2021 Q3 Feature Recap
As things slowly start to return to normal and business picks back up, the team at Time To Pet has been hard at work on some great new features to make managing your company smoother than ever before. Please keep reading to see what we’ve been cooking up this summer, and reach out to us at support@timetopet.com if you have any questions!
Conflict Warnings When Updating Client Profiles
Keeping the notes and instructions on a client’s profile up-to-date is extremely important. Allowing your clients to update and manage their own information in addition to your company’s Admin team can be an incredible boon to your workflow and save you a tremendous amount of time. However, sometimes this can cause potential issues if you and a client happen to be editing or updating the same information at one time. Problems can even arise if two separate Administrators load up the same profile and are making edits separately.
In order to prevent any scenarios where incorrect or incomplete information has been added to a client’s profile as a result of this scenario, we have developed a system where, if a client or an Administrator (or two separate Administrators) are both editing a single client’s profile and submit changes within moments of each other, Time To Pet will now warn Administrators of this existing conflict as it arises and ask for confirmation on which details they would like to be saved to the client’s profile. If this happens as a result of a client submitting changes at the same time as an Administrator, instead of asking for confirmation, Time To Pet will simply notify Administrators of this occurrence by email and will not give notice to the client.
Editable Client Credit Notes
As a pet care business owner, there may be times when you want to apply a credit to a client’s account. Whether it be because a client referred someone or because you are running a special promotion for new clients, a credit, as far as we define it in Time To Pet, is a monetary amount you add to a client’s account that you won’t be receiving actual compensation for. To add a credit to a client’s account, navigate to their profile and select their “Services/Invoices” tab. Along the top of the screen, you should see a bar with four different values. The first one will say “Credit Balance” and to view or edit that balance, click the pencil icon.
A new screen will appear that displays your client’s credit balance and the notes regarding each addition. Previously, these notes were set in stone once they were entered, which can be less than ideal if situations change or you need to correct something or make an update. In this round of updates, we have now added the capability to do just that!
To edit a note on a client’s credit amount, simply click the new “Edit Note” link that will now appear next to the credit amount, make your changes, and be sure to save your changes. And then you’re set!
For more information on client credits and the difference between a credit and an open payment amount in Time To Pet, please see our help articles here: Applying And Redeeming Client Credit & Understanding Open Payments And Credits In Time To Pet.
End Of Visit 5-Minute Warning For Mobile App
In addition to the features and improvements we have rolled out for the web version of our product, we have also introduced a new setting in the Staff Mobile App! This new setting is called the “The End Of Visit 5 Minute Warning” feature and can be located within the Settings section of your mobile app where it can be toggled on or off depending on your preferences. When enabled, it will turn on an alert that you will receive as a push notification to your phone when the timer is running on a visit and you are five minutes out from the end of its duration.
This can be extremely handy for staff members out in the field who may be having so much fun with the pets under their care that they lose track of time. Receiving a heads up that they have five minutes left in the visit can let them know that it’s time to get a move on and wrap things up!
Note: Only a staff member can enable this feature for themselves from their own mobile app. Administrators cannot enable this setting on their staff’s behalf.
Acknowledge The Day
In an industry like pet care, staff members have a lot of independence as they are out in the field completing their routes. While that allows them a good amount of freedom and can signal their strong sense of responsibility, as an employer, it can also cause a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. It is because of this that many of our customers use check-in systems with their staff members in order to ensure that they are aware of their schedules for the day and are completing the work.
Having the ability to hold your staff accountable is a matter of utmost importance for a business owner, and that is why we are thrilled to announce our new Acknowledge The Day feature! Our Acknowledge The Day feature allows your team to “acknowledge” their schedule for the day each and every day by sending your staff a push notification to their Staff App according to your company’s settings. Staff will also see a banner across the top of their app that they can click to acknowledge their events for the day.
To enable this feature, navigate to Settings > Staff Settings > General. You can further configure this setting and determine how you would like it to operate for your company, as well. Our Acknowledge The Day feature supports two different sets of rules. First, you can require your team to acknowledge their scheduled events a set number of hours prior to their first event (for example two to three hours before the first event). Alternatively, you can require your team to acknowledge their scheduled events at a set time each day (like between 5am and 9am).
In addition to these customization options, Time To Pet also supports reports and a home screen widget for Acknowledge The Day. When this feature is enabled, you can see a report in the Daily Summary, as well to easily view who has and has not acknowledged their schedule.
Improvements To Visits Report
We have made some upgrades to our Visits Report, which can be located in the Reporting > Schedule section of your account. Our Visits Report contains a lot of information regarding individual visits and add-on services scheduled within the supplied date range. This includes details on the invoice the event was on, the revenue generated by that service, and the staff member assigned to it.
Since there is so much information contained in this report, being able to effectively filter the list of visits you generate is vital. For that reason, we have added two data columns to the report (Invoice Date and Invoice Due Date) and have upgraded the searching options so that you can now further customize the parameters of your report using Invoice Dates.
New Trackable Value Added To Reliability Report
The Reliability Report allows you to find staff that are habitually “unreliable'”. Reliability is scored across whether staff are late to an event, if they cut their visit times short, or if their visits continually run over time. Having this information on hand can help you to track and correct potentially bad habits in your team members. To that end, we have added a brand-new “Are Early” value to track alongside the aforementioned three. Using this value, you can see how regularly staff members are beginning events before their scheduled start time. To generate a Reliability report, navigate to the Reporting > Time section of your account.
New Email Design
Another update we’re excited to release is a brand-new design for all of our emails! With a more modern and aesthetically pleasing design, clients and staff alike will have a much easier time perusing any communications or notifications sent to them through email.
Partial Payments Now Available On Mobile App
Clients can submit payments more easily than ever before with the new support we added to the Mobile App for partial payments! For instructions on how clients can make a partial payment through their Client App, please see our help article here: Paying Invoices, Leaving Tips, And Making Partial Payments.
Template List Added To Client’s Profile
Previously, Client Templates were only available in the Scheduler > Templates tab section of your Time To Pet account. This can be inconvenient if you are on a client’s profile and would like to deal with their scheduled events. In an effort to make scheduling and adjusting a client’s events easier and more centralized in a singular location, we have added a complete list of a client’s Templates to their profile. They can be found in the “Services/Invoices” tab underneath the “Templates” heading.
For more information on our Templates feature, please see our help article here: Scheduling Repeat Services Using Templates.
