24.02.02 will be deployed to customers from 27th February 2023 onwards, with the following changes.

🚀 New

Transform Emailing with AI: Discover the Ease of 'Draft My Email

We are thrilled to unveil the 'Draft My Email' feature powered by BigChange AI. This cutting-edge tool is designed to transform how you compose emails, offering an AI-powered assistant that crafts messages tailored to your needs.

With 'Draft My Email', you can effortlessly create emails that resonate with your chosen tone and length – choose from options like neutral, formal, informal, persuasive, and more to ensure your message hits the right note every time.

Concerns about ease of use? We've got you covered. 'Draft My Email' is integrated into the BigChange platform, ensuring only authorised users can access it.

Plus, with no training required, you can start drafting compelling emails with just a prompt.

This feature does not automatically send emails; you are still in complete control, allowing you to review, edit, and send your messages only when you are comfortable with the content. 

To start, compose a new email and press the 'Draft my email' button. After you have used it a few times, we would love to hear what you think. You can let us know by clicking the orange feedback button, which will appear automatically once you have used it a few times.

Give it a go today by creating a new email and clicking the 'Draft My Email' button.

We're eager to hear your thoughts on this new feature. After you've explored its capabilities a few times, a designated orange feedback button will appear. We encourage you to use this opportunity to share your insights and experiences with us.

For more information on this amazing new feature, click here to read our blog post on it.

🔄 Changed

API

• It is now possible to add a PO series when calling the GenerateFinancialDocForJob call. (196732)

• It is now possible to call ContactList passing ParentContactID or Reference to receive a list of child contacts. (25349)

• It will now be possible to call ContactNotesByParent to get a list of contact notes by parentnotecontactid, parentnotecontactreference.

Dashboards & Reports

• The group WIP dashboard is now available, which provides a quick view of financial status for ongoing group jobs. (259737)

• The mileage report no longer has merged cells, so that data can be manipulated easily. (265510)

Template Keywords:

• Tax is shown on the template even if the amount or % is 0. (263094)

🐞 Fixed

CRM & Finance

• Enhanced the synchronisation process to ensure secondary person details are retained in Xero, maintaining data integrity and completeness (266548).

• Improved the contact editing feature on financial documents to prevent unintended changes to line item quantities, ensuring accuracy and consistency in financial reporting (265373).

Job Scheduling and Management

• Eliminated false alerts when resources are en route to start a job, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing unnecessary notifications (254713).

• Refined the alerts mechanism related to resource activity times to function accurately, ensuring correct alert generation (229811).

• Corrected the functionality of alerts related to resources' activity time, ensuring they work as intended for better operational awareness (229811).

Reporting, Dashboards, and Business Intelligence

• Optimised timesheet reports to exclusively display data for allowed resource groups, enhancing privacy and compliance (240896).

• Enhanced report filters to automatically translate to French when the system language is set to French, improving user experience for French-speaking users (192538).

Route Optimisation

• Ensured the 'New route start time' in the route optimiser remains consistent across time zones other than GMT, improving reliability and usability of route planning features (207652).

24.02.01 will be deployed to customers from 13th February 2023 onwards, with the following changes.

🚀 New

Are you tired of spending too much time searching for cost-effective vehicle solutions?

Would you like to reduce the cost of a single vehicle by 15%, equating to a saving of £110 per month, just like Ian Hall, Managing Director at Utopia did?

Well now you can with the launch of BigChange Fleet!

To get started click on the new ‘BigChange Extra’ menu button and follow the prompts.

For more information on BigChange Fleet, click here to read our blog.

🔄 Changed

CRM & Finance

• Enhanced system reliability with automated health checks for BigChange Pay integration (266005)

Reporting, Dashboards and Business Intelligence

• Enhanced privacy and user experience in timesheet reporting with tailored data visibility (254839)

• Additional charts added to the Group WIP dashboard displaying 'Total Costs vs Invoiced' data (258032), 'Job Value by Group Job Category, Contact and Owner' (258034), 'Percentage of Jobs Unscheduled, In Progress and Completed' (258043)

• Non-UK customers now have the ability to display WIP dashboard figures in their local currency on the profitability dashboard. (252054)

• Help text has been introduced to WIP dashboards, providing clear explanations of the underlying calculations for greater transparency and understanding. (2580487)

Other

• Enhanced job status visibility on the booking site with the addition of 'completed with issues' status, for more accurate job tracking (225226 & 245215)

• Improved booking site performance and maintenance through comprehensive code refactoring (267418)

• Streamlined system performance by removing outdated legacy data syncs (266508)

• Optimised data import operations through comprehensive refactoring of ImportService (265449)

• Streamlined import processes by removing redundant importers, enhancing system efficiency (264417)

• Improved efficiency and security in sending files from SFTP (261039)

• Enhanced file management with updated processes for deleting files from Amazon S3 (261040)

• Additional behind the scenes changes (265001, 264743, 267134)

🐞 Fixed

CRM & Finance

• Accelerated contact search performance for quicker and more efficient searches (255380)

• Enhanced stability in downloading invoices in ZIP format, ensuring error-free operations (248215)

• Enhanced reliability in the InvoiceDownload action, ensuring seamless downloads without interruptions (260590)

• Optimised system performance for contracts with multiple lines under domestic reverse charge conditions (265206)

• Improved integration for seamless transfer of job data to invoices (248214)

• Enhanced invoice creation from jobs with accurate inclusion of nominal, department, or tracking codes (262274)

• Enhanced invoice item management with VatID inclusion for better compliance (264793)

• Template list in Job Finance contains all entries for comprehensive coverage (192776)

• Improved geofence integration for accurate syncing of contact location updates on devices (264406)

Reporting, Dashboards and Business Intelligence

• Enhanced reliability of driver behaviour reports, ensuring error-free resource selection (264885)

• Enhanced WIP Dashboard with fully functional date filters for job count widgets (266817)

• Improved modelling on the WIP Dashboard to ensure data accuracy (266185)

Job Scheduling and Management

• Enhanced event logging for better visibility and tracking of job scheduling changes (255192)

• Improved group job keyword accuracy for jobs with 'new' or 'sent' status (252063)

• Enhanced job creation process with correct suffix application for recurrences (251227)

• Improved data retrieval for selections with identical From and To dates (266803)

• Enhanced accuracy in 'group job actual duration' calculations for better reporting (265512)

Templates

• Restored functionality for adding formula keywords to template subjects, enhancing customisation (140955)

• Improved SMS template formatting to retain line breaks for clearer job confirmations (258720)

Other

• Restored ability for JourneyWatch customers to add resources, enhancing operational flexibility (266549)

• Enhanced API functionality allowing for custom field order adjustments (266885)

• Improved accuracy in Automation service through HTTP Header updates (264025)

24.01.1 is a point release and includes the following fixes and changes. Users will see these changes added to their system from 30th January onwards.

🔄 Changed

• Non-UK customers now have the ability to display dashboard figures in their local currency on the profitability dashboard. (243547 & 251998)

• Help text has been introduced to profitability dashboards, providing clear explanations of the underlying calculations for greater transparency and understanding. (256434 & 258047)

• To streamline the user experience, pagination has been implemented for the display of financial documents on a group job, enhancing ease of use and readability. (263957)

🐞 Fixed

Dashboards:

• The calculation of group job profitability margins has been significantly optimised for better performance and accuracy (263407)

Scheduling:

• Importing jobs now reliably maintains the integrity of flagged, on stop, or expiry date statuses. (262276)

• The system now ensures line items remain unique when creating a group job from a quotation, eliminating duplications. (261037)

• Parent contact references are now consistently maintained when importing jobs against child contacts. (258164)

Finance:

• When creating a stock item from a device with the supplier cost in euros, it seamlessly converts to GBP when added to an invoice. (257887)

24.01 is the first release of the year and includes the following changes and bug fixes.

Users will see these changes added to their system from 16th January onwards.

🔄 Changed

• To optimise security, customers who use automations to trigger BigChange WebService calls will no longer able to pass credentials in the URL. Instead these should be included in the header. Please note a script has been executed to transfer these over for existing automations, however customers should confirm these continue to work as expected and re-save if required. (257880)

• Filters in the jobs financial list have been rearranged to group financial completion and invoice stages together. (259318)

• Users are now able to select a resource group when creating an alert relating to a job, not just individual resources. (256514)

🐞 Fixed

Jobs:

• Our system now seamlessly retains mandatory worksheet answers throughout the job lifecycle, ensuring consistency and accuracy for automated job creation processes. (239030)

• Streamlined job blueprint exports now efficiently display one row per job, including multiple assistants, in a user-friendly CSV format. (240566)

• Improved display accuracy for 'view worksheet' branching method in job stock, ensuring a flawless viewing experience on client site. (165833)

Finance:

• Enhanced invoice accuracy now ensures stock items, even those with a discounted fixed price of £0, are accurately reflected in invoices. (258570)

• Stability improvements ensure financial documents created and attached to a job with names matching job references remain intact even when quotes are edited. (258124)

• Improved financial completion tracking now accurately cascades status updates to all jobs within a group. (257991)

• Enhanced clarity in job exports with the correct display of 'Invoice Cancelled' status, replacing the cryptic 'job_statusClient39'. (251267)

• Improved error messaging now offers enhanced clarity, guiding users effectively during contract import issues. (229400)

CRM:

• Default note workflows are correctly displayed when a note is created via the mobile application. (256403)

• Enhanced Email Capability: Support for Sending .eml Attachments in Quoted-Printable Format.(251286)

Resource Management:

• New feature added to export expired resource skills, offering greater control and record-keeping. (254758)

Templates:

• Streamlined template customisation now shows only relevant contract custom fields, enhancing clarity and efficiency. (255527)

• Enhanced template consistency with uniform font sizes for expression formulas and angle brackets, matching Word templates. (225861)

• Improved code truncation has been implemented reducing the likelihood of users hitting the 3000 character limit permitted in formulas when creating templates in Word. (151040)

• Improved template functionality, "Worksheet table" keyword now maintains unified structure with keywords added under it. (236964)

• Enhanced precision in "Worksheet Table" keyword as we have eliminated the unnecessary spaces in the absence of "notes" field. (179175)

Dashboards:

• Improved resource utilisation dashboard now accurately reflects current resources, excluding deleted ones. (258295)

Alerts:

• Enhanced browser experience with alerts, eliminating window darkening upon refresh for clearer visibility. (256062)

• JourneyWatch alerts are now accurately assigned to resources with active licenses, ensuring proper alert management. (256558)

• Improved alert logic with the 'expiry alert' for quotes no longer triggering for rejected quotes. (257534)

Tracking:

• Resolved issue enhancing reliability of fuel tank value readings at journey start for CalAmp tracker users. (140248)

23.10 is our final major release of the year, and includes the following changes.

Users will see these changes added to their system from 11th December onwards.

🚀 New

WIP Dashboard

Instantly access a comprehensive financial overview of ongoing jobs with just a single click. This feature allows for effortless tracking of margins, costs, and potential revenue, streamlining your financial management process.

Our suite of impressive dashboards is now further enhanced with the introduction of an innovative Work In Progress (WIP) dashboard.

Featuring an array of widgets, this dashboard provides detailed insights into total sales, costs, invoicing status, and job totals. Its graphical representations not only showcase trend data but also spotlight your highest-performing job types, contracts, and resources.

The WIP dashboard revolutionises your workflow by allowing real-time trend analysis before job completion, enabling you to capitalise on what works best.

Tax Template Summary

Effortlessly generate comprehensive tax summaries on invoices and quotes. This feature automates the calculation, sparing your customers the task of tallying amounts manually - a seamless and convenient experience for all!

Introducing the 'Tax Table Summary'—now accessible in both online and Word template editors. This tool enables the addition of a detailed breakdown of taxes paid or due at various rates, providing a clear and concise fiscal overview.

Ideal for facilitating a quicker reclaim process for your customers, streamlining their financial operations.

Other Additions

• Streamline your invoicing process with our new feature that limits the addition of predefined invoice items to those with customer-specific pricing, guaranteeing precision in item selection for jobs or financial documents. This functionality is easily manageable via the new account setting “Users can only add predefined items from a contact’s price list”. With this setting turned on, users can also search by Predefined Invoice Item group as well as name and reference when adding lines to financial entities.
  

  Contact PDI price lists can be imported on masse utilising the pre-existing price list import, making this simple to setup for use with your customers.
  

  Additionally, the full range of Predefined Invoice Items (PDIs) remains fully accessible on the JobWatch App, to avoid any unnecessary challenges for the resource whilst on site.(252491 & 252493)

🔄 Changed

• The Job Performance dashboard now features a new toggle for analysing performance by parent contact. This is ideal for efficiently reviewing large contracts encompassing multiple sites.(251135)

• Delve deeper into invoice details directly from the group profitability dashboard. This new capability offers enhanced clarity on the calculations behind your actual profits and margins, allow for greater financial understanding. (254895)

• Gain quick access to delivery site contact details from any financial document with the new 'eye' icon. You can now view relevant contact information immediately, streamlining your document management. (161882)

• Enhance your pricing visibility with predefined invoice item group names now displayed on the contact's price list page. This feature provides a clearer and more organised view of pricing structures.. (252492)

• The resource utilisation dashboard has been upgraded to include assistant job start and end times. This update offers a more comprehensive view of resource allocation and time management, aiding in efficient scheduling. (254668)

🐞 Fixed

Dashboards:

• Enhanced resource utilisation calculation to focus on shift-time hours, ensuring more accurate reflections of work patterns. (255522)

• New explanatory helper text introduced to clarify the appearance of additional lines in the resource utilisation report. (250703)

• Improved clarity in job performance charts with corrected text. (254910)

Finance:

• Enhanced save reminders now in place to protect your data before exiting financial documents. (255177)

Scheduling:

• Job start dates are now reliably maintained for contacts on stop, ensuring consistent scheduling. (229149)

• Standardised date formatting introduced to enhance formula accuracy in worksheets. (160802)

• Optimised flow chart visibility and download functionality on smaller devices for enhanced worksheet creation. (160736)

Automation:

• Enhanced reliability in automation triggering with job rescheduling. (172629)

Tracking:

• Refined geofencing calculations for more precise stop location tracking within contact areas. (147907)

The JobWatch App for iOS has been updated to 6.18 and is available now from the Apple App Store.

In the next 7 days, devices will receive this update automatically. If you want to get the latest version of JobWatch sooner, please visit the App Store and update manually.

Please note that to download and use 6.18, you must be running iOS 14 or later.

🚀 New

• Effortless PDI Management: We've introduced the ability to filter Predefined Invoice Items (PDIs) by groups, making it easier than ever to manage your invoices efficiently.

• Enhanced Transparency: Now, when reviewing job results, the PDI summary will display VAT information. This enhancement offers better transparency for your financial records.

• Error Prevention: To reduce the risk of errors, VAT is now set to read-only for expenses, ensuring accurate financial data.

• Visual Clarity: Enjoy improved visual navigation with photo thumbnails on vehicle check worksheets, making it simpler to track vehicle inspections.

🔄 Changed

• Default Due Date Display: When you choose a note type, the default due date will be visible. This addition ensures you have all the necessary information at your fingertips, making note management more efficient. (204955)

• Preview By Default: Due to the popularity of this feature, we have enabled it by default, allowing thumbnails of photo and image annotations to be viewed inline. (245819)

🐞 Fixed

• Job activities are correctly sent to the back office from the device. (239494)

• Hyperlink correctly functions with links containing spaces. (230221)

• Reworded error message displayed to the user when attempting to use more stock on the job than planned available on the device. (246628)

23.09.1 is a point release and includes the following additions and changes.

Users will see these changes added to their system from 28th November onwards.

🚀 New

One-Click Sync for All Financial Documents

Say goodbye to tedious individual syncing!

Introducing a game-changing feature that lets you sync all your financial documents in one go.

Located within the financial documents list, you'll now spot a new icon next to the mass actions icons: "Sync All". This powerful tool uses the filtered list of documents and marks all ready to sync with Sage and Xero.

For our customers who generate invoices regularly due to contracts or recurring patterns, the end of the month no longer means the time-consuming task of sending each invoice to financial integrations. This mass action is set to save significant time for your financial teams.

A popup message will appear upon selecting the option, confirming the number of documents you're about to sync. Don't worry about errors or unapproved documents; they won't be synced until manually fixed or approved, ensuring a smooth integration process.

🔄 Changed

• Users can drill into profitability dashboard data for enhanced visibility (250175).

• Resources that assist with jobs are included in the resource utilisation dashboard. (224034).

🐞 Fixed

Dashboards:

• Dates in dashboards no longer include the 'Z' indicator, which appeared following an update of an external library. (250823)

• Spelling has been updated in data tables contained in the sales opportunity dashboards. (251030)

Finance:

• Invoices created via the device use default payment terms. (253549)

Scheduling:

• Jobs are no longer sent to devices without mandatory answers being completed on both the booking site and back office. (255510)

Alerts:

• Alerts for jobs due to start in 'x' hours no longer trigger when the job has been completed. (239982)

Templates:

• The signature keyword in Word templates correctly responds to the height and width parameters set. (165728)

23.09 includes the following changes and fixes.

Users will see these changes added to their system from 16th November onwards.

🚀 New

More Job Group Keywords

Add even more details to your job group template with new keywords!

Additional keywords have been added to the 'group job details' keyword selector for job details, order number, planned job duration, actual job duration, job contact name and job contact full address. 

🔄 Changed

• To accommodate future functionality, the maximum width of 'popups' such as contact, contract and jobs have been increased. (248512).

🐞 Fixed

Scheduling:

• The JobSave webservices call now supports adding time constraints without requiring a date, enhancing flexibility in line with the user interface. (251858)

• The 'Group Job Planned' keyword now works error-free, even for individual jobs. (250563)

Contract and Financials:

• Contracts now automatically apply the default invoicing template for consistent billing. (251650)

• For financial documents not classified as invoices or credit notes, non-applicable departmental codes are now automatically removed for clarity. (237334)

• Quotes sent via automatic document sending correctly apply the contacts default payment terms. (220914)

• Conditional formula keywords have been updated to correctly read invTotalExclTax as a numeric value. (237628)

Sales Opportunities:

• Sales opportunity template keywords pull through on templates/alerts and automations when triggered from a note that is linked. (246079)

• The system prevents duplicate job group templates for quotes, and any contact-specific templates will be prominently displayed. (226610)

Resources:

• Deleted resources will no longer show absences, keeping records up-to-date and accurate. (248700)

Stock & Equipment:

• Stock and equipment lists can now be accurately organised by date for easier tracking. (51232)

• Stock-related alerts now accurately include all relevant keywords for better clarity. (228866)

Communication and Alerts:

• SMS sender settings now require alphanumeric characters for enhanced security, with warnings for incorrect entries. (159385)

• You'll receive a notification if a template in use by an automated document sending is deleted, preventing unintentional disruptions. (227246)

• Vehicle alerts now correctly display associated contact details for efficient communication. (233916)

23.08.1 is a point release and includes the following fixes.

Users will see these changes added to their system from 7th November onwards.

🐞 Fixed

Quotation and Job Management:

• If you move a quote that's linked to a job in a group to a different job, the new job will also be in the same group. The quote, along with any notes and files attached to it, will be transferred to this new job smoothly. (147273)

• You can now import settings for jobs linked in groups even if they have similar names (like GR32/1, GR32/11, and GR32/101) without causing any errors that would have previously been reported via email. (243932)

• When a group job is finished financially in BigChange, this status will now automatically apply to all the individual jobs within that group. (250954)

Template and Document Formatting:

• We've fixed an issue where documents were incorrectly formatted when using the "contactName||Contact name" feature in Word templates. (148135)

Invoicing and Billing:

• We've corrected a problem that caused errors when calculating invoice dates for recurring periods that didn't have a specified end date. (182818)

• The maximum length for payment terms and the time a quote is valid for is now 150 days, and we've put checks in place to avoid errors related to this. (194361)

• When importing a list of pre-set invoice items, if there are any repeated items, only the first one will be recognised. The system will ignore the rest and notify you via email about any entries it didn't process. (246119)

• We've made the error messages for billing periods clearer. This means that when the first billing period is set up correctly, any following periods are checked and processed properly too. (250361)

• When the setting that allows payment terms to be inherited is active but the specific terms aren't set, the system will now default to the standard quote validity period. (247596)

Alerts and Notifications:

• Alerts for when resources are about to expire are now working. They were failing because of some incorrect information in our production data that was disrupting the whole process. (238755)

• The system for generating alerts for sales opportunities has been fixed; it was previously not working due to errors in how it was set up and some bad data on our servers. (247095)

Dashboards:

• The profit margins shown on the job profit-tracking dashboard now accurately reflect the costs and selling prices listed in the job details. (246457)

• We've removed any instances where revenue that couldn't be billed was showing up in the reports where it shouldn't be. (247907)

• Cancelled invoices have been removed from the dashboard areas where job profitability is tracked. (247909)

User Interface and Usability:

• We've resolved a small wording error that occurred when trying to select all jobs at once in the job overview area. (245439)

Web Service and Integrations:

• Now, when jobs are updated through the Web Service, the system will use your personal settings to understand dates properly. (247112)

System Performance:

• The performance of our scheduling assistant has been improved, so it should be much quicker now. This comes after reports of slowness on some client sites. (249682)