What's New in webWorkshop 1.9 

Release Date: 26th June, 2023.


This release is BIG, bringing you a bunch of new features that have been proven in our webSAM solution. We're particularly excited to bring you the new mobile-optimised Technician Web App.


And if you didn't notice, we've given this product an official name, formerly Remote Workshop, which was formerly webOrion - to be fair, all of these were placeholders until we had some consensus on the new name, and we've settled on webWorkshop!



TABLE OF CONTENTS



Hero Features


Technician Web App - Optimised for mobile!


⚠️Go to https://orion.sam.co.nz/mobile to open the Mobile Web App!



The new technician web app is aimed to help improve productivity, clocked time, and communication between front office staff and technicians. From their mobile phones, your technicians will be able to:

  • See the jobs they've been assigned
  • Clock on/off jobs
  • Add recommendations (for additional work)
  • Add photos to support the recommendation (e.g. photo of a dirty filter)
  • Send the recommendation to front office staff, so they can turn it into a new estimate for the vehicle owner along with any accompanying photos the techs have added


This mobile app, it should reduce time lost walking back and forth to a computer to clock into jobs, and provides a cheaper means of moving towards paperless jobcards, since the techs can simply use thier own phones rather than company supplied tablets,



<<Read the Full Technician Web App KB article here!!>>


Images/Photos


Improve the conversion of estimates to jobs, and store better records of faults and repairs by adding images.

 

Images can be added to:

  • Jobs

  • Estimates

  • Vehicles


Adding images can help you record evidence of repairs, improve customer engagement and trust by providing a clearer view of work completed and help supplement estimates with images which will help increase the likelihood of the customer approving the work to proceed.


 <Read the KB article here!!>


Recommendations



This new feature enables techs to add recommended work to jobs they identify while working on a customer's vehicle. Whether you're using a PC or our new Mobile UI, you can add images to the recommended work, which will form part of the digital Estimate when sent to the customer for approval.


<<read the KB article here>>


Job Templates/Kits

Job Templates (you might know them as "Standard Jobs" or "Job Kits") are now supported in webWorkshop. Providing preconfigured sets of text, labour and parts that can easily be dropped onto a Job or Estimate, saving a lot of time and keeping things in an orgnanised, standardised layout.


Note - Job Templates (Job Kits) are set up in the main Orion desktop application


<<read the KB article here>>


Job Sections

Job sections are available on Jobs and Estimates, and are used as a way to group job postings together and subtotal them.
This is especially useful when a job has multiple tasks/sub-jobs required, for example, a Service and Brakes. 

This feature goes hand in hand with Digital Estimates as the customer can approve each Job Section on the estimate separately.


Tip: Sections go hand-in-hand with timeclocking from the Technician Web App, as techs can clock into specific tasks/services within the job!


<<read the KB article here>>


Customer Approvals on Estimates

Improve your Estimate to Job conversion rates and improve customer engagement with the new Estimate Approval features!

This new function will send the estimate and accompanying images/photos to your customer by SMS or Email, where they can easily select and approve the work to proceed.


When work is approved you are notified in the system and the estimate is updated with a visual confirmation. 


This feature should help you move vehicles through the workshop more efficiently and provides a clear electronic record of the customer approval.


Enhancements

 

ModuleIssue KeyDetail
DashboardWEB-917Searching on large lists, such as Invoice History and Stock Enquiry screens would often experience slowness due to the volume of data being searched. We have improved performance by introducing a new method of searching that requires the user to click the Search button or press the Enter key to initiate the search. You can also use the optional dropdown to choose a specific column/field to search on, this will significantly improve search performance compared to searching All fields. 
DiaryWEB-37To help manage workload, you can now click into an empty space in the diary and select Mark Fully Booked which will display warnings prompting users to avoid adding additional bookings to the selected day.
DiaryWEB-566The Show Multi-Day Jobs tickbox has been added to the options displayed when clicking the cog icon on the Diary - Day Scheduler - No Timeline view (previously only available on the standard Day Scheduler view).
GeneralWEB-783When sending an SMS, the Delayed feature that allows you to schedule when it will be sent, will select near the current time (in 15min increments) by default.
Items/vehiclesWEB-218We have added a new Parts Fitted tab to the Vehicle Maintenance screen so users can view all the parts that have been fitted to a vehicle.
Items/vehiclesWEB-226You can now search the Vehicle list by owner name and phone number.
JobsWEB-335To speed up the process of creating similar Job Templates, you can now hover the mouse over the Save & Exit button when editing a Job Template and choose to Copy Template to create a duplicate. 
JobsWEB-414To help users maintain profitability we have added Margin figures to the Global Discount screen to display the impact of the discount applied.
JobsWEB-877Improved how GST-inclusive figures are handled when adding postings to Estimates and Jobs to avoid GST rounding issues.
OrdersWEB-779You can now click into a Parts Order from within jobs that have already been invoiced. 
SystemWEB-588Added Status filters on the Setup > Labour Categories screen to filter by Active, Inactive or display both.
SystemWEB-883We have improved the printing process for Jobs, Invoices, Quotes and Orders which will reduce the number of steps/clicks involved for most users.
SystemWEB-905New Mark all as Read button has been added to the System Notifications to quickly declutter the notification list (this will exclude Xero warnings). The 'Flag this notification as read' warning will not display.



Bug Fixes

 

ModuleIssue KeyDetail
Customer / SupplierWEB-695Resolved an issue where large amounts of text would display incorrectly in Customer Maintenance > Notes.
Customer / SupplierWEB-856Resolved an issue where Customer Name was disappearing when opening a linked item/vehicle.
DashboardWEB-554The Dashboard has been updated so the number of Vehicle Reminders Required to Send will exclude vehicles that have an existing Job / Booking.
EstimatesWEB-886Fixed an issue where using the Copy Estimate feature within an Estimate would also copy the customer, rather than using the customer selected from the list displayed.
InvoiceWEB-892Resolved an issue on invoices where Sections were not linking to job codes correctly.
Items/vehiclesWEB-864The Vehicle Maintenance > Options button will now also display if you access this screen via the Customer Maintenance screen. Note: The Delete Vehicle and Rename Rego options are only available when accessing directly from the Workshop > Vehicle Maintenance list screen.
JobsWEB-875When adding parts to a job, selecting the Inclusive heading will grey-out the Exclusive price fields and vice-versa. This is to avoid confusion during data entry.
OrdersWEB-816Resolved an issue when creating an Order, where double-clicking a Part to select it from the Parts list would not always add the part to the Order.
OrdersWEB-827Resolved an issue where changing the Inclusive price of a Part from within a Parts Order would reset the inclusive price for other parts within that order.
ReportsWEB-829Added a warning message to display if the Forms Setup for printed Reminders had not been fully configured. Not having this configured results in being unable to print Reminders.
Reports / MarketingWEB-863Fixed an issue where Job Cards and Item Notifications (including Vehicle Reminders) were not being emailed to additional Contacts setup within the Customer Maintenance screen.
StockWEB-846Fixed an issue where not all Suppliers would display when creating a Stocktake, displaying the error "### Too many elements ###”
StockWEB-876We have resolved an issue where copy-and-pasting part numbers into a parts search field would yield the incorrect result. 
SystemWEB-868We have added a new Load Method: One Day At a Time option to the Diary (accessed using the Cog icon in the top right) which should significantly improve the performance of loading the Diary screen for users who had experienced slowness with this screen.