Tabs News...

Firstly may we extend hearty thanks to all tabs clients for your support and feedback throughout the year and pass on our best wishes for the festive season.

2009 has been an interesting year for many companies. We have noted confidence and growth in some areas and challenges and uncertainty in others. The first and fourth quarters have been strong for new business whereas quarters two and three saw more bespoke development effort. We are certainly noting a growing demand for CAFM and organisations still using paper based and disparate systems are appreciating the advantages of an integrated solution.

Throughout the year, our developers, like Santa's little helpers, have been busy making new toys for our clients. New .NET Stores, Ordering and Fleet modules have proved popular. A new version of Tabs mobile systems and intelligent enhancement of our intranet interface have also added great value.

A "must have" toy for all well behaved clients is the Tabs Digital Dashboard and we expect most users to be playing with this by the middle of 2010.

The Tabs Team

Released Developments...

Maintenance Systems User Profile

Changes  have been made to our User Profiles system giving further control of users ability to Move, Cancel or Suspend both Planned Maintenance or Reactive jobs. Previously, the switches within the User Profiles system would apply to both modules. The latest system offers the ability to apply one of the following setting options to each function, 'Reactive Only', 'PPM Only' or 'Both Reactive & PPM'

Pocket PC Signatures

We have modified our Pocket PC Signature capture function to now include a text entry field to accurately capture the client signatures 'Name' and 'Position'.

Work Types and Job Description

This has been in the system for a while, but as many clients have asked for this in the past, we thought it was worth another mention!

Within the Tabs Intranet settings, the option to use Work Types and Job Descriptions has now been enabled for the Tabs Intranet Request System. With the relevant switches enabled, the maintenance request screen will display your systems 'Work Types' and filtered 'Job Descriptions'. This will allow requestors to select the appropriate settings when submitting new requests. For instances where the incorrect options have been selected, the request can still be manually changed before acceptance into the system.

Clients views on the amount of information a requestor gives seems to be divided. Some opting for a very simple form, others choosing to use more drop down options. We can cater for both views.

Beta Developments...

Pocket PC Timesheet

The new Tabs Mobile Time Sheet system has now been released for testing. Due to its intelligent design, the new Time Sheet system enables workers to process time spent on jobs for new job responses from a Pocket PC, directly into the Time Sheet system. In addition to this, Mobile users can manually create Time Sheet entries for tasks which are not associated to a Reactive or Planned maintenance task.

The aim of the new development is to streamline the Time Sheet entry process for workers by replacing current paper-based systems, with a quicker and more efficient process. Saving both time and money.

For more information about this products release, please register your interest by contacting us on 0844 556 0488.

Email Confirmations

For jobs completed on the Pocket PC, we previously didn’t have the facility to instantly inform the requestor that the mobile engineer had completed the work. The latest system has resolved this issue by introducing a flag message system that will pop-up every X minutes on an administrators PC, enabling the administrator to send job completion emails to requestor, improving response times.

Other News...

VAT Rates

As you may be aware, on the 1st of January 2010 the standard VAT rate will be returning to its previous rate of 17.5%. For users who will be effected by this increase, there are several VAT configuration settings that may need to be changed. You will find these settings in the following locations:

• Tabs Global Settings
• Helpdesk and PPM Settings
• Quotation System Settings

In addition to the above settings options, some low level VAT rates are applied to individual items such as Job Responses, Quotation Items and Stores Items. Our development team have prepared scripts to automatically update such records. The scripts can be downloaded from our Support which can be accessed by visiting www.tabsfm.com.

We would advise all clients to be vigilant with the change in VAT rates, and to not hesitate in contacting our support desktop if you have any queries or concerns.

Just a thought

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!  Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1836

"Merry Christmas Everybody"Noddy Holder