Tour: Equipment
This software provides the means to track equipment from the time it enters the shop through to the customers door. It also provides the ability to track return authorizations for parts and equipment along with any payments received for each of the RA's.
For the purposes of this software, equipment means receivers and parts coming from providers. The equipment is installed at the customers house and no charge is made directly to the customer, but reinbursement is expected from the provider for the equipment and work after installation.
1. Entering new receivers.
To start, lets enter a shipment of five new 211 and two new 625 Dish Network® receivers.
Click "New Equipment" and the screen at the right will appear.
Select the provider and the model of the receiver from the lists..
Note: Adding new receiver makes is done through the administration panel.
Click "Submit" and the next screen will appear.
Scan the Serial, ROO, and SOO numbers for each of the 211 receivers.
The cursor will automatically advance to the next field.
When finished entering the 211's click "Submit".
The system automatically returns to the first "New Receiver Input Form". Select the provider and the make of the make of the next receiver and repeat this process.
A record of new receivers would have been created in the system.
2. Assign receivers to technicians.
Click "Assign" from the left menubar and the receiver assignment screen will appear.
From the dropdown box choose a technician to assign receivers to. Another choice is to return receivers to the office.
Scan the serial number barcode and it will insert the number on the form. Up to six receivers can be assigned per screen. The cusrsor advances to the next input field automatically.
When finished click the "Assign" button and it will assign the orders properly, clear the screen, and return back to the same screen allowing you to assign more. The status of the last set of assignments will also be printed on the page indicating if there were any errors.
3. Receiver installation.
When a receiver is installed at a customers house, the serial number is entered on the work order completion form. This will create an assignment in the system to the specific customer.
This process was described further in the previous section "Work orders".
4. Viewing receiver history.
Click "List" to get a most rescent listing of all receivers in the system.
The picture on the right shows a box of options to filter or search the receivers and below it is the results of the search.
The list can be filtered by several different criteria; provider, model, the technician who it is assigned to, or the assignment status.
You can also search by Serial, ROO, or SOO.
When you find the receiver you want; click on the link to get a detailed history as shown below.
5. Return authorizations for equipment.
Starting a return authorization for equipment was described in the work order section of the tour. So we will focus on the rest of the tasks and information available in the "Return Authorization" part of the system.
Manually updating RA information.
First click on the "RA List" link on conveniently located on the left menubar.
The "RA List" will display for you the most recent RA's. (90 days)
If the RA is not recent: a search by date, paid or unpaid, the specific provider who issued the RA, or a search for the RA number directly is possible from the query control box.
Click on the RA number to add information. The screen below will appear.
If RA numbers are e-mailed from the provider, each items RA number will have to be manually entered. Type in the RA number and hit submit. When payment information is later uploaded to the system it will automatically match to the RA number and the system will show proper credit.
To add new payment information for this specific RA. Click on the "New Payment" link and the screen on the right would now be available.
Enter the as much information as available and submit the form. The RA will now show up in the system as being credited.
Automatic RA Payments
The only manual editing necessary for a RA should be to add the RA number to the part when it is received from the provider. The "Upload DNS" form is used when RA payments are received in a CSV file. Payments will update automatically after upload.
6. Reports: Return Auth payments.
From the "Reports" screen there are several options for getting information about Return Auths.
- Missing RA Nums
- Listing RA's by Date
- Payments Summary
Missing RA Nums is useful for finding equipment that hasn't yet received a RA number.
Listing RA's by date can be useful for finding a specific RA within a time period. Also it is useful for scanning months and years back for unpaid equipment.
The "Payments Summary" screen is pictured below. Use it for monthly reporting and other book keeping.
7. Reports: In stock equipment.
Viewing receivers in stock at the shop/warehouse.
Using the Equipment List: change the assignment status to in stock. A list of all in stock receivers will be returned..
Use the other query controls to limit to limit the make of receiver to see a list for that specific receiver.
View equipment instock for a specific technician.
Click on "Tech List" in the top menubar. The technician list will appear.
Click the link "Parts/Rcvrs In Stock" and a list of parts and receivers in stock will be displayed.
Equipment Tour Summary
Having easy access to parts and receivers in stock for a technician can easily solve the problem of knowing who can help a tech when they mistakenly run out of parts while out in the field. Being able to quickly discover the quantity of receivers on hand is important. Keeping track of unpaid RA's can return previously forgotton sums of money. We hope you were able to realize the extra possibilities not described in the tour of this system.
We have covered most of the pages that are used on a daily basis when handling equipment. Continue on for the next few sections in this demonstration.
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