Syrinx® - Contract Servicing

Topics included in this article:

• Granting Access
• Contract Service Types
• Hire Categories
• Contract Service Routes
• Contract Entry
• Raising a New Contract Service Note
• Contract Service Note - Amend Screen
• Printing the Note
• Open Notes
• Driver Scheduler
• Driver App
• Confirming the Note
• Querying Old Contract Service Notes
• Query/Amend Contract

Introduction

For hire businesses such as toilets, bin hire and similar, there is a requirement to service the items on site on a regular basis during the hire. This servicing is undertaken as part of the conditions of hire, and the charges are integrated into the hire rate, so typically no additional charging is required for the service but can be billed extra if required. The servicing is undertaken on a regular basis throughout the hire, for example, every 3 weeks, but the frequency may vary from contract to contract.

Syrinx provides the ability to organise the reminders for these regular services.

The reminders/servicing for toilet and bin hire differs significantly from the reminders/servicing for individual items of plant, in that:

• The frequency of service may vary from contract to contract (e.g. where ‘heavy use’ is anticipated).

• The servicing applies to all such items on a contract, whether they are owned items or cross-hired items.

• The servicing is done ‘en mass’ – i.e. a single ‘ticket’ or ‘job’ that covers all toilets or bins at a specific site is required, not a separate ticket for each item. Also, to cut down the number of site visits, you may decide to service all items at a site, even though some items may only have been recently delivered to site.

• The servicing is only required while the item is on-hire.

To handle these requirements, Syrinx provides a ‘Contract Servicing’ feature. This lets you indicate that certain types of equipment are hired out on the basis that the hire incorporates the regular servicing of the items during the hire. It flags the hire contracts as ‘serviced contracts’ automatically, and lets you raise ‘Contract Service Notes’ to act as a schedule to the driver who is responsible for the servicing.

Although the feature is being added specifically for toilet hire, it has been added in such a way that it could apply to other types of hire where there is a similar concept, such as bin hire – i.e. the requirement to service items en-mass regularly during the hire.

Granting Access

 This feature is not enabled by default. To enable the feature, you must first grant access to the relevant screens to the users that require the feature. A new system-defined role has been added for that purpose:

Contract Service Types

 The next step is to indicate the type of servicing required. Use Syrinx Configuration, and go to Workshop > Contract Servicing.

On the detail screen, you can set the text to be used on the driver’s worksheet:

Multiple service types: Generally speaking, you should keep things simple by adding a single service type. However, the system allows you to add more than 1, for example if a completely different type of hire requires a different type of service vehicle. Note however that you will not be able to mix different types of equipment on the same contract. If in doubt, stick with a single type.

Hire Categories

 The final setup step is to indicate what types of equipment are subject to this type of servicing during hire. Use the Misc tab on the Hire Categories screen to set the ‘Contract Servicing’ and ‘Frequency’ properties:

This step needs to be repeated for each hire category that is subject to this servicing. Note that this cannot be overridden on specific stock items – therefore this will apply to all items in the category, plus any cross hired ‘X’ items added to a contract against this hire category.

Contract Service Routes

 To help organise the servicing, you can set up several service routes. When adding a new site, you will then be able to say which route that the site is part of. To create the routes, use the ‘Contract Service Routes’ screen on the ‘Workshop/Contract Servicing’ menu in Syrinx Configuration:

There is also an option on the ‘Must Enter’ tab of the system options/contract entry screen that can be set to enforce the entry of the route when new sites and contracts are entered onto the system.

Contract Entry

 When you have finished entering the items on a contract, if any of the items are subject to contract servicing, then a new ‘Serv. Freq:’ field is displayed, that lets you override the service frequency if required for this particular contract:

 When entering a new site address you can enter the route, for existing sites you can double click to amend and add the route.

If the item(s) are to be serviced according to the default frequency set on the category, then no additional action on the part of the user is required during contract entry. If there are no such items, then the ‘Serv Freq’ box is not displayed.

Raising a New Contract Service Note

 To raise a new note, select the ‘Contract Service Notes’ found in the Workshop tab in the Servicing menu. . When raising a new note, the system starts by showing a list of different customer sites that have equipment that requires servicing within the next 7 days (or is overdue):

 The list can be filtered by route. You should then tick the ‘Include?’ tick-box against site(s) that you want to raise a note for – i.e., the set of sites that you want the engineer to visit in a single trip. To assist in the decision making, the following information is supplied: 

• Warning indicator: 1 red star means the service is now overdue; 2 stars means more than 5 days overdue; 3 stars means more than 10 days overdue, and 4 stars means more than 2 weeks overdue.

• Req Srv: This is the count of items that require servicing within the next 7 days.

• Count All: This is the total number of items on site that are subject to this type of servicing.

Once the site(s) have been ticked, pressing the OK button will then raise the note, and the note is then displayed.

Contract Service Note – Amend Screen

Here you can enter some driver instruction notes to be printed at the start of the note.

The ‘Included Hire Contracts’ tab lets you optionally specify the order in which the sites should be visited, by setting the ‘Seq’ value. It also lets you exclude contracts from the note (e.g., you change your mind on which sites to be visited) by un-ticking the ‘Incl?’ tick box.

There is also an ‘Add Sites’ button that can be used to add additional sites to the note if a particular site was erroneously left off during the initial selection process.

Printing the Note

 On the printed note each separate customer site is listed in its own section with the address, phone number, and any direction notes that have been entered against the site. Against each item is a boxed area to allow the driver to tick off the items, or to get the customer to initial the items. At the end of the section, the system prints the footer notes set up against the service type – for example, prompts to get the customer to sign to confirm the work has been done.

After printing the note, you would then close the screen, and the new note is added to a list of open notes.

Open Notes

 Each new note is added to a list of open notes, which is displayed when you select the ‘Contract Service Notes’ option on the Servicing menu:

1. The ‘New Note’ button lets you create a brand-new note (e.g. to prepare for the next trip, or a trip for a different driver or service engineer). Note that the selection screen will not offer any contracts that are already on an open note - if you want to switch a site from an existing note to a new note, you must first un-tick the include box on the existing note’s ‘Included Hire Contracts’ tab.

2. The ‘Cancel Note’ button cancels the note. You must first enter a reason for cancelling the note. Cancelled notes are retained on the system for information purposes.

3. Pressing the OK button will take you back to the amend screen, where any changes can be made.

Driver Scheduler

 You can use the driver scheduler and driver app to capture photos and signatures for the contract service jobs, removing the need to print job sheets for the driver

To access the scheduler, go to the depot tab and click on ‘View’ in the driver schedule section. You will be asked to login again.

Within the scheduler there is a contract service notes tab in the bottom section. This will list all of the jobs on the contract service run. To see all of the jobs you will need to click on the + at the top.

To allocate the job/run to a driver you can simply drag the line up to the relevant vehicle in the top section.

Once you let go the system will ask for the gap between each job. The system standard is 15 minutes. Click OK and all the jobs will show.

For more information on the job you can click on the square and the side panel will show the details.

To allocate a driver you can click on the little black line  and in the properties panel on the right-hand side enter the drivers name. This can be defaulted against the staff member in the staff tab.

Driver App

 When the driver logs onto their app they will see a list of jobs to be carried out. They can go into the first job and tap onto start job. They can then tap/swipe their way through the screens, adding notes, taking photos and obtaining a signature where possible.

Confirming the Note

 When the driver has returned with the signed paperwork or completed the mobile job (ref number will go green), the note can be confirmed on the system. Use the Open Contract Service Notes screen to go back to the amend screen, then press the Confirm button. Before confirming the note, you should first exclude sites that were not (for whatever reason) visited. Confirming the note will automatically set the next reminder date on the associated contracts and log the visit on the ‘Service’ tab of the hire contract.

Querying Old Contract Service Notes

 The Servicing menu also has a ‘Query Contract Service Notes’ screen that lets you query details of old service notes. In here you can reprint any dockets or look at the mobile job if the driver app was used.

Query / Amend Contract

 The Query and Amend Hire Contract screens both have a ‘Service’ tab where the service details for a particular contract can be viewed.

On the Amend screen, you can update the required frequency and the next service date.