Is it okay to brag a little?

We receive great feedback each week from customers who recognize our efforts to deal with issues and our commitment to service excellence. We really do go out of our way to serve and support our customers, so we wanted to take a minute to pass along a few comments sent in recently. Thanks so much for letting us know when we’re doing well and also don’t hesitate to let us know where we can improve!

Capterra provides another place to tell others about MC. We’d love to hear from more of you.

“Maintenance Connection was an easy choice for us because of it’s astounding web based power and flexibility.  While looking for a CMMS, all of the others promised, but only Maintenance Connection delivered!  If your question begins with “Can it do….”, the answer is always yes!  Amazing software, and an amazing company!”
— Guy M. from City of Orlando Wastewater Treatment Plant

“Once again, you know the Maintenance Connection quite well and I am pleased with the support.”
— Michael B. from Mennel Milling Company

“We have conducted two phone meetings with Brian already and I’m really impressed on how your technical team is aggressively troubleshooting our system concerns. We are receiving positive updates almost hourly. This is one of many reasons why we choose Maintenance Connection over the other system software.”
— Dean P. from Peppermill Casino

“I wanted to let you know that Drew has been very helpful. Good addition to your team.”
— Isabel V. from IDC Facility Services / CH2M Hill

“You guys are the best vendor support I know of.  I wish you could train some of our other ones.”
— Lynn A. from County of Maui

“Thank you for setting that up and giving us the option to preview it before our onsite version is upgraded. We think this feature is awesome!”
— Mark S. from McGraw-Hill Companies

“We would like to let someone know what a great asset Joel Mayer is to your team.  He has been of great assistance to us not only in our maintenance section, but our IT department as well.  Please pass on our gratitude.”
— Kelly B. from Sunday River Resort

Lightly Used Features – 3 of 3

 

MCRV Tour Update (www.mcrvtour.com) 50 more discount coupons available – first 50 to post a comment on this blog post will receive one! Follow the status of the MCRV Touron Twitter at www.twitter.com/mcrvtour. Brian Kincaid will be putting it all on the line until we have 100 sign-ups. Check back next week for more details.

In this entry we are wrapping up the three part series on helpful features that are not often used in the system.  Below we will show how you can automate work order target dates based on the priority of a request or work order. The Priority Actions Manager lets you designate the number of days beyond the “requested date” on which the target date should be set. For example, you could indicate that all “high priority work orders” should be set with a target date one day beyond the requested date.

There are a couple caveats to note:

• To work with service requests, you must have your Service Requester configured to prompt users to enter a priority (so that the calculation can be made).
• Target dates for work orders generated from a Preventive Maintenance Schedule are typically based on the schedule definition, rather than the priority. If you wish to have the date based on the work order priority, a Preventive Maintenance Preference is available to designate this.

 

To set work order target dates based on priority, open the Tools Menu and select Priority Actions Manager…

At the top of the Priority Actions Dialog that displays, check the control to indicate that you wish to Enable Priority Actions:

Each priority defined for your organization will be listed in the dialog. For each priority listed, enter the number of days beyond the requested date on which the target date should be set.

When you have finished specifying the number of days for each priority, click the Save Button. Click the Close Button to exit the dialog.

Welcome New Customers

• Avon Protection Systems
• City of Borough and Sitka
• Halifax Medical Center
• Depository Trust
• Trussway
• Welty Building Company

Lightly Used Features – 2 of 3

In this second in the three part series on helpful features that are not often used in the system, we will show how you can edit the content of help text “on the fly”.

To access field level help, click on the blue label to the left of the field prompt. As your mouse hovers over the label, the text will turn red, indicating that you can click to obtain help information. Click on the label and a help window will appear.

 

You can modify the help text that is displayed to include information that is specific to your organization. On some fields, such as “Account”, there is no default help listed, allowing you to enter information about how the field is used at your organization. When you click on the field label, the Help Popup will display. To edit the help text, click on the Edit Button on the bottom of the dialog.

The popup will refresh with a text editing window, allowing you to enter your own text or customize any text that is displayed. Enter the desired text and click the Apply Button on the bottom of the dialog.

 

The editing window will disappear and the new help text will display as it will appear whenever a user clicks on the “Account” Label.

 

The help editing feature is especially useful when customizing user fields, as explanatory information on the use for the field can be provided. When you edit the help text for a user field, you are also given the opportunity to change the label for the field and indicate if the field should be connected to a lookup table.

 

Users with HTML experience can also embed HTML tags into the help text to support enhanced formatting (bold texts, colors, lists).

 

Tip: Refer to the User Guide for more information on editing help and customizing user fields.

Features Used Lightly – 1 of 3

There are many wonderful features within Maintenance Connection, and some that we think are very interesting yet not used much. In this first in a three part series about lightly used features in Maintenance Connection, we will review the ability to modify the colors and HTML text displayed in the Service Requester.

To access the Service Requester Configuration tool, open the Tools Menu and select Service Requester Configuration… The Service Requester Configuration tool will open:

Customize Service Requester Colors or Background

The Appearance Tab of the SR Configuration Tool allows you to set the color of displayed titles, headers, text and links. You can even set a background color/image or modify the logo displayed.

To change the color, click on the color dropdown control to the right of the attribute to be altered and click on the desired color. For example, to change the blue “Text Link Color” to a shade of green, you might select the color shown at the bottom of the color palette:

You can continue modifying color selections for different types of text to be displayed on the SR Pages. When you are finished, click the “Apply Button” and then click “Preview“. Your new color selections will display:

.

Customizing HTML Pages

The default Main Menu tab includes “Edit” buttons allowing you to customize the Welcome, Customer Service and FAQ Page. Only the pages that are “checked” have been designated to display in your Service Requester.

To edit the content and appearance of one of these pages, click the “Edit” Button to the right of the page name. For example, clicking the “Edit” Button to the right of the FAQ Page might appear as follows:

The content of the displayed text can be modified through simple text editing. To change the format of the displayed HTML Text, simply select the text and then select the desired option from the toolbar. For example, selecting text and clicking:

• – would change the selected text to italic.
• - would bring forward the color picker on which a color can be selected.

 

Click “Apply” when finished and then click “Close“. Click “Preview” to view the new page in the Service Requester. The updated HTML might appear as follows:

For more information on Service Requester Configuration, refer to the System Administration: Service Requester Configuration section of the Online User Guide.

Version 4.2 Features – Week 3 of 3

 

Don’t forget! We’re coming to visit you next year. Sign up today! www.mcrvtour.com

New Complete/Close Options

In this third post in the series highlighting the features included in the 4.2 Release, we will discuss the new ability to customize the Complete/Close Dialog. Customers can now determine what sections of the dialog should display to users, identify required entry and specify sort order. The Complete/Close Dialog can also now be configured to allow entry of Actual Labor, Material Usage and Miscellaneous Costs, allowing work orders to be closed out without having to first update “Actuals” on the Costs Tab.

To define the appearance and behavior of the Complete/Close Dialog, a new set of preferences are available. In addition to defining field inclusion and placement, you can specify fields that must be entered by the user (required fields). In the following example, the preferences are set to show “Actual Labor, Parts and Miscellaneous Costs” in the right column (2). They are specified as the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th items to display in the column, respectively. Directly below the settings for the actual costs, some preferences to designate fields as “required” entry are shown.

Additional preferences are available to determine if sections for assignments, labor report, failure analysis, meter readings and actions should be displayed. These new settings give you considerable control over the functionality and appearance of the Complete/Close Dialog, allowing the feature to more closely mirror your business process.

Note: Since many customers will not have a need to modify their current process, this new feature was not enabled “by default” with the upgrade. In order to use the new feature, hosted customers must contact Maintenance Connection Support. Support will arrange to have the feature enabled, populating your system with the new preferences that are used to customize the dialog.  Onsite customers will have an option to install this new feature included with their upgrade scripts.