A security integrator's engineers on site surveys

The situation

An integrator sells access control, cameras and fire alarms. Nobody can price a building without walking it, so every job starts with a survey. Seven sales engineers in two branches do one or two a day. Many of the cards they are handed are printed only in Arabic.

Before

Arabic names were typed in Latin letters by guesswork. Follow-up emails went out in English to people who would rather read Arabic. Device counts stayed on paper until the engineer was back at a desk.

Setting up

The company is one workspace with two branches, each with its own manager, and Odoo is connected. The company asks for Field Presence, the check-in add-on. It reads the location only when an engineer taps check-in or check-out, and never in between.

On a visit

In the car park the engineer opens the lead and starts a visit. In a basement plant room he is handed a card printed in Arabic. With no signal, the photo is kept on the phone and he types the name and the device count.

Upstairs he ends the visit. The signal returns, the card is read and the app offers him what it found: the name in Arabic and in Latin letters, and a mobile number marked Check this.

He chooses Site visit, taps Fire alarm and 1 to 3 months, and sends the approved email in Arabic, with a link to the fire alarm catalogue.

What the manager sees

Each branch manager sees their own branch. The team view tells them who is on a survey, at which company and since when. Each survey is on its lead’s history with its time on site, and reaches Odoo with the rest. The Overview counts leads by how they were met and gives the median time from capture to first follow-up.