Moraware visit to Atlanta
I went to visit the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta, which was an amazingly huge trade show. There were about 1000 exhibitors and probably over 10,000 attendees. Many of the large stoneworking CNC manufacturers and digital templating providers were there; it was good to catch up with friends in the industry.
In conjunction with IWF, I attended the ISFA countertop symposium. It was a panel discussion about the increasing overlap between woodworking and countertop fabrication. My favorite presentation was about trends and predictions in the industry – I had no idea that laminate tops still dominate, or how quickly quartz surfaces have grown over the past few years. You’ll be able to read about it in Countertops & Architectural Surfaces magazine.
In my spare time I was lucky enough to visit a few customer’s shops. It’s always helpful to see our software being used live and being able to chime in with an answer or a tip. Plus, we learn how we can improve JobTracker.
First, I went to see Stone Solutions, located in Marietta, GA. Stone Solutions was founded in 1999 as an installation company, and started fabricating their own material in 2003. They work with some large home centers, but while I was visiting they also had walk-in business.
Their office was really lean; it turns out that their salespeople are on the road most of the time. They make extensive use of smart phones – both for email and to access Moraware JobTracker. Over the course of a day, they come in and out of the office, but they’re always accessible no matter where they are.
Next, I visited Architectural Stone Accents in Atlanta. They’ve been working with us since 2004, so it was quite nice to finally meet them in person, and see the office and shop. The owners and several employees of ASA are originally from Brazil, and I really enjoyed overhearing conversations in Portuguese while I was visiting. Although I didn’t understand a word, it made everything sound great.
In addition to doing residential remodels and work for dealers and big-box stores, ASA has grown into some commercial projects, and opened a second location, in Alabama.
Finally, I went to Oldcastle Surfaces. Founded almost 30 years ago as Custom Surfaces, the company was recently acquired by Oldcastle, a diversified building materials and products company. In addition to the 100,000 sq. ft. shop I visited, they have multiple locations in Georgia, Alabama, and North and South Carolina.
Running a company this large and diverse has only been able to happen because of their continual improvement and adoption of new technology. Because of digital templates and access to Moraware from anywhere with a wireless data card, the templaters that work for Oldcastle hardly ever come into the office. Occasionally, they’ll need to deliver a sink, but they can go for months without being seen by the folks at the shop.
One of the jobs I saw being fabricated in the solid-surface division was a large commercial job for delivery – to China. That totally surprised me, but it turns out that for certain types of military or governmental work, there’s no substitute for high-quality American goods.
Thanks again to everyone who opened up their shops to me. I totally enjoyed the experience, we felt it was mutually valuable, and we’re going to figure out how to do more of this.
5 tips for making JobTracker faster every day
Saving a click or two on things you do frequently really adds up to serious time savings. At Moraware, we’re all about saving the time you spend scheduling and looking for job information, so here are a few quick tips that can help.
- Double-click: If you click on any underlined word or a box on the calendar, you’ll get a menu of all of the things you can do. The default action is in bold. Double click, and you’ll do the default.
- Search: Searching for jobs, accounts, contacts, quotes… is the fastest, easiest way to find something. When a customer calls you on the phone with their name, address, or phone number, click Search… and start typing. If you need to refine your search, just click Search Again…
- Multiple Windows: If you’re not already using multiple tabs or windows, this is huge time-saver. One good way to take advantage of multiple windows is dedicating one to the overview and another to details of a job. Once you start using multiple windows, you might want to consider having multiple monitors, too.
- Lots of Checkboxes: If you’re editing products or price groups, you might find yourself clicking lots of checkboxes. A quick way to do this faster is by checking the first box, then hold the Shift key and choose the last checkbox you want to select. All of the boxes in-between will be selected, too.
- Go to page number: If you’ve got a view with lots of pages and you see something like this
Click on anywhere it says Page 1 of 18, and enter the page number.
If you weren’t already doing these, give them a shot. If you do something else with our software that’s awesome, let us know.
Creating Job Forms
In v3.3 we added some new features related to forms, so we’ve got updated information on creating job forms.
What’s New?
- You can add an image to a list of values. In the video below, around minute 2:20, we add a form field for an edge profile. Instead of just adding the text, there are also pictures of each of the edges. These pictures can be used just as a preview or can show up when you print out a form for your employees and customers.
- Today’s date and time in static text fields. Around 3:38 in the video, you’ll see a new static text field being added. Now you can insert substitution text to show the current date and time. If you’ve ever wanted to print out today’s date on a form, this is how you’d do it.
Here’s a video showing examples of how to create a job form from scratch:
Bonus: You’ll also notice that at 4:45, you can just start typing the account name into the “Create New Job” box. This is a huge time-saver, and will save you lots of clicking through the entire list of Accounts.
Moraware JobTracker 3.3 released
We’ve released JobTracker version 3.3! The official date of the release is 8/5/2010. We’ve updated everyone on our servers, and we’ll be sending out the update to the rest of you in the next few weeks.
What’s new in 3.3?
Search: We’ve completely overhauled how search works. Results are suggested as you’re typing in the search box, and we made searching significantly faster. There are some differences in how things work, explained, here: http://www.moraware.com/help/x/L4AU
Images: You can add images to a list of values. This means that on custom fields, forms, and products, there’s now a way to preview and print a picture along with text. For example, you can include a picture of an edge profile along with the text on a form.
Today’s Date: You can add today’s date and time to static text fields on forms by using what we call substitution text.
…and more: You can inactivate suppliers and cost lists, connect with Peachtree 2011, and there are other changes to the user interface that we hope save you some mouse clicks every day.
The full release notes are here: http://www.moraware.com/help/x/GoAU
Moraware JobTracker v3.2 released
We’ve released JobTracker version 3.2… the official date of the release is 6/9/2010. We’re rolling out the update on our servers over the next few weeks.
What’s new in 3.2?
Inactivating Products and Attribute Values: Over time, you probably have had discontinued products, colors, sink models, etc. Now there’s a way to make them inactive, so all of your quote and purchase order history remains in tact, but you don’t need to see obsolete products anymore.
Converting Data Types: It’s possible to switch between Lists of Values and Text, which means that if you created a custom field or a form field as text, you can change it to a drop-down list when that’s a more appropriate way of entering data.
Importing Data: We’ve been able to help import Accounts, Account Contacts, Jobs, Job Activities from spreadsheets for a while, but in v3.2 we can now help you import Inventory.
…and more: This release also includes updates to the API, and some small but helpful changes to the user interface.
Here are the full release notes, with links to help articles: http://www.moraware.com/help/?page=_2YE0V3R4I.htm
More attached file space!
If you have a subscription to Moraware JobTracker, good news! We increased the limit on attached file space to 5 times what is was before.
What that means is that you can attach up to 5GB of files in Basic Edition. And, there’s now 10GB for Standard and Enterprise Edition. Additional user packs come with 5GB of space, too.
We’re really glad that we can bump up the limits. We’ve been improving how we manage, save, and back-up the attached files on our servers. Usually, this kind of investment in our hardware and software is invisible to our users.
This time, we wanted pass on a benefit of the technology gains we’ve made.
For all of you who have the purchased version of Moraware JobTracker (you’re probably in this category if you’ve been using our software since before April 2009) there’s no change in how your plan works.
Adding a shortcut for “myself”
This is my personal favorite new feature in v3.1 of Moraware JobTracker. I’ve saved hundreds of mouse clicks already.
There’s a new way to save a few clicks every time you want to assign an activity to yourself, or make yourself the salesperson for a job, account or quote. Here’s a short video on how to set it up and use it:
Once you set up the link between users, salespeople, and assignees – all of your users will be able to save time when they’re scheduling activities for themselves or if they’re the salesperson. There’s more information about setting up users, here: http://www.moraware.com/help/?page=_1JM10MJAD.htm
Tracking Sales with Processes
One of the new features in v3.1 of Moraware JobTracker is the ability to track the sales-related activities in your office, in addition to the jobs.
Here’s a 2-minute video that shows how to set up a new process for tracking leads, with activities for sales calls, emails, etc:
Even though this example shows just the basics of creating a single new process, it’s possible to add multiple ones. For example, we’ve been using this feature with two additional processes – Leads (for our direct-mail list) and Prospects (companies that are in our sales pipeline). We only track minimal information about leads, but start to build a more detailed profile of companies that become prospects, and even more when they turn into jobs.
Other than the different activities and forms that are available, new processes work just like the jobs – you can schedule from the calendar, assign activities, add forms and custom fields… and in Enterprise Edition, you can have related quotes, too.
For more help on using processes, check out http://www.moraware.com/help/?page=_2WO0ZNGKW.htm Or go to http://answers.moraware.com, where anybody can ask or answer a question.
Moraware iPad winner at Coverings
We had a great time at Coverings – the show was exciting, and the overall mood was very positive. It was fun to see lots of existing Moraware JobTracker users, new faces, and our friends in the stone industry.
A few hundred folks entered our giveaway over the course of the show. There was a big range of reactions to the giveaway, including confusion “iPad, I what?”, skepticism “Nobody really wins, do they?” and bribes “I’ll bring you some chocolate if you draw my name”.
On Friday afternoon, with help from our impartial booth-neighbor Michelle Parker from Bucket Ape, we drew the winning name – Melissa Diaz!
Melissa is an Account Manager for Davison Publishing, which produces the Tile & Stone Blue Book. Since she claims that she never won anything before, we hope that this is the beginning of a new trend for her.
Congratulations to our winner, and better luck next time to everyone else who entered.
Moraware JobTracker v3.1 released
We’ve released JobTracker version 3.1… as I write this, the first couple hundred databases have been updated on our servers, and over the next few weeks we’ll be updating everyone.
What’s new in v3.1?
Settings pages. Probably the first change you’ll see is that the Settings pages have a new format. We’ve noticed that as we’ve added more features, these pages have gotten increasingly difficult to navigate, so instead of just having one giant page for all of the settings, there’s now a menu on the left.
Myself. As we’ve been using the beta version within Moraware, this has become one of my favorite new features. There’s a shortcut for myself to make it easy to assign activities to yourself or to make yourself the salesperson. You can set this up for each user.
Process. We’ve gotten lots of requests from our customers asking about tracking things that aren’t necessarily jobs, so we added a new concept. You can create your own Process – this is the way to track the activities that happen before a sale. You can track everything that you need to do to follow up with leads, like sales calls, emails, and in-home estimates. This is only available in Standard and Enterprise Edition.
Other good stuff. We’ve also added new security settings, updates to the API, and a new way to use Auto-scheduling. Here are the full release notes, with links to help articles: http://www.moraware.com/help/?page=_2WS0Y00YG.htm
If you’re coming to Coverings next week, we’ll be at booth #2796 to answer any questions about the new release. Even if you don’t have any questions, drop by for the chance to win an iPad.
