simPRO's 2020 Product Year in Review

The saying ‘time is money’ likely meant more to your business this year than it has ever before. Our 2020 product updates not only help improve how you use simPRO but also further streamline processes to give you more time to focus on strengthening your business.

If you missed any of our updates, or just want a quick overview of this year’s new features, check out our guide to the top simPRO product updates in 2020.

Top customer suggested updates for a better simPRO

33 of the 80+ feature updates we made this year came from you, our users! Your input on the most-needed simPRO features helps us build a better simPRO. Top time-saving updates from customers in 2020 include:

1. Single database for contacts (432 votes): Select customer contacts as site contacts without creating a duplicate record. This feature minimizes duplicated contacts and saves time since you no longer need to manually transfer contact information from one dashboard to another.

   Want to clean up your database and get rid of existing duplicate records? Check out the newly added Duplicate Contacts Report as well.

2. Audit logs (500 votes): Audit logs help you keep track of changes to your customer, contact, site, supplier, employee and contractor records.

   Eliminate wasted time spent trying to track down who made changes to a record and why, and easily track changes to a particular record from one view.

   Learn more about audit logs on our blog.

3. Bi-directional status flows (594 votes): Need to move a job back a step in a given workflow? This update streamlines the previously manual process of updating job status when you need to push a job back a step.

   This significantly reduces the need for manual intervention and gives your team more confidence in the accuracy of a job’s status.

   Find more information on bi-directional status flows on the simPRO blog.

4. Scrolling dates on the schedule (524 votes): This top simPRO product update is especially helpful when you need to schedule work over the end of one month and the start of the next.

   Once you select your date in the following month, you can simply click on it, and the full schedule for that day will automatically load on your screen. As a result, you can schedule work at the optimal time in one seamless action.

   You’ll also see a warning if you try to edit a time period that has been locked for payroll purposes.

5. Address Auto-Complete: simPRO now suggests a location (when possible) as you start typing an address so that you can avoid entering an incorrectly formatted address or an address that doesn’t exist.

   This also improves the accuracy of the mapping functions in simPRO and flows into simPRO Mobile so that your field staff navigates to the correct address.

   We discuss more on auto-address complete in our blog post here.

   Learn more about scrolling dates in our blog post.

Top project management updates to streamline your job workflows

The more you can streamline your workflows, the faster you can complete jobs and deliver a better experience for your customers at the same time. At simPRO, we continue to make new project management updates that streamline not only your job workflows but also your own experience working in simPRO.

1. Gantt Chart Enhancements: Implement task dates more efficiently with updates to Gantt charts in simPRO. The updates also offer better visibility into job progress on projects.

   Learn more about this year’s updates to Gantt charts in our blog post.

2. Account Per Line Item: Further break down your billable parts and labor inside a single cost center for more accurate job costing. The modified table view with added columns helps you quickly define which income account specific parts of labor relate to.

   Discover more about the account per line feature on our blog.

Top updates for preventative asset maintenance

Long term maintenance planning helps you properly allocate resources for asset maintenance and larger projects. Check out some of our top preventative maintenance updates below.

1. Asset functionality in simPRO Mobile: Field staff can create, manage and test assets from their mobile devices. They can also access the full asset test and service history on mobile, including past readings, failure points, recommendations and notes.

   Be sure to check out the in-app barcode and QR code scanner, and asset search functionality for faster access to asset information.

2. Preventative maintenance report updates: This report allows you to look ahead and view planned asset maintenance for the next 3, 6, 9, or 12 months.

   You can then let your customers know when someone from your team will be on-site for asset testing and view past results via a downloadable image.

   Customers with access to the customer portal can also access this report to plan for your service visit.

3. Asset Labor Planner: Gain a clear picture of how many hours are required to complete maintenance on all of your customer’s assets.

   Instead of only being aware of the effort required for the next few weeks, the asset labor planner looks for every asset service that you have committed to within simPRO and provides accurate long-term forecasting on the labor required for the next 3, 6, and 12 months.

Top integration updates to streamline work and make simPRO your single source of truth

New integrations this year include Podium, SPARX, Fixitfaster, Link4, and Talk5. These third-party integrations extend functionality and help support simPRO as your single source of truth.

1. Square: Check out our expanded Square Integration capabilities and expanded simPRO Customer Portal. Required information for automatic payments can be securely accessed and managed by your customers all from within the one place.

   You can also choose to have automatic payments for recurring invoices turned on or off.

2. Podium: What do your customers say about you online, and how can you track it all from simPRO? The new Podium integration lets you improve customer interaction, collect online reviews, and in turn, make your business more attractive than competitors so you can win more leads.

Hear more from CTO Rob Ormand in our end of year webinar review

Ready to dig into the nitty-gritty of this year’s product updates? Hear more from our CTO Rob Ormond in our 2020 Product End of Year Webinar below.