What's New

November 29th

Billing Category

• Changes to the billing category are now enabled so that any errors in setting up properties can be corrected.

• Any changes will only affect future work orders, existing work orders for that month will be billed as per original billing category.

  • Requests can be made to the Cottage Companion team(support@cottagecompanion.com) to back date changes to the beginning of the current month

Attachments on Add Note

• Attachments are now being saved correctly on the Add Note function.

Scheduling and Costs

• It is now possible to update scheduling and costs on completed work orders as long as they are not marked as Billed

October 18th

Additional Details

• Maintenance company users have the ability to add additional details as well as a description to a work order, these are only visible to maintenance company users and team members. This feature allows extra information to be added to a work order to support the work being carried out, without the need to create a private note.

• It is possible to add additional details on work orders created by the property owners as well as to work orders created by maintenance company users

The completed date and extracts

• When a work order is completed, the completed date is still set to when the Complete option was selected.

• For any extract the date range now looks at the “Scheduled To” date, rather than the Completed date.
  e.g. Extracting ‘Completed Work Orders’ for 1st October - 31st October will include all work orders that have a Scheduled To date in that range even if the work order was set to completed on 3rd Nov.

• This supports better extracts for work completed within a time period, even if it was marked as completed after the month end

Billing Category on a Property

• This is now a mandatory field

Links in Notifications

• The link in Completed work order notifications has been updated to link to Work Orders History list rather than the Work Orders list

Creating Invoices

• Some back end components have been added in order to support invoice creation in the next release. There is no impact to current functionality

• Maintenance Company Users will see a :-

  • Service field on Work Order Types

  • Rate field on Team Members

  • Standard Fee field on Sub Contractors

• These fields will be defaulted and will not impact any current processing

July 3rd

Request a (Google) Review

• On a completed work order now it is possible to request a review from a property owner.
  There is a menu option of the Work Orders and Work Orders report called “Request a Review”, this is available on work orders where the status is “Completed”
  

• Pre-Requisites

  • The associated property for the work order must have registered property owners

  • We also require the url to your companies Google (or other) review page
    

• A dialog box will appear with some default text and the option to chose which property owner to send the notification to

• It is possible to customize the text before the request is sent

• The property owner will receive a notification with the review link in the message, so they can go to the associated web page to leave a review

Change Note Visibility

• The option to change a notes visibility has been updated to allow better visibility of notes, images and attachments, with workflow to set the notes to public and private

Newly registered team members and contractors

• When a team member or contractor registers, the app will now check to if the team member or contractor has already been scheduled on any work orders, their scheduling will be updated with their username so the rows appear on their scheduled contractor page.

Ordering of drop down lists

• An update has been made to drop down lists for properties and work order types so the results appear in alphabetical order

June 3rd

Attachments with Notes

• When adding a note an attachment can now be added - this is for documents and pdf files

• This could also be used for large images

Adding multiple items with notes

• When adding notes, it is now possible to add multiple notes, images and attachments in one go.

• The screens are optimised for mobile and browser use

Scheduled Today

• The custom filter ‘Scheduled Today’ has been updated to show work orders where the schedule range is over multiple days where today is in that range

• The schedule to date is now displayed on work order lists

May 28th

Marking Work Orders as Billed

From the ‘Work Orders History’ report there is an option to mark work orders as billed

• It is possible to select multiple rows at one time and then use the workflow button at the top of the screen.

• Only work orders that are marked as completed will be updated.

• Setting this flag doesn’t update the Status field (which is visible to the property owner)
  

  

Custom Filers on Work Orders History

There are a couple of new customer filters on Work Orders History

• Completed this month

• Completed last month

  

Adding the same note to multiple work orders (web only)

It is possible to add the same note to multiple work orders.

Note : When you select multiple rows, you need to use the workflow option at the top of the screen

Filter on Completed Work Orders Extract

On the completed work orders extract there is a filter option to either include or exclude work orders

12 Hour Time

Time entry and display has now been updated to a 12hr clock.

May 20th

A new release of Cottage Companion is now available. The following updates have been introduced in this release:

Reminders

With many tasks being annual or semi-annual it can be difficult to keep track of when the next task or service is due.

With Reminders, you can now easily keep track of of what is coming up and receive notifications when tasks are due.

Reminders are available to both Maintenance Company users as well as Property Owners. For reminders created by maintenance company users, it is possible to notify the Property Owner, at this point the reminder will be public between the Maintenance Company and the Property Owner.

Reminders created by a Property Owner will remain private to them.

How to create Reminders

There are two ways you can create a Reminder:

• When viewing a list of reminders, you can select (“+”) to create a new reminder.

• On completion of selected Work Orders, a prompt will appear to ask the user if they want to create a Reminder from that work order, with values defaulted from the work order.

• There is a flag on the Work Order Type to select whether you would like a prompt you to create a Reminder upon completion of a Work Order.

When you create a Reminder, the Property, Reminder Description, Reminder Date and Due Date are all mandatory. It is optional to select a work order type. If a reminder is created from a work order type, this value will be defaulted.

The Due Date is the date when the future task you want to be reminded about is due. The Reminder Date is how long beforehand you want to be notified about the task.

Work Order Types

On work order types, there is a flag to “Create Reminder on Completion”.

If selected, users will get an option to create a reminder when that type of work order is created.

Actions available on a Reminder

Action	Description
Snooze (1 day)	Adds one day to the Reminder Date and sets the Status to Snoozed.
Snooze (1 week)	Adds one day to the Reminder Date and sets the Status to Snoozed.
Notify Property Owner (Only available to maintenance company users)	This will send the Property Owner a customizable notification with details about the Reminders. This Reminder will now be visible to the Property Owner.
Create Work Order	This will open up the Work Order form with values from the Reminder defaulted into the form. Upon submission, the status of the Reminder will be set to Done
Edit	You can edit details regarding the Reminder. These being: Work Order Type, Reminder, Due Date and Reminder Date
Dismiss	Sets the status to Done, no other actions can be executed on this Reminder, it will be removed from the list at the end of the day.

When will I receive notifications?

On a daily basis, at 7am local time, a schedule will be run to determine which notifications should be sent.

Event	Action	Notification
Reminder Date = Today	Notify Maintenance Company Admin Users Or Property Owners	Reminder has hit reminder date
Due Date = Today	Notify Maintenance Company Admin User or Property Owners	Reminder has hit due date
Due Date > Today	Notify Maintenance Company Admin User or Property Owners	Reminder is overdue

What is available for Property Owners?

The Property owner have the same functionality, excluding the action button to “Notify Property Owner”.

Reminders created by Property Owners are private to the Property Owners.

Property Attachments

It is now possible to have multiple attachments associated with a property.

Maintenance Company Admin users have the ability to add, edit and remove attachments,

Maintenance Company General users, Team Members and Contractors have the ability to view the attachments.

It is possible to attach:

• Notes

• Images

• Documents

From the properties list, there is an option to Add and Edit Attachments.

Alarm Code Visibility

The alarm code is now only visible to Maintenance Company Users and Team Members. It is available in the detail view of the Scheduled Work Orders option

Adding Notes to Completed Work Orders

It is possible to add notes to completed work orders from the Work Orders History menu option.
This is available for maintenance company users and property owners

Maintenance company admin users can also change the note visibility for completed work orders.

Calendar Views

Calendar views have been updated with the colours consistent with the work order views.

The scheduled calendar entries are coloured differently for Scheduled vs In Progress.

The Team Schedule view allows users to identify entries with no time added vs where time has been added.

Notifications (My Work)

Maintenance Company Admin users now have the option to receive notifications when they are scheduled against work orders, and when notes are added to these work orders.

Completed Work Orders Extract

The extract has been updated to allow selection of one or more properties, and the extract is ordered by property and work order type.

Default Note Visibility

All notes for Maintenance Company users default to private.

May 3rd

A new release of Cottage Companion is now available. The following updates have been introduced in this release.

Work Order Filters

New filters have been added to work order reports :-

Scheduled Today - Show work orders where scheduled date = Today

Next 7 Days - Show New work orders where Requested By date is in the past or upto 7 days in the future as well as all other statuses that are not New
(i.e. Remove New work orders where Requested By Date is more than 7 days in the future)

Next 14 Days - Show New work orders where Requested By date is in the past or upto 14 days in the future as well as all other statuses that are not New
(i.e. Remove New work orders where Requested By Date is more than 14 days in the future)

Permission Updates

The maintenance company user permissions have been updated to allow users to update row entered by other users.

Convert Email Addresses to lower case

Email Addresses will be converted to lower case on entry to ensure new user registrations complete successfully.

Billing Category

The billing category labels have been updated and a new billing category Seasonal Full Service has been created

April 19th

Maintenance Company Admin User & Maintenance Company General User

Updates to the user permissions, to provide more control and flexibility over user access.

The aim is for the Admin users to be primarily office based users and the General users to be a hybrid of a Maintenance Company users and Team Members.

Maintenance Company Users can :-

• On work orders

  • Create and view work orders

  • Add and update scheduling and costs

  • Add public and private notes

Admin users can perform the same tasks as General users and additionally they can :-

• Perform the initial set up tasks, with access to create and manage the following

  • Maintenance Company Users

  • Team Member / Contractor Categories

  • Team Members / Contractors

  • Work Order Types

  • Properties and Property Owners

• On work orders, admin users can

  • Add and Refine Quotes

  • Complete and Cancel Work orders

  • Change Note Visibility

• Can create broadcasts and extracts

Notifications

Notifications have been updated as follows :-

• When a Maintenance Company User creates a work order the home owner and the other type of maintenance company user will be notified

• Maintenance Company General Users have the choice to be notified on all work orders going to Scheduled or In Progress or just the work orders they are scheduled against

• A note by a home owner will be notified to maintenance company users and team members / contractors who are scheduled on the work

• A contractor note will be notified to both maintenance company users

• A note being changed to becoming public will be notified to the home owner

The notification text has been updated - including shortening it for the App Notifications

User Preferences

User Preferences have been updated in line with the new notifications.

In particular, Maintenance Company General Users have the choice of

• Scheduled or Scheduled (My Work)

• In Progress or In Progress (My Work)

• Notes or Notes (My Work)

The option with My Work will only notify hem if they have been scheduled on the work order.

Scheduling

On the scheduling forms, the following changes have been made

• When team members add their Time In and Time Out, the interval is set to 15mins and the display no longer show seconds.

• The work order status will be changed to “In Progress” once a “Time In” has been entered on one of the scheduled rows.

Other Changes

The following changes have also been made :-

• A new menu option exists “My Scheduled Work” this is for users to have a list of work orders that they are scheduled on

• An update to the detail view on the Team Member / Contractor Work Order List to show Description on Mobile

• An update to change the “Team Leader” label to 'Can Add Time for All'

• An update to the mobile view for maintenance company users for work orders to include property name rather than description

• An update to allow a note to be added to a completed or cancelled work order