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If you use ServiceGuru add-ons, then you’ll be well aware by now that they will be going away this month.
According to the latest update from ServiceM8, the provision of their add-ons and services will be ending on 1 February 2025.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been inundated with requests for workarounds and solutions to problems that the removal of these add-ons, so I’ve pulled together a list of all of the other ones that are affected and possible workarounds. You’ll be pleased to know that for a lot of the add-ons, they are already native ways of doing these things within ServiceM8.
The Implications
Firstly, I think it’s important that you know the implications.
You’re likely to lose access to all of the information that you’ve put into any of these add-ons. That means the contents of your notepad will disappear. Any PO is that you’ve issued using service queries, PO generator will no longer be accessible. Any reminders that you’ve set up for servicing will stop working.. etc
It’s absolutely vital that you accept the worst-case scenario and do the best you can to gather any data that you need moving forward.
You won’t be able to use any of these add-ons going forward, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t solutions that can’t be used instead.
Next,
Follow these steps:
1. Document
I would recommend that you take note of all of the ServiceGuru add-ons that you’re currently using.
ServiceM8 will have added this list to your homepage when you login to servicem8.com, so go there first.
2. Plan
Review and decide on the information that you absolutely cannot lose for each one. ServiceGuru’s servers are going away which means that everything you’ve stored will also be lost. Prioritise copying or saving that information elsewhere.
3. Choose
Use this as an opportunity to evaluate what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
Just because you’ve become reliant on an add-on doesn’t mean that that’s the best way of achieving that goal. Do you need to continue as you were, or can you take an easier / simpler / fresh approach? Or even stop doing that thing entirely?
4. Setup
Pick the simplest way of doing what you need to do and get it set up and tested as quickly as possible. The faster, you do this, the less disruption to your business.
I’m a big believer in keeping every process as simple as possible. Less complexity means it’s easier to setup, easier to delegate, easier to train new staff and less linkages and to keep checking and fixing when they break.
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What does it do?
Offer options within your quotes to encourage your customers to opt for premium materials or additional services. A customer opens a quote, selects their preferred option, and accepts the quote.
My suggested workaround:
ServiceM8 Proposals! ServiceM8’s built in Proposals feature was introduced in 2023 and does everything the Advanced Quoting Add-on does and more.
Plan needed: Growing or higher
Find out more:
How to create and send ServiceM8 Proposals
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What does it do?
Decide who is able to see attachments on a job card over and above your standard security roles.
My suggested workaround:
Review your staff roles and security settings to ensure that you have the most appropriate ones set for each member of staff. Individual staff can be restricted to keep pricing information within the billing tab so that it stays private.
Alternatively, you could keep private information in a completely separate place – consider using google docs, google sheets or notion – you can then link to the information from the job diary and control the access with the settings in the other software.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Notion – A new tool that blends your everyday work apps into one. It’s the all-in-one workspace for you and your team.
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What does it do?
Customers can to book jobs or services themselves • Choose what dates and times you wish to offer • Booking links can be sent by email or SMS • Stripe integrated for seamless payments • View booking reports for created links.
My suggested workaround:
ServiceM8 have been offering their ‘services and online booking pages’ add-on for years! It’s available on every single ServiceM8 plan and can do everything the ServiceGuru Booking Links add-on does – from receiving enquiries, allowing customers to make bookings themselves, taking deposits or full payment, generating their own quotes for the services you offer. You can create booking pages that ask any and all questions, getting the customer to give you whatever information you need before you go to their job.
You can also connect ServiceM8 online booking with your Google Analytics (web) tracking account so that you can see how the booking pages are being used.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about the Services & Online Booking add-on here.
View my range of ready-made services here – COMING SOON!
I can also custom build your ServiceGuru booking links as online booking pages for you – done for a number of companies already – just contact me for this service.
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What does it do?
Produce and download a statement of outstanding invoices to supply to your customer, or for your records, with only a few clicks.
My suggested workaround:
ServiceM8’s own Live Statements automation is part of the Automation add-on – with a couple of clicks to set up and then it just works on autopilot!
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
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What does it do?
Import a big list of work requests via CSV, sort through those requests in ServiceM8 and covert the ones that needs actioning into jobs.
My suggested workaround:
I would firstly question why you need this.
If you’ve just set up a new ServiceM8 account, then you’ll have the option to import existing and historical work via ServiceM8. If you’ve been using ServiceM8 for a while, then you need to make sure that you can deal with incoming work orders as and when and as quickly as possible.
You can optimise this process with the way that you handle enquiries, with options ranging from automatically forwarding all company emails to your ServiceM8 Inbox, providing clients with your ServiceM8 inbox email to send their work orders directly into from their own systems. Using the ServiceM8 inbox is a powerful approach as you can more easily delegate, optimise the way that work requests are turned into jobs and still choose whether you want to even do each job requested.
Plan needed: Growing or higher
Find out more:
More information on the ServiceM8 Inbox can be found over here.
Ask me for more detail about how I use the ServiceM8 inbox to simplify the processing of incoming work requests.
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What does it do?
Customise your calendar view with job information that is relevant to you, and the staff schedules you would like to see. Highlight jobs based on the customer name, job category, custom field, or another relevant job field.
My suggested workaround:
The ServiceM8 calendar views can potentially do more than you realise! Did you know that you can choose between calendar view and staff schedules view in ServiceM8? Each one gives you a different set of information. Calendar: Staff by Colour; Region, Day, Week, 2 Week and Month view Staff Schedules: Staff, Job Status, Job Category, Day view (the rest of the view types are unusable)
Plus, customising your ServiceM8 Filters (to show a custom list of jobs on the right hand side) then changes what’s shown on the list on the right hand side as well as the dispatch map, to help you with route and day planning)
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Customise your job lists with job filters
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What does it do?
Gives your customers access to the information they need on a regular basis and from a single client portal.
My suggested workaround:
In my opinion, this was one of the better, more useful ServiceGuru add-ons.
I have a few suggestions for how you could replace it –
Firstly, you could in the short – medium term, just send your customers emails and let them worry about file management… but I realise this may signal to your customers a drop in service, so continue reading for more options…
Explore the ServiceM8 Live Statements feature, because if you were only adding invoices to their portal, then Live Statements is a great alternative, showing them the total outstanding invoice amount due, all of the invoices that make up that amount (viewable separately) and the statements webpage can be send out automatically to chosen clients once a week, once every fortnight or once a month.
You could explore dropbox or google drive as an intermediation option. If you do indeed need something more advanced, try offering your clients a client portal by working with software you already have.
– Using wordpress for your website? A plugin called Memberpress is perfect for this kind of use case and wpbeginner.com have put together a complete set of instructions on how to build this on your wordpress site.
You could look into other ready-made portal options just as co-pilot.
Plus, in my hunting, I’ve found that Zapier have recently developed a complete client portal solution, with free, ready-made template – https://zapier.com/templates/client-portal
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Check out Live Statements here – https://support.servicem8.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002067256-How-to-send-Live-Invoice-Statements-to-clients
Check out the article on setting a portal up with wordpress here – complete set of instructions on how to build this on your wordpress site – https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-a-client-portal-in-wordpress/
Explore the Zapier client portal solution, with free, ready-made template – https://zapier.com/templates/client-portal
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What does it do?
Create discounts on a percentage basis and apply those any job taking away the long manual process of what was by simply selecting the discount you would like to apply and clicking save
My suggested workaround:
So although you can offer and create discounts in ServiceM8 (using a -1 in the item quantity field) there’s unfortunately no easy way to apply a percentage discount.
As a workaround, I’ve created a form that can be used to calculate common discounts, so that within a couple of clicks, you know the amount you need to take off the job amount.
Plan needed: Growing or higher
Find out more:
How to offer discounts to your customers with ServiceM8
Check out my discount calculator here – COMING SOON!
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What does it do?
Automatically attach and email relevant documents as soon as the associated client, badge, material or job category has been applied to a job card.
My suggested workaround:
ServiceM8 doesn’t have anything exactly the same as this, but did you know that you can attach relevant documents to your email templates?
This means that you can do things like –
– automatically attach your company brochure to your quote or introductory email
– automatically attach your terms and conditions document to your quote or invoice email – and more!
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about automatically attaching documents to your emails here.
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What does it do?
Automatically email completed forms, ensuring important forms are never forgotten to be sent. Save time as the form is instantly sent to its recipient upon completion.
My suggested workaround:
Though you can use Zapier (or Make) to automatically send an email on job completion, you can’t attach the form.
I recommend that you set up an email template to go with the form(s) and teach the team how to send the email after they’ve completed and reviewed – it’s just a couple of taps.
The staff member completes the form, and the finished PDF shows on the app. The email button is on the same screen. The staff member just taps that, picks the right email template and clicks send.
No reliance on any additional software, no additional cost, and the job diary is updated with that email for everyone to see.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
How to create an email template
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What does it do?
Request pictures, documents or any other information you may require from your customers directly through the job card with the ServiceGuru Information Request addon.
My suggested workaround:
This is perfectly possible using the existing ServiceM8 ‘services and online booking’ add-on.
Use the add-on to create an online booking page, but make it so that the customer can only send an enquiry (no booking or payment requested). Add the link to this page added to your emails / email templates – you can either respond to initial enquiries with this link and when the customer fills it out, you can create a new job off the back of that booking page completion, or, if you’ve created a job for the work already, send the page link and then when the page is completed and comes back into the inbox, you can just attach it to the existing job.
Simples!
For help doing this, contact me – we can use my Pay-As-You-Go support options to build what you need together, or just send me the list of information you need from the customer and I’ll build the page for you 🙂
Plan needed:
Find out more: Any
Find details of services and online booking here.
Here are my 1:1 support and training options
Finally, want to have a chat about how this could work for you? Set up a free 15 minute discovery call with me
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What does it do?
Make your more expensive products and services, more accessible to more of your clients by allowing them to spread the costs making it easier for customers to pay for your products and/or services by spreading the cost of any job into small manageable instalments.
My suggested workaround:
ServiceM8 Pay now allows for taking deposits and you can use partial invoicing to split the rest of the amount into staged payments.
However, this is manual – you can manage remember buy setting up reminders (as checklist items) with the dates of your proposed payment schedule.
Alternatively, you could take a look at gocardless – set the customer up on a direct debit and have the payments come directly out of their bank account until the amount is paid in full. Requires some initial setup, but provides peace of mind and a lot less failed payments than if you try to take recurring payments via credt and debit cards.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Taking deposits with ServiceM8 Pay
How to take staged payments with Partial Invoicing
Setting up direct debits with GoCardless
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What does it do?
Helps you produce multiple job cards with the same details.
My suggested workaround:
My primary suggestion would be to ensure that you’re using job templates, services or both!
If you offer similar packages and services day-in-day out, then job templates will save you time by not having to re-type job descriptions, add badges, or add pricing over and over again.
If the problem you’re solving is moving notes and photos over to another job, then you can either:
or
Plus, don’t forget that you can always save notes, add photos and files to the client’s diary, so that any job for that client automatically includes those notes and files.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about what you can do with job templates here – (don’t worry if you’re not a plumbing company – you’ll get the gist of what you can do and I’m sure you’ll think up ways to apply the principles to your own business.)
Read up on how to switch between related jobs quickly and easily.
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What does it do?
Set up the specific set of steps your team needs to carry out on site.
My suggested workaround:
Use the new and improved Checklists feature in conjunction with Job Templates!
If you have a set of steps that need to happen on every job, head on over to your job templates and add these as checklists to every job template.
To cover the situations where you’re not sure what the job will end up being, have a ‘general’ job template. You can have multiple checklists on a job since September 2024’s updates (and you can name them too) so you have a checklist for quoting processes, one for doing the work, one for specific members of staff, one for close down, one for managing larger projects, one for how to deal with the customer – think about you you’d like your staff to do on every job and every type of job and go set those up 🙂
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Read about the new and improved Checklists feature here.
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What does it do?
This add-on will allow you to download your entire materials list, make the alterations in an easy to use format and upload all the alterations in one go
My suggested workaround:
This has always been possible with ServiceM8 natively without the need for an additional add-on – Just use the export items button first and the materials bulk import to import them when you’re ready.
Don’t use the sample CSV as you’ll only be given a fraction of the column headings (fields) available. As with any materials upload, you’ll need to watch out for syncing with your accounting package – the way you update items will affect your accounting package and you may find that you get issues with items reappearing or not being updated the way you expect.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about the materials bulk import here
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What does it do?
Navigation Links allows you to add more than one destination to a job card. The user can then navigate to the next stop at the click of a button direct from within the job card.
My suggested workaround:
I wouldn’t recommend that you do this, even if it were possible directly within ServiceM8 – from a workflow and invoicing standpoint, you’re better off keeping multiple locations as different sites on different jobs.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about client sites for managing Head Office’s that have more than one site.
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What does it do?
The Notepad add-on allows you to write extensive notes in one place directly within a job card without adding clutter in the job diary.
My suggested workaround:
The customers I have who love this appreciate the formatting abilities, the ability to get straight to it from the action bar and the privacy. As I see it, you have a few options –
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
How to work with ServiceM8 job diary notes.
How to filter the job diary for just notes.
Learn more and sign up for a trial of Notion
Learn more about ServiceM8 forms
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What does it do?
Record, store, report, print, email, and send PAT test records.
My suggested workaround:
You can achieve this with a simple form. I offer PAT testing ServiceM8 forms with 5 and 30 appliances and for those sites that have more than 30 appliances, just create as many PAT reports as you need on that job.
Plan needed: Growing or higher
Find out more:
You can buy ServiceM8 PAT forms directly from me here.
Note that if you don’t want to make any edits to the form yourself, you can use ServiceM8 forms on any plan buy purchasing ready-made forms through the ServiceM8 Form Store directly.
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What does it do?
This addon allows you to track costs and expenses that you have incurred on a job, and compare this to the revenue received to indicate whether this transforms into a net profit or loss.
My suggested workaround:
You can do this directly within ServiceM8, no workarounds needed.
Switch on the Markup Billing and Job Costing add-ons and you can see the profitability of every job, both as you quote and as you invoice. It takes into account the time spent or labour costs on the job as well as the markup you want to achieve.
Markup Billing is perfect for picking up parts on the fly – the calculations work both ways – you can pop in the cost and the markup you want to achieve and it’ll tell you the price to your customer, or if you’ve already quoted you can come back and pop in the price you actually paid for your part and it’ll tell you the markup you achieved. For profit and loss at a business level, head on over to your Accounting Package.
Plan needed: Premium
Find out more:
If you want more profit, you’re going to want to be on the ServiceM8 Premium Plan
Markup Billing information is here.
Job Costing information is here.
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What does it do?
Book jobs in a similar location based on which employees are working within proximity to the job within a selected date range
My suggested workaround:
The simplest way i’ve found to see where any given member of staff is during the week is to click on their icon – their staff member icon on the dispatch board is a button. This then puts their whereabouts into the list of jobs on the right hand side of the dispatch board and then that list can be seen on the dispatch map (note the dispatch map will show whatever selection of jobs you can show in the list on the right hand side.) It’s one of the few ways of seeing a combination of just one staff member’s jobs, with the full address visible, collected by the day they’re visiting.
The other way of choosing who to send where more easily is to use the Schedule button on the job card. This will show you how each job will fit into a staff member’s diary, taking into account job duration and travel time. Finally, let the customer book their own job?! I know, sounds like a horrible idea, but that’s also an option!
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
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What does it do?
Create and send purchase orders directly from the ServiceM8 job card.
My suggested workaround:
This appears to be one of the most used ServiceGuru add-ons I’ve come across.
I have a suggestion and I’ve also spoken to ServiceM8 support team to see what they recommend.
The main requirement of a PO system is to be able to order a selection of parts from different suppliers. You want to keep a record of this on the job card so that everyone can see and track what’s been ordered. If all of the parts were coming from one place, you could just use an amended work order template and email that as the parts request, but a problem arises when parts are coming from different suppliers, given that this method doesn’t allow for picking and choosing the items you want to request.
Saying that, you could remove all the parts from the billing section that you don’t want to order from supplier A, use the ServiceM8 Print button and save the ‘PO’ work order template as a PDF. You could then drag that PDF back onto the job card and send that to the supplier with a ‘PO’ email template. You would then put the items you’d taken off back into the billing section again and repeat for supplier B.
This wouldn’t have the supplier details on it, but you could have an email template with all of the supplier details on to remove the ones you don’t need. If you wanted the supplier info on the PO itself then you could build a ServiceM8 form that contains the supplier info added via a question and pulls in the items table direct from the billing tab. The trouble with this is that it’s super fiddly.
I have considered suggesting you create a different version or either your Quote or Invoice templates, because the process of generating one of these would trigger ServiceM8 to save a snapshot of the job billing section and you would then be able to restore the original version and then do the rinse and repeat for supplier B much more quickly and easily.. but the trouble with this is that if you’re using the quote or invoice follow up automations, then ServiceM8 will consider these as sent and will follow up with your supplier, instead of your customer 😟
The ServiceM8 support team suggestion is a simple one – create the Purchase Orders in your accounting package, as all decent accounting packages should have a ready-made solution for this.
It makes sense – this is where you deal with your financials and your accounting package has both the list of suppliers and the lists of items. You can forward the PO into the ServiceM8 Inbox to attach it to the job and keep everything together.
I would recommend that you pick the simplest solution for you – don’t feel the need to go down a rabbit warren of complicated solutions or custom built apps because it’s likely not worth it. Plus, consider how many of your suppliers actually need / want a PO – if they don’t ask for one, don’t feel the need to provide one.. often a simple emailed list of ‘this is what we need’ with a trade account contract to pay at the end of the following month is good enough.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Purchase order functionality offered by the main accounting packages:
UK Xero UK – https://central.xero.com/s/article/Create-purchase-orders-UK
Purchase order functionality offered by QuickBooks UK
AU Xero AU: https://central.xero.com/s/article/Create-purchase-orders-AU
QuickBooks Online AUS: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-au/help-article/purchase-orders/create-send-purchase-orders-quickbooks-online/L2mVpjOoq_AU_en_AU
MYOB: https://www.myob.com/au/support/myob-business/purchases/purchase-orders
If you want a copy of the purchase order in ServiceM8, you could send (cc) it to your ServiceM8 Inbox email address, then attach it to the job.
Or, download the purchase order, then upload it (you can drag and drop files) to your job diary.
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What does it do?
This add-on allows you to build quotes in seconds by creating templates of descriptions and sets of materials
My suggested workaround:
This is basically just a ‘repackaging’ of the native ServiceM8 Job Templates add-on. Job templates allow you to do exactly this – quickly recreate common jobs you offer with a template, with the ability to template job descriptions, one or multiple checklists, materials & pricing and badges (and therefore automations)
Job templates also show your custom fields, so you can template custom field entries too!
The only downside here is that you can only apply job templates when you first create a new job. If you want to apply templates after you’ve created a job, then take a look at the ServiceM8 Services & Online Booking add-on – it’s probably a lot more powerful than you realise!
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about job templates.
See my article on the 7 job templates every plumbing and heating business should set up.
Find out more about custom fields and what you can do with them
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What does it do?
Set reminders for either yourself or a member of staff notifying them with a pop-up message on their phone and the ServiceM8 dispatch board when the reminder is due.
My suggested workaround:
ServiceM8 13, launched in September 2024, introduced some major improvements to Checklists and Tasks.
It’s easier than ever to create a Checklist — you can assign Checklist tasks to staff members, attach specific Forms & Assets, set a reminder for a task, complete checklists online, create multiple checklists, and drag-and-drop to reorder. More information on ServiceM8 Checklists here.
You can also set different types of reminders and you don’t have to tie the reminder to a specific member of staff – if you don’t add a member of staff, then the reminder will go to the person who checks into that job. This functionality offers exactly what the ServiceGuru reminders app offered – staff are notified on the app, can see a list of their tasks and create their own reminders.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
More information on ServiceM8 Checklists and Reminders here.
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What does it do?
Use the data stored in your system to create insightful reports and key performance indicators, giving you instant access to detailed analytics.
My suggested workaround:
A few years ago, ServiceM8 launched their custom reports add-on, which does give a little more flexibility, but doesn’t provide answers to some of your key business questions.
They also improved their reporting, showing the jobs that make up the numbers when you click on linked numbers.
My preferred way of analysing my ServiceM8 business data is to dump everything into excel with the ServiceM8 Advanced Reporting Pack add-on – you’d be surprised what you can learn from the information that’s made available to you.
If you have zero excel skills, then I would recommend you learn a little. Focus on 2 skills – how to use the sort and filter function and how to do pivot tables. These 2 skills will be incredibly useful for you to know and this knowledge can be applied throughout your business.
If you have greater needs that you can fulfil with the ServiceM8 advanced reporting pack and the financial information and reporting available within your accounting package, then explore Wink Reporting. It’s a powerful tool that can gather data from a wide variety of sources and pull them all into one place for you. You can create (or pay someone else to create) custom reports and then have those reports emailed daily / weekly / monthly to your team.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
ServiceM8 Reporting and Help information Improvements.
Advanced Reporting Pack add-on
Custom Reports add-on – Custom Reports is a feature of the Advanced Reporting Pack add-on – so switch that on and then take a look here.
How to filter in Excel (video)
How to create Pivot tables in Excel (video)
(if you want a tutorial on this, let me know, I can do a demo of what you can do with ServiceM8 data)
Wink Reports – find out more, sign up for a free account and book a free discovery call here.
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What does it do?
Send physical mail to your ServiceM8 customers.
My suggested workaround:
I’ve had a look and can’t find another UK postal online service that does this.
Consider another software service and connect to ServiceM8 with Zapier or Make.
One option is to simply have a printer on your van(s) – that way you can print and provide the paper invoice to the customer there and then. You’ll save on effort, followup and stamps + envelopes.
Another thing you can do to make the process of posting forms, quotes or invoices easily to a customer is to create a variation of your quote, work order or invoice template as a letterhead to go with the invoice – this letter uses information that’s already available to you on the job card, so with a couple of clicks you can produce and print the letter and then the invoice to easily send.
You could even go one step further and create a document template version that allows you to print an address label too.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Here are simple instructions on how to build your own quote and invoice (and work order) templates.
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What does it do?
Set up incentives for staff members based on a task you’d like them to carry out or services and products you’d like them to promote. The incentive can take the form of a fixed value, a percentage of a sale or points, all of which can be viewed on a report by date and staff member.
My suggested workaround:
I have to say that I’m always a little wary of over-incentivising because it can encourage corner-cutting or poor behaviour that doesn’t benefit the customer. This can damage your business long-term. That being said, us humans often respond well to some carefully chosen carrots 😉
I couldn’t find an app or other software that offered this kind of feature, but you could look to do this based on sales reports. Customise your labour items (in your materials and Services list) such that each member of staff has their own labour item. You could then run a report every week or every month, looking at how much labour that member of staff has sold (completed) and reward them accordingly.
You could also run reports based on which staff member completed the job and see what upsells and cross-sells they offered and got agreement for while they were there in order to incentivise that way.
Finally, you could just look at simple jobs or revenue reporting based on staff member from the standard reports that ServiceM8 provides for staff completion amount. However, how much work they complete and get through is broadly decided by who books the work in.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about generating ServiceM8 reports.
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What does it do?
Purchase stock and manage its allocation from within the app. Create a purchase order, send it to the supplier, allocate stock to vans, and see when stock is received.
My suggested workaround:
ServiceM8 has basic stock control, but nothing quite the same as this add-on.
To add multiple locations you could consider reorganising your materials and services list so that you have a item code that’s tied to a specific location for that part.
You could look to use an external stock control system that exists already, or could be linked with ServiceM8 such as xero, or unleashed.
For years, I used an app called Stock Control Inventory to do stock takes at our warehouse unit, so give that a look.
Alternatively, I’ve set up weekly automated pick list emails for companies using wink reports – they take the materials added to completed jobs for each engineer and email a report every week as a way to restock that engineer’s van.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
ServiceM8 stock control – Including how to view stock levels.
Search for The Stock Control Inventory app on the apple app store
Wink Reports – set up a free trial and get a free discovery call with them by using my link.
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What does it do?
Schedule multiple staff to jobs in one click.
My suggested workaround:
Again, this is something else that’s been possible for years – you can add more than one staff member to a job now as part of the basic features of scheduling jobs 🙂
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
How to schedule multiple staff members to a job.
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What does it do?
Manage staff time and expenses in one central location. Effectively record timesheets, and output these in a report that displays labour and the rate of pay as well as expenses this staff member has incurred
My suggested workaround:
You have a choice here. ServiceM8 offer basic timesheets and activity reporting, plus, if you use Xero, you should explore their timesheet option.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about ServiceM8 timesheet reporting
Find out more about xero timesheets here
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What does it do?
Automate your system based on a trigger action. Works for sending out renewal notices, following up quotes through multiple stages, notifying clients of actions taken, and more
My suggested workaround:
This has been possible in ServiceM8 for years!
The automations add-on with badges achieves all of your common reminders and follow-up needs easily.
Use a combination of the badges, automations, recurring jobs, job templates, forms and you have a complete reminder system for boiler services and any other appliance service or annual check. I have a done-for-you service available for just this situation.
Perhaps you want a job queue to trigger an automated email and you move work through your pipeline – just connect ServiceM8 with Zapier and this is possible (I do this for one of my queues), you could do this for all of your queues, or I can set it up for you 🙂
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Check out my ServiceM8 Complete Reminder System setup service.
Book a Support / Training session with me if you’d like to set up more automation within your account.
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What does it do?
Store and track information on all your vehicles, from servicing, to inspections and repairs, as well as equipment associated with particular vehicles.
My suggested workaround:
I’ve found through personal experience that the best way to track any and all van fleet information is to use a job card for each of your vans. You can also use ServiceM8 forms (ready made and any custom ones you need) to track any and all specific van information.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
More information and how track van information using job cards here.
View my van forms including a vehicle walk around checklist here.
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What does it do?
Provides a way to find out where your staff are and what jobs they’re checked into. Use our add-on to see when your staff check into a job and when they check out in real time. Has a member of your team forgotten to check out? Simply click on the toggle to check them out and say goodbye to recorded time overrun.
My suggested workaround:
This add-on is completely unnessary following ServiceM8 updates over the years – to see this information, log into ServiceM8 and go to stafff schedules on the dispatch board and you’ll be shown different icons to show whether a staff member is checked into and job. You can locate staff with the ‘locate’ feature.
Plan needed: Any
Find out more:
Find out more about ‘staff status’ here
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You’ll see that I’ve not been able to suggest workarounds with a full match in functionality some of the time.
I’ll continue to work on different solutions, and will update this article as I find out more. Check back.
I’m here to help – if you want to discuss, explore or setup any of the solutions I’ve recommended above, then contact me or book in a support / training session.
Hi, I’m Hazel. I’m a Business Systems Specialist + ServiceM8 Gold Partner.
I can help you craft a business that’s easy and efficient to run.
I ran a plumbing and heating company for 10 years and in 2016 became a ServiceM8 Partner.
I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners just like you to implement easier and more efficient ways of running their business.
My mission is simple: to inspire you and help you develop an efficient and profitable business that gives you the time to do more of what you love.