Fact Blast. PenguinData Chronicles. August 2012 Volume 4, Issue 5

Transcription

1 Chronicles 1 of 6 Fact Blast In the last few months, Workforce Management has been taking a variety of phone calls from business owners that are having Department Of Labor issues or being brought into class action law suits against their company. In addition, many HR related questions have been coming our way about how to achieve various goals. I want to remind our clients that we only truly get involved with HR questions and issues with the firms that are using Workforce Management for Paycheck Service. With Workforce Management Paycheck Service we provide all the HR support your company needs to be successful and compliant. As for labor laws and issues, only two people in our organization are allowed to cover these areas: Michael Enters and Scott Craine. They are s resident experts in these two areas, and both have had years of experience in the labor industry and dealing with the Department Of Labor and their laws and regulations. When hired to consult in these areas Michael and Scott will provide valuable information and help guide companies through the process of learning all the ins and outs, just as they have with many current clients. Many of our clients have not hired to consult or to use Paycheck Services, and with that we simply cannot assist in these areas. These services are above and beyond the normal scope of the Workforce Management monthly service for the use of our SAAS software. With that said, it is extremely discouraging to hear about our customers having these issues because they thought they had it handled or did not think it was worthwhile to have their companies and personnel improve their knowledge base in these two areas. The bottom line is that if your company is proactive in these two very key areas the laws and regulations can and will work in your favor with full understanding and the correct documentation day in and out. On the other hand, not knowing these two areas or having only some of it correct and being reactive in these areas can and will result in large amounts of costs that may take several years to recover from. Please feel free to contact us to get more information about our HR consulting and our Paycheck service. We think you ll find your company s exposure to be greatly reduced.

2 Chronicles 2 of 6 Programming Updates Take advantage of our Free Training Webinars! On July 15, Workforce Management Inc. had the largest release of new features and reports since the launch of Generation 3. We released 40 different features and reports to our customers at Workforce Management this month. We held a webinar on Wednesday July 18th for our customers and had over 41 participants, during which we reviewed many of the features and reports. One hour was originally slated and we quickly realized this was not enough time. The webinar ran almost 1 hour and 30 minutes. During this time we tried to show everyone where all of these new features and reports could be found inside of Workforce Management. We like to think that this was enough time to review everything but we also realize there are clients who need additional time to discuss all the new features and reports. We are available to hold additional webinars for our customers, so please do not hesitate to contact us for additional scheduling. It can be just as simple as getting on a brief single session, or scheduling one for you and your team to be online at the same time. Below is the list of features and reports we released on July 15th, 2012: 1. Workforce - Payroll estimate in tech/employee deductions screens The tech/employee deductions screens will now display, for open pay periods, a summary of that person s payroll, including gross amounts and deductions Optional deduction ceiling based on percent of gross can be set per tech, and globally Difference between target percent and actual will be displayed in the payroll summary Target percentage can optionally be set as a hard limit Workforce Ability for admin users to immediately create a standard or mobile user account when creating techs/ employees Workforce Work order import option to import jobs with no matching tech number. Normally, unmatched techs are ignored Will not appear on the whiteboard or in work order entry until they are assigned a tech Workforce - When creating new techs and employees, the system will search for and notify of possible pre-existing personnel in the system Workforce - Deductions and debits from Escalations and QC must now be approved or denied before being processed in Payroll Workforce will show an alert for new QC/Escalation deductions and debits

3 Chronicles 3 of Can approve/deny from Workforce>Tech/Employee Data>Pending Tech Deduction Approval Workforce Ability to limit total number of different job codes per work order Set via Workforce> Categories>Workforce Alerts/ Settings Warehouse - Inventory Reconciliation includes option for head-end 8. Warehouse Reports Auto resizing of barcodes for longer serial numbers 9. Warehouse option to refresh equipment date on CPE transfer 10. Warehouse Selected head end will display in New Inventory page title 11. Dispatch - Updated colors on the virtual whiteboard, for statuses whose colors were identical 12. Dispatch Post call survey questions now has Custom Answer option, allowing entry of text instead of simple yes/no selection Can be used for questions such as On a scale of Dispatch Post Calls will notify if the opened call is already opened by another user 14. Dispatch Whiteboard Broadcast messages Ability to send messages to all techs in an office or group, and monitor replies 15. Fleet inspection customization fields in the fleet inspection form can be selectively disabled 16. Fleet point of contact information for service stations 17. Portal Deductions screen and deduction history report, allowing personnel to view their current and past deductions 18. Portal MSO QCs added to QC chart 19. Portal Added Lock until read option to memos 20. Mobile QC QC s whose route date is the current date will be re-openable, instead of being removed from the list QC Safety Inspection forms options in Categories Allow selecting between Pass/ Fail/NA or Yes/No/NA display of items Require a safety inspection before mobile work order close QC option to automatically tech supervisor, and/ or a custom list, upon closing a failed QC Supervisor groups must be set so the system knows who to Categories> QC Notification 23. QC Routing now also displays billing codes for each job 24. QC Route by Search option added Allows work order search, and adding jobs based on search results 25. Admin On new user screen, selecting a tech/employee will auto fill appropriate fields 26. Admin Option to require password change on first login for new users

4 Chronicles 4 of Admin Option to new user with link to site and username 28. Escalations both work order number and customer account number displayed in lists and information screens 29. Escalations Ability to create deductions from MSO escalations 30. Escalations Notes added to notification s 31. Escalations Reports All option added to Field/MSO selector 32. Escalations Overview screen shows the date the Escalation was entered into the system 33. Escalations Search filed shows results from both Field and MSO 34. Sales Call list will show all open calls instead of only open calls for the selected date 35. Sales Address search option in call list 36. MDUCommercial/ Construction Image upload on Site Survey 37. Multi-Image upload On image galleries, multiple images or files can be selected and uploaded simultaneously, with a progress bar This option will only be enabled on supporting browsers in the full and enhanced mobile interfaces. Browsers which do not support it will show the standard single file upload 38. Updated image gallery Image description displayed below thumbnail Selected image s options, such as edit and delete, can be accessed by clicking the information icon 39. Tech and Vehicle title drop down menus are sortable and searchable 40. Optional audible notifications in Warehouse and Asset/Fleet when scanning and an invalid scan is made Can be turned on from Options->User Preferences Currently only supported for Firefox and Chrome Sales & Marketing We have all heard the saying time is money, and acknowledge that this statement is 100% true. As the minutes and hours of each work day come and go, and your employee s/contractors perform their daily duties, the question arises: Do I have the most time efficient processes in place so that my time leakage is at a minimum? This question has a tremendous amount of ramifications, and requires business owners to take an honest look at how they are running their operations, and assessing their current procedures to see if they are truly efficient. Notice that I am not talking about productivity of the people that work for and with your business.

5 Chronicles 5 of 6 In today s work environment people have to be productive, and if they are not, they find themselves unemployed. Since the great recession started back in 2007, worker productivity has risen considerably, but is this productivity the most efficient it can be? Odds are it is not. In today s post recession economy of small to stagnant growth, businesses must look for the most efficient ways possible to perform whatever work their business produces. Workforce Management is dedicated to bringing the most efficient software platform to the Broadband, Satellite and Telecommunications industries today. Think about the ability to get rid of all those multiple spreadsheets your business uses every day. No more hardware (servers) to buy and maintain (which can be very costly). Your access database, a thing of the past. Workforce Management provides all of these aspects in one easy to use tool. Our G3 version of our EMPEROR Suite of modules provides massive efficiencies across the board in every area our clients are operating. The one thing you can be sure of with Workforce Management is that your data is secure! Whether you are an existing client that wants to start using more of s services, or a potential client looking to run your business in the most time efficient manner possible, contact us at Workforce Management today and start saving your time and money. Contact Doug Simmons Sales & Marketing or x dsimmons@penguindata.com Paychecks Services Simple Tips to Eliminate Duplicate Techs/Employee Billing Are you seeing duplicate charges for active personnel on your monthly invoice? Remember to inactivate your terminated techs/ employees within. If you have personnel that work in more than one office location, set them up with a home office. This process is simple. From the Workforce Module: Workforce >Tech/Employee Data> Tech Info > Select Tech >Offices Select the home office then simply check the boxes for all the offices that will apply to that tech/ employee. These simple steps will eliminate duplicate billing to your monthly invoice. You can also view your billable personnel. From Admin, select Reports>current billable personnel. This report lists all billable personnel that show up on your monthly Active Personnel Invoice. The Latest & Greatest Check it out and start using it! This month we are looking at what has been the most driving questions over the last few weeks. The question most asked has been How do I move a work order?

6 Chronicles 6 of 6 This comes up when a job is uploaded to the wrong day, or closed out on the wrong day. Follow these steps to view how to move a work order to a new date, or also to a different tech: 1. Go to Workforce > Data Entry > Workorder Entry 2. Select the tech associated with the work order you wish to modify: 3. From the calendar on the right of the screen, select the date that the work orders were closed on. Remember that any day that is highlighted has closed work orders. Once you have selected that date applies to the work order you wish to move, select Move Work Orders. 5. On the move work order screen select the tech you wish to associate with the work order. (If it is the same tech, select from drop down list.) Enter the date that you wish to assign to the work order. Put a check in the box for each work order and hit Submit. This will move the selected work orders to the new date. Questions? Submit a support request from the Workforce Management platform, or call our office: