[Paul Coleman]

hi ian
for me if there was an opion for me to set the frequency of the job then it would be great

thanx

gary

This is one of the reasons I prefer to use a an ordinary database (and spreadsheet).  I have a field called interval.  The number (in days) I put in there is added to the date of the previous clean [lastvisit+interval] and the date of the next clean appears in another field called nextvisit.  When I need a list of work due, I ask for a report to display all work where  =NOW()-nextvisit>=0.  The final number can be altered if I need to see several days ahead or if I am running late.  I'm not knocking the Window cleaner pro product or George but if you spend some time (and errors) setting  these things up yourself, you can usually have more flexibility.  When a product is already off the shelf, there is a tendency to be dependent on what features the programmer includes.  However, where a programmer follows the feedback closely and adapts the program (such as W/C Pro or George) this need not be too much of a problem.

Morning The Shiner,

This is exactly what we intend to do  A program is only worth having if it fits the needs of the business model its trying to support. We have made our best guess at what features are to be included and as you have suggested the software will grow organically based on the feedback from customers.

I am already working on Gary's feedback and adding the ability to define the frequency as a multiple of the round frequency whilst still trying to maintain the integrity of the scheduling module.

Thanks for your feedback

Ian

Good morning Ian.
We are both a pair of earlybirds today  .
I'm sure that both your product and George are a big help to people as most on here will not want to set things up the way I have.  Indeed, if I had been aware of such a product before I set up my database/spreadsheet system, I would probably have bought it myself.  I tend to cling to what I have already done because I put in a lot of effort to set it up (a big thanks to the usenet community there) and I wouldn't want to think of my efforts as wasted.
I hope that you do well out of this as I have a lot of respect for someone who is prepared to put in the effort (same goes for the author of George).

[ianhannaford]

Thanks for your kind words Th Shiner.

I also feel I should commend you on your efforts to set up your own system. I am always open to your suggestions on how we can improve our product and would appreciate (if you have 5 minutes) to have a look and see if there is anything that you feel would benefit a window cleaner.

Good luck with your business

Ian

[gary evans]

Ian

Sent previous e-mail showing interest, nothing come through yet. Would this system run a commercial only business with approx 300 customers, timescales, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, 6- weekly, bi-monthly, quarterly, 3 calls per annum & 6 monthly. It would need to be on one monthly spreadsheet, previouslu looked at george but not setup yet.

Might be better to discuss on land line

Gary

[ianhannaford]

Ian

Sent previous e-mail showing interest, nothing come through yet. Would this system run a commercial only business with approx 300 customers, timescales, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, 6- weekly, bi-monthly, quarterly, 3 calls per annum & 6 monthly. It would need to be on one monthly spreadsheet, previouslu looked at george but not setup yet.

Might be better to discuss on land line

Gary

Hi Gary,

If you email me personally (ian@windowcleanerpro.com) I will contact you via the phone.

Cheers

Ian

[macc]

Hi Gary. How about this, the idea works.

Round - Melrose

2 weeks - 1 & 2 Melrose

4 weeks - 3 & 4 Melrose

Add round - Melrose, Nos 1 & 2 Melrose, freq 4 weeks, due date 1/6/06 (every 2 weeks sorted)
Add round - Melrose, Nos 1,2,3 & 4 Melrose, freq 4 weeks, due date 15/6/06.

They are still separate rounds but it covers the 2 & 4 week cleans. 

Macc

The only problem with this macc is that you will get the first round displaying every 2 weeks in the schedule along side the second round i.e duplicate houses.

If both rounds are set at 4 weeks it works. IF you look at the 2 weekers there in both, 4 weekers in every othere time. 

Macc

[Spruce]

Hi Ian
1.
I have a problem in that I do not have broadband and an ISP which automatically cuts my connection after 2 hours - I estimate that I have about 90% of the software loaded by then. I usually use a downloader manager and am able to resume download when this happens but am unable to activate it with your software.

2.
Round frequency. As with the other guys I also have fortnightly and monthly cleans in the same round and  George software accounts for that well by putting the frequency against the customer. As you have put it against the round, does the round planning diary incorporate all these rounds?
The reason I ask is because George's software doesn't and only provides for a diary for that particular round - on good if you have separated your rounds into villages as I have.

3.
Will your software allow the overall round to be divide between 2 people with each others work kept separately?

Thanks

Bruce

[ianhannaford]

Hi Gary. How about this, the idea works.

Round - Melrose

2 weeks - 1 & 2 Melrose

4 weeks - 3 & 4 Melrose

Add round - Melrose, Nos 1 & 2 Melrose, freq 4 weeks, due date 1/6/06 (every 2 weeks sorted)
Add round - Melrose, Nos 1,2,3 & 4 Melrose, freq 4 weeks, due date 15/6/06.

They are still separate rounds but it covers the 2 & 4 week cleans. 

Macc

The only problem with this macc is that you will get the first round displaying every 2 weeks in the schedule along side the second round i.e duplicate houses.

If both rounds are set at 4 weeks it works. IF you look at the 2 weekers there in both, 4 weekers in every othere time. 

Macc

Well done macc, nice work

This does work

Ian

[ianhannaford]

Hi Ian
1.
I have a problem in that I do not have broadband and an ISP which automatically cuts my connection after 2 hours - I estimate that I have about 90% of the software loaded by then. I usually use a downloader manager and am able to resume download when this happens but am unable to activate it with your software.

2.
Round frequency. As with the other guys I also have fortnightly and monthly cleans in the same round and  George software accounts for that well by putting the frequency against the customer. As you have put it against the round, does the round planning diary incorporate all these rounds?
The reason I ask is because George's software doesn't and only provides for a diary for that particular round - on good if you have separated your rounds into villages as I have.

3.
Will your software allow the overall round to be divide between 2 people with each others work kept separately?

Thanks

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

1) You can download the framework files separatly, install these and then instal WCP. The framework file can be downloaded at the following URL:

http://thesource.ofallevil.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

Once you have downloaded and installed this then you can go back to our site and download WCP again.

2) The way that WCP schedules rounds is quite unique and it was decided to set the frequency at round level. This keeps all jobs that are similar freq in a logical unit of work. As the previous post suggest there are work arounds for this. I am currently working on a solution where you will be able to sepcify the freq at job level but this requires a little thinking about due to the complexities of scheduling.

3) You can decided which round (and even down to individual jobs) you would like printed on a work list. This way you can decide which round/jobs to give each employee. You can even assign the income and expensditure to different accounts so you can keep track of how much money each employee is generating.

I hope these answers your questions and if I can help any further then let me know.

Ian

[Roy Harding]

Hi Ian

I down loaded your program, and discoverd within minutes that job of 4wk or 8wk etc had to be onn sepperate rounds.

This is not good, as one list with all the jobs on that whatever time scale they are cleaned should be paramount. The list should be in order of  how you work your round whatever.

Sorry uninstalled,

Roy

[ianhannaford]

Hi Ian

I down loaded your program, and discoverd within minutes that job of 4wk or 8wk etc had to be onn sepperate rounds.

This is not good, as one list with all the jobs on that whatever time scale they are cleaned should be paramount. The list should be in order of  how you work your round whatever.

Sorry uninstalled,

Roy

As you would have seen in the previous post this is currently being worked on. It was decided that if you work a round with some jobs being done every 4 weeks and some every 8 weeks in fact these are 2 different rounds.

However some people have asked that they all be included in one round and scheduled appropriately.

Thanks

Ian

[Roy Harding]

Thanks Ian

Roy

[ianhannaford]

Thanks Ian

Roy

No problem...I do hope that you will reinstall the software after this additional feature has been added 

Ian

[Roy Harding]

I will have a look.

You see a lot of rounds work like this.

You have 4wkly jobs and mixed in are 8 wkly jobs and 12 wkly jobs. The next time you work the 4 wkly jobs the 8wk and 12wk are not due so you have other 8 wkly jobs that alternate with the first. As this keep the round  the same in time and monnies. So to have one sheet with all job on that are due, is far better than several as it would be easy to overlook someone.

I'm glad you are listening to the feed back and the program will get better.

Of course I do realise we all want different features and you cant get them all.

Well done.

Roy

[ianhannaford]

I will have a look.

You see a lot of rounds work like this.

You have 4wkly jobs and mixed in are 8 wkly jobs and 12 wkly jobs. The next time you work the 4 wkly jobs the 8wk and 12wk are not due so you have other 8 wkly jobs that alternate with the first. As this keep the round  the same in time and monnies. So to have one sheet with all job on that are due, is far better than several as it would be easy to overlook someone.

I'm glad you are listening to the feed back and the program will get better.

Of course I do realise we all want different features and you cant get them all.

Well done.

Roy

Roy,

Excellent...thanks for the breakdown, that helps a lot when I'm coding this new part.

Ian

[Moderator David@stives]

Ian

I have a round which is worked nearly every day the reason being it is local work , so if i have been out of the area and i have completed that round, i work on the local round for a couple of hours, then the next day we may go out to another area for say 5 hours then when we return we will work the local round again, same again if it has been raining all day we may nip out and do some local again,

I think you realy need to look at job frequency rather than round frequency .

What happens if it takes a week to complete a normally 2 day round, how does it get rescheduled for the work you did on the monday to become due on exactly the same day as the last clean, and the work you did on the friday the same.

Dave

ps it is still crashing on me and i am using xp fully updated 

[ianhannaford]

Ian

I have a round which is worked nearly every day the reason being it is local work , so if i have been out of the area and i have completed that round, i work on the local round for a couple of hours, then the next day we may go out to another area for say 5 hours then when we return we will work the local round again, same again if it has been raining all day we may nip out and do some local again,

I think you realy need to look at job frequency rather than round frequency .

What happens if it takes a week to complete a normally 2 day round, how does it get rescheduled for the work you did on the monday to become due on exactly the same day as the last clean, and the work you did on the friday the same.

Dave

ps it is still crashing on me and i am using xp fully updated 

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your input...as per my promise I will listen carefully and code to what is required. I have made a misjudgment by putting the freq on the round and not the job 

I have been on this since 7 this morning and should hopefully have the updates ready this evening so that the freq is set on the job (and it will be in days instead of weeks).

As for the crashing I have managed to reproduce this on my machine and think its to do with profiles. If you have 5 minutes now I am in the live chat room and can walk you through it to see if it is the same problem I reproduced.

www.windowcleanerpro.com/support.php

click in the join chat, hopefully speak to you soon

Thanks

Ian

Ian

[Moderator David@stives]

Ian has sorted my crashing programme problem , it was just one simple setting in system settings,  The trouble was i have streamlined my pc to run as fast as possible and switched of all unneccessary performance zappers

Dave

[ianhannaford]

Ian has sorted my crashing programme problem , it was just one simple setting in system settings,  The trouble was i have streamlined my pc to run as fast as possible and switched of all unneccessary performance zappers

Dave

Cheers Dave,

Hope you can now enjoy the software 

Ian

[herbiefatboy]

i do like this program if the frequncy like other people have said is changed also how much is it to buy thanks

[ianhannaford]

i do like this program if the frequncy like other people have said is changed also how much is it to buy thanks

Im currently working on the frequency as we speak. The retail price is £97 but the launch price is £55.

Thanks

Ian