Customer Spotlight: Crashbrokers

In this weeks customer spotlight we’ve talked to one of our enthusiastic New Zealand customers Crash Brokers..

Crash Brokers provides an accident management and collision repair service for busy car-dependent professionals, small fleet operators and private motorists

What does your company do?

Crash Brokers provides a unique premium service in motor vehicle accident & collision repair management.

What services do you provide?

Crash Brokers’ service is available to fleet operators and the general public. When car accidents happen, we provide a one-call solution that saves customers time, stress and money. We manage all logistics before, during and after repairs – from the point of impact through to the day of re-delivery. This includes free pick-up/delivery, free late model courtesy cars & vans, fantastic customer service and communications using ProWorkFlow.

How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

Professional accident management has only ever been available to large fleets at significant cost. Crash Brokers’ model is completely different, and requires no registration or contract so it’s available to everyone when they need it – and the best part is our service is completely free of charge to customers

What’s the back-story of your company? How/when/why was it founded?

I launched Crash Brokers in 2004 in response to an obvious gap in the market – initially SME’s, professionals and individual motorists, though we now serve fleets of all sizes too. I have over 20 years experience in collision repair (“panelbeating”) and have held senior roles in car sales and car leasing. As such I’ve experienced the collision repair sector from both sides of the fence, and recognized that there was an opportunity to turn my old “trade” into a professional service that would ensure consistent technical and customer service quality for customers.

What’s your latest piece(s) of work, a recent project, something your company does or did that you’re proud of?

Crash Brokers strength has always been in the caliber of our business partners including preferred supplier status with the professional institutes and car leasing firms. Our most recent, and greatest, success has been a strategic alliance with Protecta Insurance. All Protecta clients now have direct access to Crash Brokers’ expertise so can expect first-class quality and a superior service experience if they’re involved in a collision. Protecta are a great success story themselves, being the only remaining NZ-owned insurance company, they’re very customer focused and Crash Brokers are very proud to be working with them.

Do you have any tips or tricks for other companies to help through the tough economic times?

Nothing is impossible, never give up. It’s a big business pie out there, focus on finding ways to get more of it. Our Protecta Insurance success was no overnight sensation, it’s taken four long years of hard word and determination in the face of constant market resistance and great adversity.

You’re obviously a ProWorkflow customer, why did you choose it over competitors?

I was working with an I.T. consultant at the time in order to design and develop the perfect web-based system for managing multiple collision repair cases. I happened to mention this to a friend involved in software sales and complained that there wasn’t an off-the-shelf programme that would suit – I got a call from her two days later to say she’d found ProWorkFlow and it appeared to provide all the functionality on my wish-list.

How do you use ProWorkflow in your company?

ProWorkFlow is now the heart of Crash Brokers’ operation, we’ve eliminated paper records and simply couldn’t function without it. It’s much more than record keeping and billing for us, it’s our entire communications system for our staff, service providers, customers and insurance brokers.

ProWorkFlow provides total transparency and accountability for every case we handle. We love it and our customers do too.

What has ProActive software been like to deal with?

Amazing! I had to become an expert at using ProWorkFlow before training our staff. It’s normally a major challenge for me, but I found ProWorkFlow easy to navigate and intuitive to use, and the technical support is fantastic!

Any final words?

I could not overstate the transformation to Crash Brokers’ operation that has been facilitated by ProWorkFlow, it is literally the heart of our operation.

I find two factors particularly astounding:

1. That an off-the-shelf programme that was never designed for our application or industry can deliver 100% of the functionality we need
2. We were initially prepared to spend a 6-figure sum to achieve this result and ProWorkFlow does all this for $20/mth per user.

I consider our move to ProWorkFlow to have been our best business decision to date, and the most significant operational improvement by far.

Thanks so much!

A big thank-you to Karen from Crash Brokers for letting me bug her with my questions!

Crash Brokers ProWorkflow Testimonial

I had a little hiccup yesterday and had to ask the dev fellas for a hand (oh the shame).

No matter – I got my answer and now I feel so much smarter and cleverer.

When running the Summary of All Projects report (Reports Manager > Reports Page > General Projects Reports) you’ve got a few different filters to chose from; clients, projects, display by. The Display options tripped me up when I was using the ‘Time Spent’ option, it would not display all tasks for my projects and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.

Too easy was the answer, with ‘Time Spent’ as the Display filter we will only get a result for tasks with time recorded against them. This explained why my report was giving me only half the tasks I was expecting. Once I changed this filter to ‘Pricing Details’ life was grand again and I was scratching my head no more!

Summary of All Projects - Display Filter

So I guess the moral of my tale is not to be afraid to play with the settings and don’t be afraid to ask for a hand – even the best of us sometimes can’t see the woods for the trees.

As with all decent management software, ProWorkflow is designed to let you get through your day without getting in your way, we try to minimize any/all prompts and ideally you should be able to use the system without having to read through any of the help material available.

There are both upsides and downsides to this approach, it makes it easy to get straight into the system but conversely because we get out of your way there are many features available that people miss by not reading through all the settings available to them.

Included below are the four biggest features people miss.

The “Add Your Information” Option

This lets clients, staff, contractors and other users add their contact information into the system directly from the login screen, then all you have to do is approve the pending contact.

You turn this feature on by going to the Application Settings page in the “ADMINISTRATION” section of the left nav, here you can also change the Title and Description that displays.

The "Add Your Information" Option

This will add the link and message on the login screen to your account…

The altered login screen

… and when you click the “Add Your Information!” link it will bring up a window where people can add your contact information.

Add Your Information!

On the internal staff side all you have to do is edit the contact to make sure everything is ok (The pending contact will appear flashing at the top of the list of contacts in the Contacts Manger) and they’re now in the system!

It’s a lot easier to get all your clients or a new contractor into the system this way.

Alerts Through RSS

When we added on-screen alerts that appear in the system header, in addition to recieving alerts through email we also added in the option to recieve your alerts through RSS.

Simply expand your header alerts then click the RSS icon alongside “Your Alerts!”, it’s a normal RSS feed we haven’t password protected to ensure it works in all feed readers (so don’t make your feed url public!).

RSS Alerts

Edit Page Content

The Edit Page Content link displays on every page of the application, you’ll find it bottom left of the page, by default it explains the page you’re currently on, but you can write something different by clicking the “Edit This Page” link.

In the pop-up you have a “Section Title”, “Page Title” and a “Short Desc” that you can edit, with the option to reset all of them in the “ADMINISTRATION” section of the system. (Note: this will show for ALL users.)

Page Content Sections

The Page Title Variable

This setting can be found on the Developer Settings page in “ADMINISTRATION”, it affects the text that’s used in the page titles (IE: appears in your browsers header bar).

Well we’re approaching the end of an interesting year and contrary to popular belief the sky has not fallen in!
For me here in ProWorkflowLand it’s busier than ever.

From talking to our new clients it seems as if the search for a project management tool can be the equivalent of water torture or being trapped in the elevator with Britney on musak.

I hate to think of the number of clients who’ve come to us after having been through 20+ trials of different products; one had even done 60 software trials.

Really there are a couple of points that you need to check off before you dive into multiple trials (and lots of extra work):

•    Do I need a Project Management tool?

•    Does my organization have processes that can be broken down into steps?

•    Are you ready to make efficiencies and become more productive?

•    Would using a tool save money in the long run?

•    Does the provider offer continued support, upgrades and decent server infrastructure?

•    Will the provider I’m looking at be around next month? Next year?

•    Will my co-workers be able to pick this up and run with it?

I know it’s a mission but it sure makes it easier to know that these aspects are dealt with, instead of dedicating several weeks of your life to 10 or 20 trials. Better to focus on the two or three that tick the boxes for you.

I’ve included here a few links that may be useful

So you want an “All in One” Solution to run your Business?
Lost Earnings Calculator
PWF Whitepaper
ProActive Software
What our customers say…

Don’t forget if you need some training or have any queries then drop me a line and I’ll be there for you

We’re busy at work revamping your Personal Summary page (also known as the Dashboard), it’s a feature almost every user sees when they first log into the system so it’s important that it’s easy to use and clear. We’ve put a lot of thought into this to ensure that it’s clean, but also gives comprehensive summary information if needed.

Here’s the new dashboard layout: (Clean and Clear!)

The New ProWorkflow Personal Summary

The current Dashboard below is a little ugly and limited in what you can do on it. It lists the recent projects & tasks you tracked time on or edited, lets you know what’s due today, and gives you figures for the number of current/overdue projects & tasks. Below is the current Dashboard we’re replacing:

The Current ProWorkflow Personal Summary

With the new summary we had a number of goals but primarily we wanted to make the summary more useful, this means we now display more and we do it more efficiently.

The new personal summary page combines multiple pieces of information from all over the system (as it should), I’ll explain below how each individual section of the page works in both the contracted and expanded view.

My Projects

My Projects - Contracted View

The contracted My Projects view gives you links to create a new project, view all the projects you’re assigned to, run a report showing all active projects, run a report showing all overdue projects as well as letting you know the number of projects you’re assigned to (including how many are overdue).

My Projects - Expanded View

The expanded My Projects view, shows you the value of all your active projects using the invoiced amount on each project, you can also see the value of all projects that were started this month & last month.

If you would prefer to see the value of all projects for a different period other than last month then you can do so using the drop-down list in that box.

My Projects - Last Month Options

In the bottom half of the Expanded view you can see the total number of both active and archived projects, the total (and percentage) of active projects that are overdue & the total (and percentage) of active projects that are over time allocated (have had more time tracked than was allocated to them).

My Tasks

My Tasks - Contracted View

The contracted My Tasks view gives you links to create a new task, view all the tasks you’re assigned to, run a report showing all active tasks, run a report showing all overdue tasks as well as letting you know the number of tasks you’re assigned to (including how many are overdue).

My Tasks - Expanded View

The expanded My Tasks view shows the the number of active and archived tasks, and then the number (and percentage) both overdue and over time for the active tasks.

In the bottom half of the expanded view you can see the number of tasks completed this wek and last, the number of tasks completed this week and last and the number of tasks falling due within the week.

If you would prefer to see the number of upcoming tasks for a different duration then you can select a different period using the drop-down list provided.

My Tasks - Coming Due Options

My Time

My Time - Contracted View

The contracted My Time view gives you a link to Track time, run a report showing you all the time tracked in the system, run a report showing you the performance of all the staff as well as letting you know the amount of time you tracked both this week and this month.

My Time - Expanded View

The Expanded My Time view shows you the amount of time tracked this week, last week, this month and last month, In the “This Week” box you can see the breakdown per each day of the week and in the “This Month” box you can see the breakdown per each week of the month.

You can change the day the week starts using the “Week Starts on:” drop-down list, and also view the time tracked in a different week using the “Select Week Start” link.

If you would like to see the time tracked for a different month or duation then you can do so using the drop-down list provided.

My Time - Last Month Options

Invoices & Quotes

Invoices & Quotes - Contracted View

The contracted Invoices & Quotes view gives you links to create a new invoice or a new quote, run a report showing all projects to be invoiced (marked as complete but not marked as invoiced) as well as letting you know the number of invoices and quotes unpaid/pending approval.

Invoices & Quotes - Expanded View

The Expanded view for Invoices & Quotes shows you the number of active quotes/invoices as well as their dollar amount, it also shows you the value/number of quotes/invoices create this week, last week, this month & last month.

If you want to change the “Last Week” figure to a different week then you can do so using the “Select Week Start” link in that box, you can also change the “Last Month” figure out to another month or duration using the drop-down list provided.

Invoices & Quotes - Last Month Options

Todays Items

Todays Items

Todays items will by default only show you items that are due today (of course!), you can however change this duration using the provided drop-down list, if there happens to be tasks in the list then you can mark them as complete or auto-track time on them as you would normally, and you can also edit both Projects & Tasks with the displayed icons.

Todays Items Drop-Down

Search

Search Box

Search is pretty self-explanatory, it lets you search through the items in the system, you enter in a keyword then select what you are looking for (Projects, Tasks, Contacts, Companies or Notes) and click the Search button.

Recent Items

Recent Items

The Recent items section shows you the recent Projects & Tasks you’ve done something on, whether that’s tracking time, editing them, etc. By default this will only show you the last 5 items, but using the drop-down list you can select to show 5, 10 or 25.

More

More

The More section gives you some quick links to things you might want to change or regularly use, like a quick link to the permissions or your personal profile.

Customization Options

Because we know every user is different, you can vertically re-arrange all the modules that appear on the page, so if you would like Todays Items to display first followed by My Time then you can do so, it’s all as easy as a quick drag of the mouse.

Ajax

We have written the page in such a way that you can do almost everything without having to refresh the page, this includes expanding/contracting sections as well as interacting with them.

We’re still developing the personal summary page (we’re still making tweaks) so some parts of this will change, but we’re excited and we hope you are too.

A few people have asked recently about our security & backup processes – and rightly so!

We know, as you do that this is a really important consideration for any business and as such we work with the team at www.Fastservers.net. They run a highly professional dedicated server facility and we are proud to have a longstanding relationship with them.

A key point to remember is that backups are taken of your data 4 times daily and held on separate drives (on the server) for 14 days. Of course, for your peace of mind, you’re always able to take a backup of your database from within the ProWorkflow application – the ‘Database Download’ tool is in the Administration section of ProWorkflow.

All of our subscription accounts utilize 128 bit secure certificates (HTTPS), are separate installations on the servers and use independent Microsoft SQL databases.

You can also be confident in that access to those subscription servers is restricted to ProActive Software’s internal IP address. Our strict policy ensures that usernames and passwords do not exist in written or offline form and the privacy & confidentiality agreements are in place for both ProWorkflow and FastServer staff.

It’s really important to us that you don’t just assume you’re protected but for you to be informed and know that we’re happy to state our policies and discuss these with you.

There’s more info on Data Security at our website.

The Secure FastServers Data Center

You know the cool setups you see in James Bond movies or X-Files episodes?

Well FastServers data facility is way up there: bulletproof glass, tornado proof bunkers, biometric scanning and man-traps.

Check out the tour of the data center, it’s pretty wicked:

With all sorts of forward thinking going on at FastServers’ organization it’s both exciting and reassuring to work with them!

Rolled out earlier this week to customers, the new Profitability Report does exactly what it’s name would have you expect, it lets you check the profitability of your projects.

Where is it?

You’ll find a link to the profitability report on the Project Details Page of a project, there’s a link to “View Report” top right of the page in amongst the other reports.

The Profitability Report link on the project details page

The Actual Report

There are two views to the “Project Profitability Calculator”, one as a list of staff and one as a list of the tasks, on each view you assign an hourly rate cost to the item and an hourly rate chargeout to the item (whether it be the task or the staff member).

The system works out your actual labour cost by multiplaying your hourly rate cost & chargout by the amount of time tracked, then tells you the difference.

Example Profitability Report

Though currently quite basic, we plan to expand the profitability reporting throughout the system.

One of the most requested features by our customers is the ability to export straight to PDF across the application, we haven’t been able to offer this in the past due to licensing constraints but now with the latest release of ColdFusion (which is what ProWorkflow is written in) we have PDF features built in.

Though this has already gone out to some customers already, all of our subscription server customers will receive the feature in the next update we release.

What can I export as PDF?

We’ve added the PDF export feature to the most obvious places…

• In the tools drop-down list for invoices you’ll find the new option to “Export – PDF”
• In the tools drop-down list for quotes you’ll find the new option to “Export – PDF”
• Top right of the Calendar Page there is the option to “PDF it!”
• Top right of the Timeline Page there is the option to “PDF it!”
• Top right of all the reports you can run there is the option to “PDF it!”
• Top right of all your custom reports there is the option to “PDF it!”