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I know this topic has been brought up before, but technology advances quickly, so I thought I’d post it again. How to you keep your schedule? Paper schedule book (like corporate sends us every year), Smartphone (Iphone/Blackberry/Palm), PDA/Pocket PC, or laptop/netbook? I still use the paper schedule book. The only reason I still use the paper book is that it allows me to easily/quickly look at the whole week and I know exactly what part of town each job already scheduled is in. Like many of you, 30+min drive between jobs is not uncommon for me, so the smarter I can schedule the better. I would like to move to a smartphone if I can find one that will fit my needs. Tough part with them is looking at the week on a small screen and only knowing which time slots are filled and not where exactly they are without scrolling through each appointment/day individually. Being able to electronically back up schedule is a big plus as losing my paper book is one of my biggest fears and would be a big kick in the groin. Also, I know some operators have multiple trucks, so best way to schedule that would be good info too. Let us know what you do and how it’s working for ya. I put a poll up too in case your too shy or busy (or lazy) to type a response. If you have a way I didn’t provide, post it. Also, if you have a dedicated phone person at a computer all day, I would put that in the laptop category for the poll IMO….
Dave,
Before you buy something, you owe it to yourself to look into this…
First off, if you don’t have a heavensbest.com email address, call Michael and get one.
such as mine: r.munson@heavensbest.comYour access for that email is through a dedicated heaven’s best Google site.
The site includes email, scheduling, maps, & other misc. if you would like, such as news.I use a laptop in my business, however I don’t want to open it every time someone calls.
I print a schedule out from my google schedule program.
I can print a daily or weekly agenda to use while driving point A, to point B.
I can print a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule sheet to keep in my pocket for phone calls,
plus I have the added advantage of a piece of paper in my pocket to scribble notes.Check it out!
I’ll try to keep this short. We use both a smart phone and scheduler. In particular we use an android based phone. The reason is with an adroid phone when you schedule an appointment it automatically syncs that to a calendar on google. (When you activate your phone you have to create a google account). The only reason we use the paper book is for our comfort although it is not needed. Most android phone you can customize how you view your calendar. Day, Week, or month view. What I do i keep it on month. When I what I have on a certain day I have it set up so that it only shows things scheduled on that day instead of showing all time and having to scroll. Another thing I do when I schedule an appointment under description I put the city name. So i know what city I have started for that day. Then put the other stuff like job info and customer info in the description. In my opinion its the way to go. I hated carrying a book around every where I go in case someone calls. At least on the phone I always have that and it’s not in the way. Also I know on my phone and I believe most or all android phones you can set it up to get your email from any address on the phone. I have a Hero from sprint, my business partner has a Motorla Cliq from T-Mobile, and we are using a G-1 for buiness from T-Mobile. Also if you have a business partner or anyone else you want to see your schedule you can set that up as well. If I or my partner ad something to the schedule or in the business phone schedule it will sync all our phones as well as the online caledar if that is something you may need. I know Verizion has an android phone as well called droid. Hope this helps you out. Let us all know what you decide.
Currently, we are using both paper, and black berry. my wife keeps the paper, i have the berry. the calls come to me first, and if i can’t get to them they automatically forward to her, she can then update my scheduale on google calander. sometimes it gets a touch confusing, but i like it better then letting calls go to voice mail. I am looking forward to the new ipad from mac, if it is everything they say it is, i have thought about getting those for the van(s) for gps, schedualing, and if i can make it work invoicing and printing too. i also have a guy who is building a new web based program that could do all of this over the net from any device with internet access. if it turns out like he has explained it we may invest in that as well. lots of ifs, but technology is moves fast
We are still old school and use the paper schedule that corporate sends out. All of the calls go to my office and I have Robin the office manager answer all calls during normal business hours. At night and on weekends they get forwarded to my wife. Our schedule gets crazy and jobs tend to add and move on a hourly basis. Robin types up the schedule every night and sends me an email. In the morning she finalizes it and prints out a copy for all the vans and myself. Again she sends me an updated email. I use a blackberry and always have the schedule at my finger tips. If there are changes she send me updated schedules throughout the day. I know that there are more updated ways then on paper, but I like to be able to flip around and see what is expected, and what we did on any given day. She uses the schedule book to mark off invoices as she enters them in to our accounting programs. This way nothing gets slipped through the cracks Hopefully.
Smart phone (Treo) linked to my laptop. Easily shows day, week, month at a glance, color coded for easy identification. Schedule is printed each day and emailed to my brother, who operators HB2. I let him know which jobs are his. Tried paper schedule and tried using both. Nothing has worked as well.
We use android platform phones. When we put an appointment in the phone it stays on my phone, uploads to your google calendar online that you can print if you want, and goes James phone. You set it up to sync with anyone you want.
Update. I am still using the paper book as the “bible”, but I have also gone to an android based phone and schedule via google calendar. LOVE IT. Paper book is still the easiest visually and also so you can scratch notes on the top of book while you’re talking to the customer, but nice to be able to go to store, out to a ballgame, etc and not have to carry around the book. Also, my lead tech has an android phone, so he knows the schedule at all times as well.
I use pc and iPhone to schedule jobs and use yahoo schedule.
So my sister and to girls that I pay for every job they schedule
They can be at home or at work or just out some were with there iPhone
So that way i keep 4 to 5 jobs a day on the schedule. I been working with this for 1 mo. And so far it working out good. (Schedule a job and get pay).
Hi All. Thanks for the great info. I use one of the new droid phones and have Google calendar up and running. I set up my Heaven’s Best email, but it doesn’t let me use that calendar to sync with my phone. Are you getting your HB calendar (through Google) to sync with your android phones. If so, please let me know how you did it.
Thanks,
SteveI couldn’t get my HB account to work with google calander either. I just use my personal google account to get the job done
I’m not sure how the google calendars work, but here are a few thoughts/questions I had.
@SteveTina Gorman
Were you able to access the calendars?
Did you go into the ‘Calendar Settings’ in the upper right corner and enter you information in the ‘Mobile Setup’ tab?
If you did, did it not work after entering the verification code?
Then maybe go to the ‘Calendars’ tab in the ‘Calendar Settings’ and click ‘Notifications’.@AKCleaner
Did the ‘Calendar’ option not appear in the upper left corner when you signed into mail.google.com/a/heavensbest.com ?
Could you explain a little more?Side note: When you are responding to a post some one else made, you can say ‘AKCleaner I agree with you’ or you can do what I did. That way it is easier to see responses to questions people have. Like if five people had questions and I was only interested in the question the fourth person asked, then I could just look for @’fourth person’ and find the answer.
Hi everybody if someone is having proble by scheuleing pointment on there phone to there pc. All I can till you my e-mail is set up on my IPhone so wen
Wen I used the Calender on yahoo it show up on my Calender on the iPhone.
I hope this well help some of you.Thank You
Mark Pryor
661-549-2467
Is this still accurate that most of the operators still use the paper schedule or prefer it? What I am doing as far as scheduling multiple vans is by putting down the zip code and knowing what side of town they are on. It seems to help but some zip codes are huge and still have the 30 minute drive. At my busiest times I scheduled 3 vans for 10-12 hours and color coded all the jobs. I don’t think that there is a limit to how many appointments you can make at the same time, but right know i have made a personal one and a church one.
We schedule with Cody’s book.
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