Emailing Technicians

Electronic Service Control provides you with the ability to send messages to your technicians with ease.  With just the click of a button, you can send them information on their dispatches or compose a message to a group of technicians.  Let's take a look at these features.

Setup:
Before you begin emailing technicians from ESC, you'll want to setup what information they will see when they receive those messages. To do this, head to Company → System Setup → Tech Emails.  

You'll need to fill out the top three fields on this screen with the name of this computer's most frequent user, the email address for this user and the Subject line for emails being sent to technicians from this computer.

Under the first set of fields, you'll see a list of fields.  These fields are for sending dispatch information to your technicians by email.  If choose to include a field, simply check the Include box to the right of that field.  When you email a dispatch to a technician, that email will include the information entered into that field for that particular dispatch.  

Sending Dispatches as Text Messages
If your technicians do not have smart phones and are not able to retrieve their dispatch information from email, the information can be condensed and sent as a text message.  To do this, place a check mark in the Use Condensed Email Message box above the list of available fields.  Once done, you'll see a Length column appear to the right of each field.  This column allows you to set a character limit for each of those fields.  The total number of allowed characters will show as the Total right below that column.  Many cellular providers enforce a character limit to their text messages and each handles this limit differently.  Some will not allow the message at all if it exceeds the limit; others will break the message out into multiple text messages or will cut off the message after the limit. So it is important to keep your messages cut down to the minimum required information.  The condensed messages will also need to know what type of 'Separator' you want between those fields.  This is because the fields will not be broken out into multiple lines and therefore will need something to show the end of one field and the start of another.  Common separators include an underscore, an asterisk and slashes.

Click OK on the System Setup screen to save all changes you have made to the Tech Emails tab.  Your next step will be to make sure all technicians in your company file have an email address assigned to them.  To do this, head to Dispatch → Enter Technicians.  Double-click on a technician's name to edit their profile.  Make sure that this employee has an email address filled in.

If this employee will be receiving their dispatches in the form of a text message, you'll want to enter the phone address for their provider.  This will be their 10-digit phone number followed by the provider's extension. (Example: Verizon's extension would be "@vtext.com".)

Once all technicians have been assigned an email address, you may exit the Enter Technicians screen.  You have now completed the setup and may begin sending messages to your technicians.

Emailing Dispatches

Any dispatch assigned to a technician can be sent by email.  To do so from the Electronic Dispatch Board, you'll simply click on the dispatch once to highlight it and then head to the Activities menu on the toolbar and select Email Tech.  The message will be sent immediately.  

Another way to email the dispatch is to open it on your screen.  On the toolbar, you'll see an Email button.  Click the Email button to send the message immediately.  

Emailing Technicians

ESC also provides you the ability to send one or more technicians an email message.  To do so, head to the Dispatch menu and select the Email Technicians option.  The screen that appears will provide you with a list of all technicians in your database that have been assigned an email address.  

Place a check mark next to the technician(s) you wish to send an email message to and then click the Next button.  Here, you'll compose your message.  You can create several presets known as Quick Messages that can be used over and over again.  You'll see these listed on the top half of the screen.  If you double-click on a Quick Message, you'll see the text fill in on the bottom half of the screen, under the Message to Send section.  

If you do not wish to use a Quick Message, you can type your message directly into the Message to Send section of the screen.  When you're ready, click Send to send your email message on its way.  Once the message has been sent, the screen will close.