Release #63 | ServiceTitan Release Notes Overview

What's going on, everybody? It's Richard Kohberger here, the blue collar nerd. My hair's looking frizzy. My snake plan is dead. Let's go over some release notes with all of that said. So first, under the highlight section of these notes, under dispatching, you can now edit job details right from the dispatch board. So when you click on an appointment on the dispatch board now, instead of being navigated to that job page, you will get this flyout. And from this flyout you can do all of the most common dispatcher tasks. So right here at the top of the flyout, we have a button to call the customer. Then under there we have some details about this job. And we can click this edit pencil to edit those details. So we can change the job type the priority, the bill to and the service location. Then we have some quick edit options. We can quickly edit the tags associated with this job, the skills necessary for this job, and we can edit the job summary again. You can do that right here, right from this fly out. We have an overview here of all of the appointments associated with this job. And we can make changes to that if we need to. We can reschedule the appointments or assign and unassign dispatch the technician. All of those appointment options are available right from here. And then here at the bottom of the flyout, we have some additional information about this job. I think this is really great for dispatchers because it allows them to stay where they're supposed to be, which is on the dispatch board versus before, when they would have to open up a million tabs of different job pages to do simple things like call the customer. And I want to drive home here that you can call the customer from this flyout. I've seen a complaint or two come in that now it takes more clicks to get to the job page so that you can call the customer. But you don't need to do that. You can call the customer right here from the flyout. That's the whole point, is that you don't have to navigate away from the dispatch board. But of course you do still have this go to job page button if you do need to do something that is not available from the flyout. Okay, next, under purchasing and inventory, we have some updates to the purchase orders page. There's quite a few little tweaks here. I'm not going to go over everything but some of the standouts for partially received pos. You can now cancel items that are no longer coming from the vendor that you ordered them from. You do that from actions and cancel outstanding quantity, you can, you can now attach documents from your vendors to the sent and partially received pos, and you can now roll over partially received POS into a new po. And you do that from actions and rollover po. And that keeps you from having to take the multiple steps of updating the existing PO and then creating a brand new one. All right, next, under job booking and contact experience, we have a y' all item that I have been waiting years.

Sorry.

We have the ability to no longer automatically show that little customer information popup that shows up on the call booking screen. You know, this thing right here, it used to be that every time you clicked on a customer name or a location name, this thing would pop up and block the whole screen every single time. There was no way to avoid it. But now there is an option to not have that thing pop up automatically and only pop up on demand if you need it.

So.

So to enable that option on the call booking screen, you're gonna wanna click on this preferences button and then toggle off this option right here. Automatically open location customer popup. And with that off, here's what it looks like. So when you start searching for a customer, you'll notice that next to the customer and location names, you have this little eyeball icon. So now I can click on a location name and not have that thing pop up and block me from doing the rest of the workflow. But if I need to see some information about this location, then I simply click on the little eyeball icon and then there it is, just like before. And if I know that I'm going to be needing that information before I even click on it, then I can just make my first click right here directly on the eyeball icon, and it both selects the location and it brings up that modal that I always had. So it's exactly the same behavior as before. If I want it to work that way, all I have to do is click on the eyeball icon. But if I don't want that thing to pop up, I simply click don't click on the eyeball icon. So it leaves it up to the user when that thing should and should not show up. And because of that, because you can just click directly on the eyeball icon the first time and basically get the exact same behavior as before, it is my personal recommendation that everybody, every single csr, every user, just disable that feature so that you have those eyeball icons and you get to choose when that thing does and doesn't show up. If it was completely up to me, it wouldn't be a preference. Because if you haven't caught on by now, I really hate that pop up.

I've always hated that pop up.

I get it, there's information about the customer and location there. Sometimes you might need that. But what's the point of this screen? It's the job booking screen.

So why then as soon as I start to try to do the thing, as soon as I try to book a job, would something show up that blocks me from booking a job?

And look, that thing's been there forever. It's been there for so long that it's entirely possible that it was implemented by one of the co founders and. And you know what?

I still don't care. I'll tell it to your face. I'll tell it to your face. This thing sucks.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I really shouldn't be getting this worked up and letting my personal feelings get this involved with the Release Notes videos. But I just, I've had a vendetta against this thing for so long and I don't really think that many CSRs are watching these Release Notes videos. So if you're watching this Release Notes video, please tell your csrs that this preference now exists. Just tell them it's a preference and they can toggle it off and that way they get to decide when it shows up. But if they like the way it works right now, or if you as a manager like the way it works right now, then you can leave that option on if you're nasty. And if you are a CSR watching this video, let me know. I'd like to know how many CSRs watch these. Let me know in the comments down below. Anyways, this is a y' all item. It's been posted as an idea in the community, which has quite a few votes on it. I've also seen posts in the various communities about it from Carrie Dupree Cottingham and Don Parker Cook. But honestly, I don't say this often, but you guys weren't complaining about this one enough.

I already know.

All right, next, under task management, you can now add attachments to tasks. This one's pretty self explanatory. When you're creating a task, you can attach things like photos or PDF files or whatever just off of your computer and you do that from this attachments button right here. Alright, next up, under job planning and management we have another y' all item. So we have enhancements added to the office side estimates. So somewhat recently, maybe about A year ago, the Office side estimate builder was completely redesigned. And I personally was always a big fan of the redesign. I like it a lot. I'm not just saying that. I mean, I think from this video you've seen that. I'll tell you, if I don't really like something, I really like the Office side estimates redesign. But there were a couple of niche workflows that it did break. And I think that the redesign also just kind of brought to light and really highlighted some pre existing problems that existed still with the old screen, but now that everything was redesigned, it just put a spotlight on them. And some people perceived those as new problems. And there were just a couple of little nitpicky things that people wanted to see changed. So first of all, a nitpicky thing fixed when searching for an item to add to an estimate, you'll now see the full description for that item every single time. Whereas before there was a character limit, it would cut off at a certain point. Also, you can now export the list of items from that estimate to a CSV file and you're now able to copy and paste non editable cells. So with the old estimate screen, some users used to copy and paste all of the items off of an estimate and then basically use it as a pick list. Not really an intended workflow from service items perspective, but it was something that people were doing. And when the redesign came out, you weren't able to copy and paste out of that table anymore. So the people who were doing that, who were copying and pasting out of there, were mad that that was now broken. So now you can copy and paste out of the table again. But even better than that, you can just export everything as a spreadsheet file. Okay, next, the estimates redesign showed you the total price, like the price that you were going to charge your customer for that estimate, of course, but it also showed you the company cost for all of the equipment and materials that were on that estimate. And we heard there were a few incidents here and there where somebody would accidentally quote the company cost instead of the actual price for the estimate. So in order to alleviate that problem, the total price is now displayed in green to help you differentiate it from the cost. And finally, my favorite, out of all of these, you can now sell or dismiss an estimate directly from that estimates page without having to click into the opportunities page. This is the main thing I was referring to when I say that the redesign put a spotlight on some old problems. When the redesign first came out, there were a lot of complaints, people saying that, like, this is so silly that I have to click into this separate page to sell the estimate. And and I don't disagree, but it always worked like that. And changing that structure wasn't part of the phase one of the redesign just because it was a kind of big thing. It was a really structural thing that makes that the case. But now it's no longer the case. You don't have to click into that Opportunities page to mark the estimate as sold or dismiss it. You can do it right there from the estimate. And I think that makes a ton more sense and is way more convenient. I'll dig through some of the old Facebook posts around that time when the initial redesign happened and see if I can find some names for this. But every single one of these items was taken from Customer Feedback.

Howdy, y'.

All.

Okay, next, under the new section of these notes under Accounting, you can now merge General Ledger accounts. You do this from the General Ledger Accounts page. Under Settings, you would check off the multiple General Ledger accounts that you're trying to merge and then go to the Actions dropdown and then choose Merge Accounts. This is especially useful with the new default GL accounts that came out in the last release. So the Service Titan default GL accounts can't be deactivated. So if there was a default GL account that exactly matched one of your pre existing GL accounts, that could be confusing. It was hard to know which one to use. And so the previous workaround was to just rename the Service Titan GL account to like do not use or something like that. But now you don't need to use that workaround. You can simply merge it with the GL account that you actually use. All right, next, under FinTech, we have a technician, y'.

All.

So you can now easily check for bbpoz firmware updates from the Mobile Technician profile, BBPOS or bbpos. Those are the little mobile card readers. And it used to be that when these things had a firmware update, it would only perform that update like during a transaction. Like you had to start a transaction in order to kickstart that update, which is obviously not ideal because if you're running a real transaction, then you don't want to be sitting around waiting for an update to happen. You want to run the transaction and setting up a fake transaction to occur. Well, that's just kind of annoying. So now that problem is eliminated. There is this new EMV Reader update button on the Technician profile. Next, under Lead Integrations, there's a new Trane American Standard Leads integration. So this works very similarly to like the Google Local Services lead integration. And once you set that up, you can manage your booking request that you receive directly from traneamerican Standard in Service Titan. All right, so next, under Payroll Pro, we have some new Payroll Pro reports. God, there's spit everywhere. Payroll Pro reports. So if you're using Payroll Pro, then you now have these new reports available to you. Payroll summary, tax liability, W2 preview, cash requirement, payroll Journal, and Workers Comp. Also under Payroll Pro, we have Pay per check printing. God, why, why so many P's? It's like my laptop is in a 4D movie. Anyways, if you have employees who don't want to be paid through direct deposit, you now have the option to pay them through Payroll Pro with a printed check. All right, next, under the improvement section of these notes, under accounting, this one's labeled as a y', all, but it's kind of a technicality. I'll put, I'll put the baby y' all had on. So legacy payments has been sunset, meaning retired, and payment collections is now enabled for everybody. I'm getting over it cold. I'm sorry if I sound kind of weird. So payment collections is kind of the backbone feature, the prerequisite feature that is needed to enable the deposits workflow in Service Titan and the automated refunds workflow in Service Titan. Among a few other things, it allows money to be floated on a customer's account that you can then later apply to invoices. And it was always an inevitability that the legacy version of payments would be sunset and this would be the future. And so that day has come and it's a y' all because it's a prerequisite to other y'. Alls. So in order for certain other accounting related y' alls to happen, this had to happen first. And for that reason, baby y'.

All.

Okay, next, under appointments, you can now search and filter appointments. This one's not labeled as a y', all, but I'm positive I've seen this asked for. I don't have names. I'm going to put the baby y' all had on anyways. There's no rules here.

It's the Wild west, baby.

I don't know what. I don't know what this. I don't know what this dance is. So if your job has multiple appointments, you now have these filters to find the appropriate appointment that you're looking for. So you can change the sort order so you can go oldest to newest or newest to oldest. You can filter by the status of the appointment, is it scheduled, is it working, dispatched, whatever, or you can simply jump to a specific start date. Okay, next, under dispatching, when you're adding a non job event to a technician's schedule, you are no longer required to associate a timesheet code. So previously every non job event had to have a timesheet code associated. But now you'll see this checkbox that says needs a timesheet code question mark and you can simply uncheck that box and then you will no longer be required to attach a timesheet code. Okay, next, under Job booking and contact experience. Hat trick. Oh, that went okay. There is now a user facing setting to control the option to create an estimate from the call booking screen. So Service Titan does have the ability to allow somebody to create an estimate from the call booking screen. There are certain limitations with it. It does still need to be attached to a job at some point, but it is an option. You can create an estimate from the call booking screen. But previously it was a gated feature, meaning it was one of those features where you had to contact Service Titan to have them enable it for you on the backend. But now it is a user facing setting that you can control yourself. And that setting is found under Settings, Operations and Booking Jobs. This one being a feature gate related y'. All. I don't have specific names for because the name is everybody. I know that everybody, everybody wants as few gated features as possible and for as much to be in the hands of the users as possible. And so anywhere we can eliminate a gated feature and make it something that is either on by default or user controlled, we're going to do that. We're going to call that a y'.

All.

Howdy y'.

All.

Okay, next, under job planning and management, updates to custom fields are now added to the Job and project audit trail. So when a custom field is updated on a job or project, you can now find a record of that in the audit trail. Next, under Purchasing and Inventory, you can now configure a default return type. And you do this under Settings, Inventory and Return types. Next, you can now see which user updated the return status on a po. So managers can now see who changed the return status to Received and Credit Received. You do that in the Returned tab under the Returned by column you'll see that information or in the Credit Received tab under Credit Received by. And of course that just helps the manager to identify who they need to speak with if there's some sort of issue you're also now able to return items to the warehouse even after that job has been exported. We also have an inventory related y' all item which is an update to the inventory permissions, so there are now additional inventory related permissions. I'll just put these new permissions up on the screen here versus reading them out, but I know that a lack of inventory permissions has been a big complaint in the past. Inventory of course, is a sensitive area and it's very easy to mess up and so it's very helpful to have very tight granular control over who can do what. I'll try and hunt down some names for this one and I'll put them up on the screen here.

Howdy y'.

All.

Okay, next there are new automatic PO status tags. So you can now automatically apply tags to jobs based on the PO status of associated purchase orders. And you turn this on by going to Settings, Inventory Configuration, and Purchasing. This is super helpful so that whoever's booking jobs knows whether or not they can book that job if the PO has been received or not. I know in my company when I worked at my dad's shop I had this big complicated like zapier flow to basically do exactly this. So to have it be a native feature in Service Titan is super cool to see. Anyways, that's all I got for today. Be sure to hit like if you liked the video and found it valuable, be sure to subscribe to Service Titan's YouTube channel. If you haven't done that already, hit that bell icon so that YouTube notifies you. Anytime we upload a new video and leave me a comment down below, let.

Me know what your favorite new feature.

Is and what you think I should make a video on.

Next.

Please remember that your engagement through likes, comments and subscriber numbers are the ways in which my success is measured. Appreciate it. Happy Holidays. Peace.