Case Study: Syncing On-Site Inspections

Water Quality Inspections Using iPads, FileMaker 12, and GoZync

FileMaker Platinum developer FullCity Consulting built this solution for a private company tasked with managing water quality in open bodies of water across large parts of two states. FullCity created their own FileMaker Go files, then used GoZync to sync inspections made offline with their client’s main FileMaker 12 solution.

Previously they were managing their workflow (from onsite service reports to state required reporting) on paper and using Access running under Parallels on a single Mac in the owner’s office. FullCity’s Adam Aronson recalls:

“When I first visited them there was a stack of service reports on the owner’s desk (2″ high!) that represented 60 days of invoices that had yet to be sent out. I referred to this as ‘self imposed Net-90’. Additionally, the information represented on the service reports needed to be aggregated yearly into a specific format for state reporting requirements. Collecting all of the data and reentering it into Access (for printing the reports) was taking the two owners a ridiculous amount of time.”

Using GoZync

Their current solution delivers the service reports back to the office when sync’ed (via GoZync) and a server side process is emailing PDFs of the service reports back to the customer – sometimes within 15 minutes of the tech leaving the site.

Additionally, by reproducing the NJ state report in the “back office” FileMaker file the availability of that report is practically instantaneous and they are also now using Zulu to display the service appointments in iCal.

FullCity Consulting

FullCity Consulting are GoZync experts, specializing in business productivity solutions for the iPad and Filemaker/web integrations. They are an Apple Consultant with Mobility Technical Competency certification and are the FileMaker Business Alliance’s Business Partner of the Year in the Americas for 2011.

GoZync

GoZync is a framework for building offline FileMaker Go solutions that talk to hosted FileMaker files. GoZync is modifiable and built solely in FileMaker Pro. It supports container fields and signatures, and is interruptible: meaning if your iPad shuts off or you loose connection mid-zync: no problem. Learn more at www.seedcode.com/gozync.

Zulu

Zulu is an extension for FileMaker Server that lets you read and write your FileMaker event records from iCal, Google Calendar, and the calendars on your iPhone and iPad. Learn more at www.seedcode.com/zulu.

Check out some of our other posts ...

New Week Views in DayBack for FileMaker

You can now expand DayBack’s week views to show two or three weeks at a time. We’ve been using this internally in beta mode for a few weeks, and it’s very helpful to see what’s coming up next week while navigating this week’s work. Find tips on how to work with these new views on the DayBack blog.

August 26, 2024 No Comments

To-Do Lists in FileMaker – New in DayBack Calendar

Now create and manage FileMaker to-do lists directly from the Unscheduled Items sidebar in DayBack Calendar. Our latest extension brings to-do behavior to any FileMaker table. Like unscheduled items, this behavior is based on a new checkbox field in your table, so some or all of your records in the table can be treated as to-dos. Mark your to-do’s done as you complete them, or drag them into the calendar to schedule time to work on them. See it in action here: Customize Your To-Do Lists This extension was designed to be pretty a scaffold onto which you could build your own, more specific to-do behaviors by customizing the action itself or the FileMaker scripts tha manipulate events. Here are some ideas to get you started. Add To-Do Lists to Your FileMaker Calendar If you haven’t already enabled the unscheduled sidebar along DayBack’s right edge, you can learn how to turn that on here: unscheduled items in DayBack. Then, download the custom action and learn how to configure it here: To-Do Lists in DayBack Calendar.

June 10, 2024 No Comments

Improved Resource Selection

We’ve made some big changes to how you filter and assign resources when editing events in DayBack. These changes will make it much easier to work with large numbers of resources, especially for folks assigning multiple resources to the same event. Watch a video of the new behaviors and learn more here: Adding Multiple Resources to an Item. If you haven’t looked at your resource field mapping in a while, here is how you set that up: Mapping the Resource Field in FileMaker. Please get in touch if you have any questions about this; we’re here to help.

May 1, 2024 No Comments

Suggesting Appointment Slots

Show Available Slots that Match Multiple Criteria Schedulers often look for gaps in their schedules to find the open resources for each opportunity. But sometimes, gaps don’t tell the whole story. You may have invisible criteria like skill-matching, cleaning requirements, or multiple resources to schedule at once. Or you may be on the phone with an opportunity and must suggest available times as quickly as possible. In these cases, DayBack can suggest the best slots that match all of your requirements. Scheduling Criteria Are Often Invisible In the movie above, schedulers can see openings for the two technicians, but they can’t easily see if the required rooms and equipment are free at the same time. While DayBack can show different types of resources simultaneously, as the number of criteria increases, it can be hard for schedulers to see everything at once and still make good decisions. Our customers often have rules that constrain when an otherwise open slot can be scheduled. Here are some of the invisible criteria we’ve built out for customers: Because DayBack is highly scriptable, it can scrub open slots against a variety of criteria to render just the slots that fit all your requirements. When multiple slots match, DayBack can even rank them so you can present the most ideal slots to your clients first. You Have to *See* Slots in Context to Make the Best Decisions Many scheduling apps present possible appointments as a list of dates and times. Without showing more information about each slot, schedulers can book days too tightly, always suggest the same providers first, or create huge gaps in some provider’s schedules. Ranking slots can help, but we’ve found that highlighting ideal slots alongside existing appointments gives schedulers the information they need to make the best decisions. We’ve seen schedulers quickly offer to split appointments or to slightly change services when they see available slots in the context of other appointments, trainings, vacations, and breaks. Getting Started We customize the recommendation of slots for each deployment as part of DayBack’s implementation packages. Please get in touch if you think DayBack could make a big impact on your team.

March 12, 2024 No Comments

FileMaker Calendar

DayBack for Salesforce, Google, and MS365

FileMaker Calendar

DayBack for Salesforce, Google, and MS365

Implementation Packages

DayBack Documentation

Older Products

Implementation Packages

Documentation Library

Legacy Documentation

FileMaker Calendar

DayBack for Salesforce, Google, and MS365

FileMaker Calendar

DayBack for Salesforce, Google, and MS365

Implementation Packages

DayBack Documentation

Older Products

Implementation Packages

Documentation Library

Legacy Documentation

Case Study: Syncing On-Site Inspections