to hold shift and left click on the start and end dates for the range. This will update the calendar to the right to display those dates.
3. If necessary, you can also use the User filter to display work orders from multiple users by clicking on the check boxes next to their names and clicking Apply filter.
4. If you only wish to create a single invoice, right-click on the work order in the calendar and choose Create invoice(s).
5. If you wish to create multiple invoices, hold shift while left-clicking on each work order you would like to include, then (while still holding shift), right-click on any of the selected work orders and choose Create invoice(s).

   TIP:	In the case of creating a batch of invoices, the invoicing process in Method Field Services will automatically include multiple work orders for the same customer on a single invoice when you select them to be invoiced in the same batch.

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Zone-based services

Zone-Based services (services that are scheduled by geographical area instead of by date) in Method Field Services are handled by the Waiting status. Since both one-time work orders and recurring work orders can appear in the Waiting List you can simply do the following:

1. Schedule recurring work orders with a recurring basis of "Yearly", and status containing "Waiting" (see Work orders for more information).
2. In the Waiting List, filter the list by the Job Name and by the Zip Code.
3. One by one, select where in the calendar you would like to send the services, and then click Send To Calendar.

   TIP:	Alternatively, you can customize the Work Order List screen, add a Zip Code column to the grid, and update a batch of services at once to change their status to "Not Started" using the Update Selected Work Orders tab. Please contact a Consultant for more information on how to customize the screen.

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Job costing

At the bottom of the calendar, there is a button called "Job cost selected". This functionality is meant to give you a quick and easy way to loop through all your work orders for the day, enter start and stop times, materials, and set work orders to complete, all from the Enter job cost screen. This, of course, saves you from having to manually edit each job one at a time. Here's how to do it.

1. From Method Field Services, navigate to Calendar.
2. Choose Day view from the Filter calendar drop down menu, and select the work orders you would like to edit.
3. Scroll down and click on Job cost selected. This will open the Enter job cost screen. Please note that this screen will only be displayed if the work order(s) you selected have job items associated with them.
4. You will automatically be directed to the Enter actual hours / time tracking subtab, where you can add or remove users from this job, identify a start and end time for the job, assign the job a class, determine what payroll item will be used to bill for the job, determine whether the job is billable, and include any notes you feel are pertinent to the job. You can also choose to click Wait for sync approval in order to keep any related time-tracking from being synced to QuickBooks during the next sync.
5. Click Enter time to proceed to the next step, or Enter time, save & close to close the screen and return to the calendar.
6. Clicking Enter time will redirect you to the Job item details subtab, where you can choose the item, edit the description, assign a quantity, rate, and amount, determine whether or not the item is taxed, identify any customer equipment associated with the job item, assign the item a class, and include any job-specific instructions pertaining to a particular task or material associated with the job. If you would like this job item to appear on a customer's invoice, click the appropriate check box.
7. The Job costing section is designed to calculate how much this job item or task will cost your company on the way out the door. Fill in the estimated man hours for the job item if applicable (this is usually defined when the job item or task is first created, so it may already be there). The actual job hours should be pushed forward from the previous subtab. You can use the "Copy to qty" button to quickly copy this information to the job item details section, which will be reflected in the customer's invoice when the work order is processed. If the job item type is "service" the cost of the service will be calculated as Act. Man hrs. multiplied by Cost per. If the job item type is anything else, it will be calculated as Qty multiplied by Cost per.
8. If you have multiple job items for the work order, click Save and Next or Save and Previous to navigate between them. This allows you to edit multiple items for the same work order from one screen.
9. If you would like to change the work order status to "completed" you may do so from this section by clicking on the relevant check box.
10. When you are finished, click Save & Close to return to the calendar or Save & New to clear the fields and remain on this screen.

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Screen overview

While there are only two subtabs associated with the Calendar screen, there are a variety of different functional elements to the Calendar that deserve description and explanation, so that's just what we're going to do!

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Filter the calendar

One of the handiest features included in the Method Field Services calendar is the ability to filter what work orders are being displayed at any given time. This is very helpful when you need to look up, for example, all work orders assigned to a particular user, or all work orders still outstanding in a given week. Let's take a closer look at how the filtering options work!

By view

The first filter option, the drop down menu seen above the clickable calendar, is "filter by view". This menu gives you several options that will allow you to filter the calendar in different ways.

• Day view: Choosing this option will display the current date from 8am to 6pm and all work orders falling on that date.
• Week view: Choosing this option will display the current week from Monday to Sunday, with all work orders falling within that week.
• Work week view: Choosing this option will display the current work week from Monday to Saturday from 8am to 6pm, and all work orders falling within that week arranged by time.
• Month view: Choosing this option will display a Monday-Saturday grid detailing the next 30 days from the current date, and all work orders falling within that month.
• Timeline view: The timeline view is used to reorder your week so that it can be viewed horizontally rather than vertically across the screen.

By user

This filter option can be accessed by clicking on Change next to the line marked Assigned to: (user). This will open the Assigned to grid, where you can identify which users' work orders you would like displayed in the main calendar. Simply click on the desired users and then click Apply filter. You can show as many or as few users as you like. This option is useful on its own (e.g. display all work orders assigned to user "Trish") but works best when used in conjunction with the other two filter types (e.g. display all work orders for user "Trish" during this work week.)

By status

This filter option can be accessed by clicking on Change next to the line marked Status. This will open the Status grid, where you can identify the status of the work orders you'd like to see displayed in the main calendar. Simply click on the desired statuses and then click Apply filter. You can filter the calendar using as many or as few status types as you like. This option is useful on its own (e.g. display all work orders with status marked "deferred") but works best when used in conjunction with the other two types (e.g. display all work orders for today assigned to user "Trish" marked "deferred").

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Mini calendar

The mini calendar located on the left-hand side of the screen is an analogue of the large calendar to the right. Clicking on individual dates will automatically filter the calendar to Day view for the selected date. You can also click and drag multiple dates to display, allowing you to see two or more dates concurrently in the calendar to the right. Click the single right- and left-facing arrows (> and > and <> to view December 2014).

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Calendar buttons

The buttons along the bottom of the calendar give you unique options, so let's take a look at them in detail.

• Mapping: This button has several additional options attached to it.Job cost selected: This opens the Enter Job Cost screen. This will be explained in greater detail below.
  • Map current column: This option will open a Google Maps popup for the route(s) associated with the current column selected in the calendar.
  • Map selected work orders: This option will open a Google Maps popup for the route(s) associated only with the work orders you have selected in the calendar.
  • Preferences: This will redirect you to the Settings and preferences screen (please see Dashboard for more information).
• New work order: This opens the New work order screen (please see our documentation on the Work order list for more information).
• Refresh: This button will refresh the calendar.

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Enter job cost

On the left-hand side of this screen you will see the Customer:Job name, the description, start and end dates, who the job is assigned to, and the work order / reference numbers. All of this information is pulled directly from the work order itself. You will also see an option that allows you to set work order status to completed. Save & previous saves the changes to this job item and selects the previous job item in this job (if applicable) and Save & next saves the changes and selects the next job item (if applicable).

Enter actual hours / time tracking

The top of this subtab is dominated by the Existing time tracking entries grid. Here you will see all time tracking entries for this particular job item.

• You can sort and search the grid by Employee/Vendor assigned to the job, Date of the job, Duration of the job in minutes, Class of the job, the Payroll item wage designation assigned to the job, whether or not the job is Billable, and whether the time tracking for the job has been designated to wait for approval.
• Clicking on delete will remove the selected entry (this can't be undone) and clicking on Go to will open the New/edit time tracking entry screen.
• The Refresh button refreshes the screen.

Add/edit time tracking

The drop down lists marked Employee/Vendor 1-5 can be used to assign up to five employees and/or vendors to this job. Edit team member defaults will take you to the Dashboard screen associated with team members.

• Changing the Start and End times below and clicking away or pressing "tab" will automatically update the Duration field with the appropriate time in minutes.
• The Date, Class, Payroll item, and Billable? drop down menus allow you to assign values to this job item: date of service, type of job, how you will pay the employee responsible for performing this service (by hour, flat rate), and whether or not customers will be billed for this particular job item.
• Wait for sync approval, when clicked, will keep this job time tracking from being synced to your QuickBooks until the check box is unchecked.
• Default time tracking settings will redirect you to the Dashboard screen associated with time tracking preferences.
• The Notes field is a field designed to allow you to add additional notes about the job and/or time entry associated..
• Enter time will enter this new time into the grid above and redirect you to the Job item details subtab. Enter time, save & close will enter the time into the grid above and return you to the calendar screen.

Job item details

The left side of this screen deals with information pertinent to the purchase of the service or product itself by your company - in short, this information refers to how much a product or service will cost your overhead.

• Item: Choose an item from the drop down list, or use the ellipses button (...) to create a new one (see Items for more information).
• Item description: The description of the job item. This is synced from QuickBooks.
• Qty: This field is to denote the quantity of the job item (number of products or number of man hours required for the service) requested on this job.
• Rate: This is the amount of money one unit of quantity costs the company (one hour of work or one product).
• Amount: This is the total amount the job item will cost the company, expressed in dollars. When you change the quantity and tab or click away, the amount will change accordingly (amount = qty x rate)
• Tax: This refers to whether or not the item will be taxed.
• Customer equipment: This drop down menu allows you to identify if any customer equipment will be used in the completion of this job. Please see Equipment for more information.
• Class: This is the class of the job item.
• Is included on invoice: If this particular job item needs to be included on the customers' invoice, click this check box. For example: if part of the service provided includes a part the customer is responsible for purchasing, you will want to include this item on their invoice.
• Job item instructions: This section is only to be used if you need to include specific instructions for a particular task or material. Otherwise, use the Work order instructions section for additional info about this job.

Job costing

• Est man hrs: The estimated man hours for this particular job item.
• Act man hrs: The actual man hours for this particular job item; this will be generated when you save the time under the Time Tracking subtab.
• Cost per: Functionally, the cost per refers to the same thing "Rate" does. Cost per is used to calculate total cost to the company for this job item.
• Cost: This field is filled in when a Cost per and a quantity (for products) or actual man hours (for services) value are both present. Clicking on Calculate will generate the cost based on Product = Qty x Cost per and Service = Act Man Hrs x Cost per.

• Save & new: Saves the information and clears the fields.
• Save & close: Saves the information and returns you to the Calendar.
• Cancel: Closes the screen without saving.

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Waiting list

The Waiting List contains all work orders that have a status containing the word "Waiting", including any status you make yourself. If a work order is present on the waiting list, it means there is an external condition that must be met before work can proceed on this order. The waiting list is a handy way of separating jobs that can't go ahead from those that can: for example, if a job is waiting on an available tech or specific time. The waiting list functions in much the same way as other grids in Method (see our documentation on Grid functionality for more information) but there are some unique features we should discuss here.

As usual, the waiting list (as with other grids in Method) can be filtered a few ways by using the Filter by view drop down menu.

• All occurrences with 'waiting' status: This refers to every occurrence in Method Field Services with a status that makes reference to "waiting".
• All occurrences with 'waiting' status on or before today's date: This is the same as above, but it refers specifically to occurrences dated for today or earlier.
• My occurrences with 'waiting' status: This refers to every occurrence in Method Field Services assigned to the user currently signed in, with a status that makes reference to "waiting".
• My occurrences with 'waiting' status on or before today's date: This is the same as above, but it refers specifically to occurrences dated for today or earlier.
• Auto refresh on send: If this checkbox is checked, when you click "Send to Calendar" next to a work order, both the waiting list and the calendar will automatically refresh, and you will be returned to the calendar screen.
• Refresh will refresh the grid.

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