PDA's for Service Engineers Good or Bad

[puddleboy3]

PDA's to organise service engineers do away with paper service reports/timesheets. Are they any good? I know alot of big companys use them but are they of any use for a small service department?

[Brian_UK]

Are you asking as a techie who will have to use one or as the office using the information received from one?

I joined a company that uses PDAs and as an on the road user it does make my life a bit easier.

My jobs are confirmed with details such who, where and what the problem is, or it might be a regular service call. ALso I can now get goods and services that much quicker because I can raise my own purchase orders through the PDA.

Having entered start and finish times etc along with any expenses during the week then come Friday I click on 'timesheet' and send it to the office. Come the end of the month all my O/T and exes have been paid.

I still post off paper report sheets but apparently that may change in the distant future.

I suppose that you have to say that any device is only as good as the software that is running on it.

[Vee-Are-Vee]

Can be seen as another way of keeping tabs on engineers activities.

Good if you have 20+ engineers methinks but there is also the old skool that dont take too kindly to new technology.

I personally don't rate them, I carried an IPAQ around for a while and it's just something else to get smashed /soaked/dropped/fried/lost/stolen.

[Latte]

The company i work for uses pda and they are great.
The was a feature in the RAC magazine a few months back but just to name a few points.

jobsheets sent straight to the office on completion of job. Any further action is there in black and white on a computer screen 500 miles away in seconds. no misunderstandings over the phone.
No Having to rush to the post office on a saturday morning to get youre timesheets there for monday.
Timesheet entries can be checked months back at the touch of a button. no need to keep loads of paper
Parts can be booked out against a van stock and therefore automaticly replenished by the comapny, no messing about at nrs getting stock.

Regards

Fatboy

[Obi Wan]

I think anything that helps you on site is good. Laptops can be bulky to carry about on site, about time someone came up software you can run on a PDA for servicing A/C systems. A PDA with a built in service checker.

[puddleboy3]

Are you asking as a techie who will have to use one or as the office using the information received from one?

I would say both. Its good to see all the replys as I have never even seen one of these systems up and running. By the sound of things they are great for the engineer to keep everything organised. I think this must make things far easier in the office if engineers service reports and timesheets all come in electronic format and on time.

[Brian_UK]

jobsheets sent straight to the office on completion of job. Any further action is there in black and white on a computer screen 500 miles away in seconds. no misunderstandings over the phone.
No Having to rush to the post office on a saturday morning to get youre timesheets there for monday.
Timesheet entries can be checked months back at

Fatboy, do you know which software is running your system and do you mind sharing? We use a system called Fusion.

[Latte]

Brian,
Think it's called Sylops. We were running it on XDA'a but we found that with all the other things that were running on it as well (Phone,Tom-tom,E-mail,excel etc) they were slow. We have no kept the XDA's just for tom-tom and now use it on a Psion Teklogix handheld and its a lot faster. The software comes from a company called CS Group. I am fairly sure there is information on their website, something like www.computersoftware.com, may be wrong will look later

Regards

Ray

[Brian_UK]

Thanks Ray, we use an XDA (Orange) SPV M2000 which is set up to only run the works software.

Means I have to carry a separate camera and I refuse to use the stupid earphones for phone use in the van.

We only have job allocation, start/finish times etc, expenses, purchasing, email and phone; useful tool but at the moment my screen goes out of calibration on average - every time I go to use it (arrrrrrgh!)

I also found, when talking to my old supervisor, that there is a 30 minute cutoff on phone calls

[Latte]

Thanks Ray, we use an XDA (Orange) SPV M2000
)

Brian,
Thats what we had and still it sits in the van for the sat nav. Camera very usefull could take pictures and e-mail straight up to the office.

Solitare and jawbreaker also comes in handy waiting for a unit to come down to temp

Regards

Raymond

[puddleboy3]

i'll have the details of the PDA's im looking at on Monday. But it sounds like everything else you get what you pay for! Ive been in contact with a few companys CS Group is one of them. Presented very well but not ideal for a small service department