The first of September’s releases of Propeller arrives with many new features and enhancements to the web portal and our mobile apps.

We also have several exciting features on the horizon – a preview of these is provided at the end of this post.

Here are the highlights from this release:

• Major improvements to Propeller’s stock management system, allowing web users to add and edit items from stock silos when creating a materials list or invoice.

Previously the stock management system was only driven by mobile app users and could not be modified using the web portal. We have now implemented stock usage for parts selected as “from van stock” in materials lists and invoices created in the web portal.

When adding items from your parts catalogue into a materials list or invoice, a new option is available “From van stock” – which when selected, allows the selection of which stock silo this item is coming from (and therefore decreased by that amount).

Add multiple items – From van stock example (Simon’s Van)

 The stock usage will automatically update when the quantity is updated, or the lines deleted.

• Purchase Order Type is now displayed on the Purchase Order panel on property, visit and job pages

This displays the type, creation date, due date and total along with PDF and download options

 

• Visit instructions can now be saved and selected when creating visits

This change allows users to save a list of commonly used visit instructions. They can either be made available for “All Visits”, or only for particular landlords and/or visit types

Users with the appropriate permissions can set up available visit instructions via the Company Profile –> Visit Instructions menu.

These are then available when creating a visit as a drop-down list, shown below:

• The ability to address letters to either Landlords, or Tenants has been added to the communications section for bulk letter creation

 

• Many ‘under the hood’ improvements and additions have been made in preparation for upcoming features, previewed below.

 

Feature Preview:

This release also prepares the system for some major new features for Propeller which we are excited to share with our customers.

Please note, the below features are still being finalised for the next release and will require Engineers to update their mobile apps when available.

 

• Further Updates to the visit creation page

From the ‘Create New Visit’ page, users will soon be able to:

• Create a new job or assign the visit to an existing job.
• Create visits with an ‘Unconfirmed’ status.
• Pre-assign a charge (e.g. SOR code) to the visit.

 

• General Appliances are being added to Propeller.

This highly requested feature will allow users to create and save “General Appliances” in the web portal and mobile apps for any activity type.

Users will be able to create their own types, makes and models. For example, a type of “Security Alarm” could be created, with a make and model of “Yale” and model of “SR-320”.

These appliances can have service intervals, service dates and MOT Style servicing applied, and will work similarly to how Gas appliances would be managed.

• CD 12 Oil Installation Safety Check will become available for users under the oil activities “Safety Check” or “Service”.
• Commercial Gas across all platforms (iOS and Android) is undergoing an overhaul to address some highlighted bugs in this area
• Expiry dates are being added as an optional field to the Smoke/CO report

 

And finally, we are adding a new finance integration option to Propeller’s finance system. Users will be able to use Sage 50 Cloud with the system, with the ability to synchronize Invoices, Payments and Purchase Orders between the systems.

 

Feedback:

We pride ourselves with our development being responsive to customer reported issues and suggestions with no suggestions or issue too small for us to investigate for a future release.

 

If you have any suggestions to improve Propeller, whether this for the web portal or for one of the apps – please let us know via the below options:

 

For feedback: website-feedback@teampropeller.co.uk

For support: support@teampropeller.co.uk or call us on 0333 207 0037