Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: ianhannaford on August 08, 2008, 11:27:20 am
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Hi All,
This is my first post for quite a while as I have been very busy over the last year or so with 2 new additions to my family.
However, after many of you have contacted me and gave me much direction about what you wanted from the next version I have finally completed it. The new version has many updates including most of the features that have been requested and most importantly integration with a Window Mobile PDA. The new version saves you even more time as your work is kept up to date in real time so you dont even have to update your work when you get in - simply press a button and the PDA syncronises itself with the main program.
The software is capable of handling multiple PDA's and even works over WiFi.
We are just waiting for the website to be completed then we will be going 'live'. I expect this to be in the next week or so.
Thanks for everyone who has been testing for me and for your support over the last year.
Ian
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Looking forward to your website, sounds good. :)
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Finally someone has done it, ;D software to run on windows OS for pda's.
Do you have a link or do we just wait for your web-site??
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Finally someone has done it, ;D software to run on windows OS for pda's.
Do you have a link or do we just wait for your web-site??
Ill post a topic when we go live as we are just waiting for the website to be completed.
Ian
www.windowcleanerpro.com
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Will there be a version compatible with symbian os?
I decided for the first launch not to support any other PDA systems apart from Windows Mobile, however I have managed to get a smaller working copy on symbian and Java based OS's. I do plan to add these systems after I have gone live with the WM version.
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Look forward to seeing it Ian, well done mate.
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Look forward to seeing it Ian, well done mate.
Thanks...i really appreciate it.
It has taken almost 10 months and just over half a million lines of codes but I am very pleased with the results. The feedback from the beta testers has been overwhelmingly positive and a few of them even completed their weeks by thursday so had time to go out canvasing (or just to take time out to spend time at home with some of the nice (but intermitant) weather).
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Hi Ian,
I currently use George but one thing that was promised on it that hasn't materialised - is the ability to have work scheduled for one customer at different prices
i.e. I have many customers where we clean the conservatory every 2nd clean
Would this be possible on WCP?
Regards
Al
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Hi Ian,
I currently use George but one thing that was promised on it that hasn't materialised - is the ability to have work scheduled for one customer at different prices
i.e. I have many customers where we clean the conservatory every 2nd clean
Would this be possible on WCP?
Regards
Al
Hi Al,
With WCP you would have 1 customer with 2 tasks. Task 1 would be on an 8 week cycle for say £10 for just the windows and task 2 would be on an 8 week cycle for say £20 for windows and conservatory. WCP would then automatically schedule these correctly. Since I have never used George I don't know if this approach would also work?
Ian
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Ian,
Thanks for the speedy reply.
As far as I'm aware the only way to do this on George is to enter the customer twice, but the problem with this is if you get behind it really starts to throw things out.
Just so I understand - you can have more than 1 priced job under 1 customer entry?
If so will you be offering any free trial period - just so I can see if the program fits?
Al
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Ian,
Thanks for the speedy reply.
As far as I'm aware the only way to do this on George is to enter the customer twice, but the problem with this is if you get behind it really starts to throw things out.
Just so I understand - you can have more than 1 priced job under 1 customer entry?
If so will you be offering any free trial period - just so I can see if the program fits?
Al
Hi Al,
Yes that is correct. That way you can raise invoices and receipts for any job under a customer as well as manage the customers debt across all their jobs. The new version of WCP will come with a 45 day free trial so you can use it and see if it fits your business.
Ian
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Thanks Ian
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Ian,
Thanks for the speedy reply.
As far as I'm aware the only way to do this on George is to enter the customer twice, but the problem with this is if you get behind it really starts to throw things out.
Just so I understand - you can have more than 1 priced job under 1 customer entry?
If so will you be offering any free trial period - just so I can see if the program fits?
Al
Hi Al,
Yes that is correct. That way you can raise invoices and receipts for any job under a customer as well as manage the customers debt across all their jobs. The new version of WCP will come with a 45 day free trial so you can use it and see if it fits your business.
Ian
HI Ian,
How soon will the free trial be available?
I have an older PDA (purchased in 2002 running windows) will it be OK to run on that?
It sounds very good. I cant wait to give it a spin.
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Ian,
Thanks for the speedy reply.
As far as I'm aware the only way to do this on George is to enter the customer twice, but the problem with this is if you get behind it really starts to throw things out.
Just so I understand - you can have more than 1 priced job under 1 customer entry?
If so will you be offering any free trial period - just so I can see if the program fits?
Al
Hi Al,
Yes that is correct. That way you can raise invoices and receipts for any job under a customer as well as manage the customers debt across all their jobs. The new version of WCP will come with a 45 day free trial so you can use it and see if it fits your business.
Ian
HI Ian,
How soon will the free trial be available?
I have an older PDA (purchased in 2002 running windows) will it be OK to run on that?
It sounds very good. I cant wait to give it a spin.
I have tested on Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0 so as long as your device can run any of these it should be ok. Do you know the exact model?
(Also it may work on any microsoft enabled as long as that device can run .NET compact framework but I have not tested so cannot say for sure)
I have an older IPAQ RX1950 (ebay £52) series which runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and a brand new IPAQ 114 Classic (about £150) that runs Windows Mobile 6.0
Hope that helps
Ian
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Hi Ian,
Does this new software work well with commercial customers and contracts as the problems that i have found with other software is that they are unable to cope with customers that have several jobs which intale several frequencys.
eg: a commercial customer has four different sites with different frquency of cleans but one invoice is raised for that customer covering all cleans which could total 24 cleans.
does this make sence
rgds,
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how much is the program?
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Hi Ian,
Does this new software work well with commercial customers and contracts as the problems that i have found with other software is that they are unable to cope with customers that have several jobs which intale several frequencys.
eg: a commercial customer has four different sites with different frquency of cleans but one invoice is raised for that customer covering all cleans which could total 24 cleans.
does this make sence
rgds,
Hi,
I beleive it does cope well with this. As mentioned above a single customer can have many jobs. Then when you raise an invoice you can see all the jobs for that customer and include them on the invoice. When we launch there will be a 45 day free trial so you can use it and see if it meets your needs.
Ian
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well thats swell,
look forward to testing it.
thanks for your responce
rgds
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so how much?
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I'm a george user- one thing george doesn't do is let you enter which customers have paid in cash. I've had tax investigations and they are quite keen on this sort of thing. Can you flag payments as being in cash (or otherwise)in your programme?
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thats a very good point as i wish i could do that with george...
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IO also would like to know the above question, and how much.
Chris
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yes the how much question interests me...hence the 3 posts
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sounds good how much
;D ;D
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Ian where abouts in East Sussex are you.
Chris
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Will this work on Blackberry?
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I'm a george user- one thing george doesn't do is let you enter which customers have paid in cash. I've had tax investigations and they are quite keen on this sort of thing. Can you flag payments as being in cash (or otherwise)in your programme?
This is one area that bugs me and i will be jumping ship because of this as soon as Ians programme is available.
It is very time consuming working out what was checque, bacs , cash etc at the end of every evening, especially when we can recieve about 50 payments somedays, spread over 5 or 6 work sheets, cash through the letter box, cash handed to you when you are out and about , it can get quite confusing to total it up seperately.
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have to agree with the above and if this new version wcp will be able to do all this then i too will be jumping ship..still waiting for a price for the new version tho :) wasn't the last version around the £100 mark i may be wrong.
paul
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i use the original version which is good & also this will be a free upgrade for thaose that brought original.
i made a couple of points to ian & hopefully they are all in as the invoice numbering system totally through my paperwrkout & have been unable to use win pro,s invoice which looks very good.
Look forward to this new adaption ian.
Gary
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I'm a george user- one thing george doesn't do is let you enter which customers have paid in cash. I've had tax investigations and they are quite keen on this sort of thing. Can you flag payments as being in cash (or otherwise)in your programme?
Hi,
Yes WCP allows you to flag how the customer paid. You can also record other details like cheque numbers or receipt numbers for administration purposes.
Ian
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sounds good how much
;D ;D
We have not set a retail price yet but we will be offering a discount for the launch and also a discount to the first 100 people.
One of the big comments I had from the first version was that it only had 15 day trial period. I have changed this now so that you now have 45 days to use it and make sure that it is right for your business and the way that you work.
Ian
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Ian where abouts in East Sussex are you.
Chris
Chris,
I am based in Hailsham. If you near by your more than welcome to visit and see the software in action.
Ian
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Will this work on Blackberry?
At the moment no. I decided to launch only 1 version on Window Mobile at the moment for a few reasons. However I will have a version that will run on any device that is capable of running Java, which I beleive Blackberrys are.
Thanks
Ian
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i use the original version which is good & also this will be a free upgrade for thaose that brought original.
i made a couple of points to ian & hopefully they are all in as the invoice numbering system totally through my paperwrkout & have been unable to use win pro,s invoice which looks very good.
Look forward to this new adaption ian.
Gary
Gary,
I think I have included all the feature requests that we have talked about. The new invoicing system allows you to not only set the invoice numbers but you are able to specify a format. For exmaple you are able to have a prefix, suffix and any number of digits in between. The system will automatically increment the numbers but you are free to reset or change them as you see fit.
Thanks
Ian
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all sounds good can't wait to try it..
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is there an option were you can move customers from george to it? instead of typing each 1 in at a time.
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is there an option were you can move customers from george to it? instead of typing each 1 in at a time.
Dave,
I dont know what format George's data is in and so dont have anyway to 'import' it. If the data can be exported and is in a human readble format then we could probably write something to do the import.
Ian
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is there an option were you can move customers from george to it? instead of typing each 1 in at a time.
Dave,
I dont know what format George's data is in and so dont have anyway to 'import' it. If the data can be exported and is in a human readble format then we could probably write something to do the import.
Ian
this is a must in my eyes. i'm on george at the moment and it frustrated me that you couldn't import from an excel spreadsheet or import from any application for that matter. i like the idea of the window cleaner pro, there have been a few points raised which bugs me about george. but i won't if i have to manually put each customers details accross again as its not worth the hassle of manually putting it in. it shouldn't be an issue with any programme in this day and age!
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his is a must in my eyes. i'm on george at the moment and it frustrated me that you couldn't import from an excel spreadsheet or import from any application for that matter. i like the idea of the window cleaner pro, there have been a few points raised which bugs me about george. but i won't if i have to manually put each customers details accross again as its not worth the hassle of manually putting it in. it shouldn't be an issue with any programme in this day and age!
Same here Steve, il stick with George if there was no inport for it adding each customer would take ages plus its all the history for the jobs too.
dave
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You can export George into an excel spreadsheet... Which means it should be easy to allow WCP to import the data?
Andy
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if you can export a spreadsheet why can't you import one? ???
strange! :-\
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if you can export a spreadsheet why can't you import one? ???
strange! :-\
Like I said, technically its easy to do if the data can be exported from George in some form of spreadsheet etc...if someone can send me a sample I will take a look. My emailis ian@windowcleanerpro.com
Ian
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what you need sample of?
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Ian where abouts in East Sussex are you.
Chris
Chris,
I am based in Hailsham. If you near by your more than welcome to visit and see the software in action.
Ian
Hi Ian im in Eastbourne so up the road
Chris
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what you need sample of?
The data exported from George
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Thanks for looking at Blackberry as I do not want to carry 2 units with me if you are looking for a tester for balckberry call me on 07850281000
thanks for your time
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i am interested in this as i have a pda with windows on it
i would really like to know what you are selling it at please
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hi ian, just a thought
soon my plans are to have 2 vans out, so my question is, if i had 2 pda's could they both run seperate rounds?
or would the program have to be bought twice?
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hi ian, just a thought
soon my plans are to have 2 vans out, so my question is, if i had 2 pda's could they both run seperate rounds?
or would the program have to be bought twice?
Hi,
WCP is able to handle multiple PDA's. How the process works is as follows:
1) You create a worksheet. This can be the name of the employee or the round name (it can even be the day of the week)
2) You then add work (jobs) to the worksheet based on the schedule.
3) You connect the PDA to the main program
4) You then clickm a button to send the worksheet to the PDA, if you have more than 1 connected then you decide which PDA to send to
5) Throughout the day you maintain the work on the PDA and add any expenses
6) When you have finished you reconnect to the main program and click 'Syncornise'
7) Thats it...all your work is up to date and your schedule is adjusted accordingly.
Hope that answers your question
Ian
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so where we at with this?
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so where we at with this?
Website is being completed as we speak. I am hoping to go live either this week or early next week.
Cheers
Ian
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have you thought about a price? im interested
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have you thought about a price? im interested
The price is one of the last things to set when creating a software and are still playing with the pricing structure. There will be a discount from the RRP for the lauch price...and will also be a few bonuses offers for the first 100 or so customers.
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count me in at the right price ;)
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Did anyone else try sending ian data from george to see if he could import it into his programe?
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Did anyone else try sending ian data from george to see if he could import it into his programe?
Dave,
I have had a look at the data that you can export from George and it only has limited data. For example although you can get all the customer details and job details there is no job history available. The other issue is that the structure of George data (1 customer = 1 job) means that if you have 2 jobs for a customer then you have to input this into George as 2 customers. I have no guarantee that Customer X is the same as Customer X and so would not be able to join these records.
Although most of the data can be impoted to save some time, there would still be some manual editing involved. I have a company that I have asked to give me a price to do the data transformations manually for me. As soon as they give me a price I could offer this as a service.
Hope that makes sense
Ian
Ian
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Ian
Will your program have an export facility
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Ian
Will your program have an export facility
How do you mean export? It will have the ability to backup the data and a reports section where you can get most of the information out.
Ian
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Will we be faced with the same problem with exporting data form George to your program if a we wanted to use another program in the future
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Will we be faced with the same problem with exporting data form George to your program if a we wanted to use another program in the future
Ok, WCP wont have an inbuilt export facility but if you wanted to export your data for any reason then we would be more than happy to assist. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1) Our data is organised in a very specific data model and the program that you may want to move to would no doubt have a different data model.
2) Out data model will change over time.
3) It is far easier to export the data so that it is compatable with another program rather than a general data 'dump' and the other program having to write a utility to import.
Ian
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ian could i come and see this software working at some time mate, if so can you email me your number and ill call you after the bank holiday.
Chris
reflectionwindowcleaning@live.co.uk
also do you have your own round as i had a call from custy in your area but i havent got any work there so handed it to another company.
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if you can export a spreadsheet why can't you import one? ???
strange! :-\
Like I said, technically its easy to do if the data can be exported from George in some form of spreadsheet etc...if someone can send me a sample I will take a look. My emailis ian@windowcleanerpro.com
Ian
I believe that George can export as .csv . Would that help? OK, I know the formulas get lost in transit but it gives the raw data.
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Will it work on a Blackberry
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if you can export a spreadsheet why can't you import one? ???
strange! :-\
Like I said, technically its easy to do if the data can be exported from George in some form of spreadsheet etc...if someone can send me a sample I will take a look. My emailis ian@windowcleanerpro.com
Ian
George can only export customers, debts and expenses. I am told that there is no way that you can get the job history.
I believe that George can export as .csv . Would that help? OK, I know the formulas get lost in transit but it gives the raw data.
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ian could i come and see this software working at some time mate, if so can you email me your number and ill call you after the bank holiday.
Chris
reflectionwindowcleaning@live.co.uk
also do you have your own round as i had a call from custy in your area but i havent got any work there so handed it to another company.
Sure no problem. I have sent you an email
Ian
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Ian, if this is better than George? i will be very interested, Luke
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Will it work on a Blackberry
I am not sure as I dont know what software the blackberry runs on? Does it run Windows Mobile?
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im sure it runs its own operating system called balckberry os
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i use an iphone...i can hack it and run a linux os or windows
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i use an iphone...i can hack it and run a linux os or windows
I have an iphone but have not managed to get the Microsoft .NET framework to run on it - if you do let me know so I can test.
They are starting to bring out some Java environments and so will probably try and code a java version which will run on the iphone as well as other phones that support java. However this is a little way of yet.
Ian
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i wont be hacking it until my warranty runs out, Luke
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Ian You have mail.
Once ive seen it working ill report back on here,
Chris
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Hi there Ian
its about time!!!!!!! Ha Ha. Will this new version have an internet backup facility. My computer got a virus. I was thankful for George's backup facility. Good things come to those who wait............................. ::)
Thanks Bal
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Hi there Ian
its about time!!!!!!! Ha Ha. Will this new version have an internet backup facility. My computer got a virus. I was thankful for George's backup facility. Good things come to those who wait............................. ::)
Thanks Bal
Hi Bal,
Yes the new version will have an internet backup facility, after a month or so after going live I will also automatic backups as well.
Cheers
Ian
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Dave,
I have had a look at the data that you can export from George and it only has limited data. For example although you can get all the customer details and job details there is no job history available. The other issue is that the structure of George data (1 customer = 1 job) means that if you have 2 jobs for a customer then you have to input this into George as 2 customers. I have no guarantee that Customer X is the same as Customer X and so would not be able to join these records.
Although most of the data can be impoted to save some time, there would still be some manual editing involved. I have a company that I have asked to give me a price to do the data transformations manually for me. As soon as they give me a price I could offer this as a service.
Hope that makes sense
Ian
Ian
Hi Ian,
Yes that does make sence thats why i tried sending the backed up data as that would have all the history on etc, as the exported details from george just provides customers debts etc.
But as you say if you could get the customers over that would save hell of alot of time by typing in each customer 1 by 1. I spose people using george would have to print out there income/expenses upto date then carry on with window cleaner pro and put them both together at the end of the tax year.
Dave
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So what hand held system ideally would i need to get to run the software? I already have the pc version?
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So what hand held system ideally would i need to get to run the software? I already have the pc version?
I have tested the handheld on PDA's running Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6.0.
I bought a brand new HP IPaq Classic 114 from ebuyer for £150 but a few of the beta testers got slighly older versions from ebay for around £60. It is well worth the investment as so far the testers have fed back that they are saving around 1/2 hour to 1 hour a day just by using the PDA.
Ian
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A PDA wont save you any time at all, it is far quicker to print off a worksheet, then with a glance you can see what is due, with a pda you have to sroll through the jobs to see where you are up to.
It takes no more than 10 mins to enter the data manually when you get home.
With claims of 1 hour that is really stretching things.
My advice is dont over cook the claims, it could back fire !!!!
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So what hand held system ideally would i need to get to run the software? I already have the pc version?
I have tested the handheld on PDA's running Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6.0.
I bought a brand new HP IPaq Classic 114 from ebuyer for £150 but a few of the beta testers got slighly older versions from ebay for around £60. It is well worth the investment as so far the testers have fed back that they are saving around 1/2 hour to 1 hour a day just by using the PDA.
Ian
Thanks. When is it ready to be purchased? Is there a discount for people that have the main version?
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A PDA wont save you any time at all, it is far quicker to print off a worksheet, then with a glance you can see what is due, with a pda you have to sroll through the jobs to see where you are up to.
It takes no more than 10 mins to enter the data manually when you get home.
With claims of 1 hour that is really stretching things.
My advice is dont over cook the claims, it could back fire !!!!
This is exactly the opinion of some of the testers before they used the handheld. Since you can load your entire weeks work onto the handheld and it only takes a few clicks to maintain each job I am confident to say that it does save you time compared to using print outs. When you want to sync, you click connect and the syncronise button on the PDA.
Even if you could find and maintain each job in 30 seconds and you were doing 30 cleans a day that would be 15 minutes. Add to that any expenses that you have to add and then to add your work for the next day and you get close to your 30-40 minutes of admin a day.
As for one of the testers they have 3 people working for them and on average clean 70-80 properties a day, Instead of having to get the worksheets from each employee and inputting the data, they simply click the connect and sync button and its done.
However, for people that dont wish to purchase a PDA just yet I have made data entry much faster than in the previous version. I have created an End of Day screen, that allows you to maintain all your work from one screen rather than having to locate each job and maintain it.
The reports of 1/2 hour to an hour are from actual cleaners using the new software and PDA they are not just figures I pulled out the air. It will all depend on how many cleans you do a day, how long it takes you to maintain each job, how many expenses a day you have, how you organsie your daily work.
Ian
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So what hand held system ideally would i need to get to run the software? I already have the pc version?
I have tested the handheld on PDA's running Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6.0.
I bought a brand new HP IPaq Classic 114 from ebuyer for £150 but a few of the beta testers got slighly older versions from ebay for around £60. It is well worth the investment as so far the testers have fed back that they are saving around 1/2 hour to 1 hour a day just by using the PDA.
Ian
Thanks. When is it ready to be purchased? Is there a discount for people that have the main version?
If you have purchased the previous version then you get a free upgrade to the latest version - send me an email ian@windowcleanerpro.com for information on how to upgrade.
The new version will be ready (I hope) this week but I have a few commercial issues that I need to sort out first.
Ian
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Brilliant, thanks.
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how much ?
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hi ian how do we try the free trial thanks andy
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hi ian how do we try the free trial thanks andy
Hi Andy,
I am hoping to put the website live this week or early next so that you can download a free 45 day trial version.
Cheers
Ian
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Hi Ian, I still have version 1. Is this any good any more?
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Hi Ian, I still have version 1. Is this any good any more?
Hi Karlos,
You can still use version 1 but I am no longer supporting it. However you are free to upgrade to version 2 which has many more features.
Send me an email and Ill let you know how to do the upgrade.
Cheers
Ian
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OK cheers.
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is there an option were you can move customers from george to it? instead of typing each 1 in at a time.
Dave,
I have created an import utility from Geroge but have only tested it with 1 users data. Could you send me the export files for Customer, Debts and Expenses from your George so that I can do some more testing.
Thanks
Ian
P.S If anyone else would be willing to send me the export of the data I would really appreciate it. My email is ian@windowcleanerpro.com
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Im very supprised no one else has sent you data as they keep asking questions about exporting data from george ::)
i will sort it out in abit m8 see what i can send over.
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Ian you have mail.
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Ian you have mail.
Thanks Dave.
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All,
I launched the website last night and created a new post for any questions.
www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=61221.0
Cheers
Ian