SnowManager can tell the people behind an address how the work there is going. There are three messages, each with its own switch and its own words:
- Job started: a crew has started work at the address.
- Job completed: the job at the address is done.
- Job incomplete: the driver could not finish the job.
Switch them on and write the words
Open Settings and choose Notifications. Each of the three has a card with a switch and an edit button. Editing opens Subject line, Email body and, where your business can send texts, Text message (SMS). Above them are the placeholders you can use; click one and it is put where your cursor is, in whichever of the three fields you were last typing in. Press Save to keep the words.
The placeholders are filled in for each stop:
| Placeholder | Becomes | In |
|---|---|---|
{{worktype}} |
the work type of the stop | all three |
{{location}} |
the address's name, or its street address | all three |
{{comment}} |
the driver's note | Job completed, Job incomplete |
{{starttime}} |
the time the crew arrived | all three |
{{endtime}} |
the time the crew left | Job completed, Job incomplete |
{{enddate}} |
the day the crew left | Job completed, Job incomplete |
{{date}} |
the day the crew arrived | Job started |
{{company}} |
your business's name | Job started |
Times and days are written in your business's time zone and language. A stop finished without a
recorded departure (marked incomplete from the office, for example) has no end time; its end date
is the day it was planned for. Words saved before Job completed and Job incomplete got
{{enddate}} used {{date}}; those were renamed to {{enddate}} for you, and a {{date}} left
in either still shows the end date.
A switch that is off sends nothing, by e-mail or by text. Job started has default words, so it sends even if you never edited it. Job completed and Job incomplete have no default e-mail: with the switch on but no subject or body saved, no e-mail goes out (a text still does, with the default text wording).
Send yourself a test
Under each template's fields are Send test email and, where your business can send texts, Send test SMS. They send what is in the fields right now, saved or not, to you alone: the e-mail to the address you sign in with, the text to the phone number on your profile (with its country code). The placeholders are filled with made-up values: an example address and work type, a job that started an hour ago and ended now. The test e-mail's subject starts with [Test]. A test SMS is a real text: it is charged like any other, and needs SMS turned on.
How the e-mail looks
The e-mail is your words in a white card, with your business's logo at the top (your business's name when you have not uploaded a logo; see Business settings; a logo file over 512 KB is left out of the e-mail). The footer says it was sent by your business with SnowManager. It goes out under your business's name, from SnowManager's sending address.
Different words for one address
An address can have its own three messages instead of the ones in Settings. Open the address, go to its Contacts tab and turn on Custom notification. The address gets its own Job started, Job completed and Job incomplete, each with a switch, an Edit button and the same fields, placeholders and test buttons as in Settings. The first time it is turned on they start as a copy of your business's words and switches.
Once on, the address's own messages replace the ones in Settings completely, switches included: a message switched on for the address is sent even when it is switched off in Settings, and one switched off for the address is not sent even when it is on in Settings. Turn Custom notification off again and the address goes back to the messages in Settings; its own words are kept in case you turn it on later. Only the business that owns the address sees the section and can change it.
Whose message it is
The message belongs to the business that owns the address. Its switch, its words and its name as the sender are used, even when a subcontractor did the work or sent the dispatch. A subcontractor never writes to the owner's customers under its own name or its own words.
Who receives them
Two lists on the address decide who hears:
- Notifications, on the address's Contacts tab: e-mail addresses and, where your business can send texts, phone numbers. Each row has two ticks, When job is started and When job is ended. Job started goes to the rows with the first ticked; Job completed and Job incomplete go to the rows with the second ticked. You add and change the rows while editing the address; see Add an address.
- Customer contact, on the same tab: a contact with Send email notifications on is e-mailed Job completed and Job incomplete, never Job started, and never texted. Only the contacts of the address's current customer count.
An e-mail address on both lists is mailed once.
By text message
The phone numbers on the address's Notifications list are texted the same events when the owner has SMS turned on: Settings, Notifications, the SMS notifications card, Turn on. Texts are charged per SMS to the business that owns the address, at the price shown when SMS was turned on. A text of up to 160 characters is one SMS, longer texts two or three, and a text is cut to three SMS at most. The card shows the season's free SMS, how many are left, and a month-by-month list of texts, SMS, free, failed and the amount to pay.
No text is sent when:
- SMS is off for the owner, or SMS is not offered in the owner's currency;
- the message's switch is off;
- the number does not have a country code texts can go to (the address form says which when you add one);
- the number did not tick the event.
The text comes from the owner's business name when that fits in eleven letters and digits, and from SnowManager otherwise. A text that could not be sent puts a bell notification in the owner's business: {0} SMS to the customer about {1} could not be sent.
When each one goes
Job started goes once per stop, the first time a crew is recorded as arrived and the stop is under way: a check-in by GPS, a check-in on the phone, or Start work. A second crew, a resumed stop or a repeated GPS report does not send it again. A stop that went straight from untouched to done is never "under way", and the customer hears only the ending. If the switch was off when the stop started, turning it on later does not send it for that stop.
Job incomplete goes at once, when a driver marks the stop unable (in the app or on the web) or finishes it in the app with a reason. It also forgets any Job completed still waiting for that stop, so a customer told the job could not be completed does not hear "completed" a few minutes later.
Job completed waits. The stop turns done, green and billable straight away; only the message to the customer is held back until the crew has been away from the address for the address's wait. The wait counts from the crew's last departure: the GPS check-out of the visit that settled the stop, or the moment somebody completed it by hand. A crew seen inside the address's geozone again during the wait restarts it from their next departure, so a crew that turns back for a second pass does not trigger "done" twice: the customer hears once, after the last pass. The waiting messages are checked every minute, so a message can go up to a minute after its wait ends.
The wait is set per address, by the business that owns it: on the address's Details tab, under the map, Wait before "Job completed" (min). It is 5 minutes unless the address sets its own, from 0 (tell the customer as soon as the stop is done) to 120. See Registration settings under the map, and How GPS check-in and check-out work for what counts as inside the geozone.
When an address is on two routes of one dispatch, the stop ends only when the last pass ends, and so does the message.
Job completed is sent at most once per stop. If the stop is reopened before its message has gone, the waiting message is dropped, and the stop's next completion starts a new wait.
Never sent
- A manual registration of work already done: nobody was told the work was planned, so nobody is told it is finished.
- A test dispatch.
- An address that no business owns any more.
- A stop reached only through routes with Never send customer notifications on. An address that is also on a route without that switch is still told about through that route; see Route settings.