I have not read this full thread to know if I'm repeating what others have
said but here is my take.
Probably the best advise I can give anyone on anything is to take and record
excellent documentation on everything from day one, befor it skyrockets out
of hand.
First, it is the number one thing that will help your Company valuation if
ever audited or questioned.
But secondly, we did NOT do that as I advise, and it is the number one cause
for inefficiencies, paying for the same thing multiple times, and preventing
efficient outsourcing of support. When everyone is strapped then, its hard
to keep documentation organized and recorded. Its the first thing that gets
pushed aside, and was a reality for our small staff.
The challenge is rarely initially documenting or taking notes on teh
install. The problem is that the notes rarely make it back to be recorded in
an organized system where they can be found again at a later date. The
challenge is someone cant be in two places at once, meaning the custoemr
site and the office where the permanent record is. And an office helper is
not always available when a field tech needs them, and nobody wants to loose
immediate productivity to wait around for someone else. Its tough having
daily documentation audits of techs' work newly completed, but it something
that needs to occur.
Some tips....
1) Make all techs have cell pohones with Cameras, and must be required to
take a snap shot of.....
1. Close up of radio isntall (to see its water proofed, what type of
cable passthru grommet).
2. Not close up of antenna, so can see most of the roof where antenna is
mounted, to get a feel for the dynamics of antenna placement and why.
3. A picture looking towards the tower from the perspective of the
antenna. (camera next to antenna).
4. Picture of antenna and house from the ground
We now have techs Email these photos directly from their cell phones, so an
office suppervisor can verify that teh tech actualy took the pictures (and
correctly) before they leave the job. (You'd be surprise how many techs
forget to take a picture of their isntal, when they know they only isntalled
4 of the 8 cinder blocks they were supposed to carry up to a penthouse roof,
to hold down an FRM, after they got tired. The quality does not have to be
high, so cell phone picture is jsut fine. It guarantees it gets recorded.
When photos are in a supervisors Email, its always possible to complete or
recompile the documentation at a later time.
2) Always DATE any notes. When someone takes notes on paper scaps or on
their laptop notepad, they rarely make it back to a central system in a
reasonable time. Its common to have a tech have to go back out to teh same
site and make a change in that interum period. Dating notes, prevents
overwriting good updated info with outdated old info. Dates also help verify
what job the notes are for, if there is a record where a tech went by dates.
Again aids in recreating records after the fact, when things might get
blurring on what was accurate.
The hard part is where to document, that everyone can access, everyone can
update, and everyone can find, that is approrpaite for different type of
media docs. It doesnt really matter what that method is as long as it is
defined as the standard company wide, and if there are multipel palces to
document that the pecking order to check is clearly defined on what
overrides, incase two locations get conflicting info.
We document now by Text files and folders that are properly names.
But naming conventions also need to be defined. For example, do you name a
folder for a Multi-tenant bulding as the first customer's name, or the
building address?
What will you most likely remember when you need to next check such
documentation? Its not only important the speed to document, but also the
speed to lookup data.
We used to use a WIKI to record data, but it was to slow to enter into, so
it never got done. We used to use a contact manager notes section and a few
optional defined catagories, but that also was not formated well enough for
quick view. We started out making a paper site survey form (and still use
in some cases) with all the pre-defined fields a tech needed to remember. It
was easy to file the paper form after the fact. But its always way to timely
to check one notebook of paper files, when data is actually needed. What
we've done most recently is we use note pad and folders properly named on
the server, and it has worked the best for us.
The tech has to turn on his field laptop at some point to test the isntall.
At that time he creates a notepad document on his laptop recording
everything he can think of that needed documented. Then when he gets in the
office he remembers to copy to the server folders. The supervisor remembers
to copy the photos sent from teh cell phone previously. If the tech forgets
to update the notepad files, they are still on his laptop for later upload,
where he wont forget where they were written. The reason for this is that
the Laptop always follws where the tech is located, whether in the office or
field, and easy to update at the time that is convenient.
I'm sure others have found more sufisticated ways, expecially if they have
larger staffs, where accountabilty is required, and can justify having an
office person that is always avaliable to assist the field reps.
We are in the process of writing a SQL database to record this information,
that will fully meet our need, that is a work in progress and probably will
be for a while, but that we eventually hope to use as a standard
documentation method. Ultimately it will be best to have it in a database,
because data is recovered (searched) based on so many different types of
ways, so hard to organize things in text files to meet all needs.
One thing is that we document customer contact, location, and service plan
data seperately from installation data. The needs for installation data
documentation is vastly different, and we really dont want techs involved in
the final documents that document customer order data like pricing and sales
info.
The other thing we learned was that cross referencing multiple documentation
sources can be hard if a common standardized method to match up client data
info was not pre-defined. For example, lets say I titled a customer in the
provisionign system as JoeBloe_Gbrug but then in accouting system I called
customer BlowJoe. It becomes very difficult to find the matching customer
profiles between the two systems, atleast in an automated method.
Several things should be defined and syncronized between the two or more
documentation systems....
1) Should it all be.... First name - last name or last name first name?
2) If further differenciating a name, such as adding a city or address to
the name, what comes first? For example, if we decided to track by last name
first, a name might be "Blow_joe-gburg". That way if we automated an audit
routine, we could search for the "_" to determine when a last name name
ended and a search for "-" when subdetail was starting in the name. Where
as the Accounting system might only have "bloe, joe" as an account name.
But with the "_" and order, automation is still easy and accurate. its also
possible to jsut have a second field like a unique account number that
always matched to maintain data consistency. But, when needing to act fast,
looking at account numbers is not always meaningful, as well as incumbersome
to accurately type, when entering notepad file names.
Make a documentation policy, read it though with your techs togeather
outloud so they cant ever say they dont know what it is, and then remind
everyone dailly to stay on top of it, until it sticks.
But the one thing that doesn't work is just relying on the tech to follow
the proceedure on their own to gather it. Once you learn it was not
recorded, its to late. Once a tech leaves a site, if they didn't record the
data, it can be costly to get the data after the fact. UNLESS a process or
method existed in advance to assist with that problem.
The fundamental problem that exists is that Techs dont suffer financially if
documentation is not taken. They get paid hourly whether its a drive back to
verify something, or an optimally productive service call. Instead tech's
get greater job security not documenting because they have all the details
inside their head, and if they get fired, their familiarity with the field
environment leaves with them. Employment laws are in their favor, where they
must get paid for their time regardless of the quality of the work, as it is
the employer's responsibilty to manage and set up frocesses for them. This
is a battle to overcome. It can be overcome only three ways... Constant
real time management to verify and remind that it gets done. Overstaffing,
so someone else can take the techs day's 9am scheduled work, if the tech has
to be sent home to create documentation. (for example requirement that cant
start days work until last day's work complete and documentation part of the
process to define complete). Or three create incentive plans such as where
techs get rewarded for overall higher productivity of the company, whether
on a weekly monthly or yearly basis.
Although, I think monthly basis is best.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
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