Some kind of shared diary system

[Quattromaster]

Hi everyone.

As always I'm after some advice, running in my company I have 7 vans, and around this time everyday I spend approx an hour texting them all there jobs for the next day, often full addresses and contact details, and sometimes 3-4 jobs per van per day.

This means, unless they speak with each other then nobody knows where the other vans are.

What I'm looking for is some kind of diary/app/whatever else system that I "upload" all the jobs onto, and then they can access via their company iphones, so letting them see where other vans are, as sometimes a job will finish early, or be cancelled, and if they cant get hold of myself they go home, where as they may well be passing where another van is working so could stop and give a hand.

Hope that makes sense, as reading it I have made it sound very complicated.

Thanks in advance

[Alapeno]

Not sure about the uploading in bulk part but the standard iOS calendar that's on every iphone works really well and is dead easy to use.

You can input manually on a computer, ipad, phone etc and as long as you're on icloud it will sync to your phone and whoever else it's shared with.

The OH has got me using it so I know where I'm supposed to be at all times without actually having to tell me 10 times.

Edit: you can colour code, add notes, times, addresses, images etc.

[jammy_basturd]

Same applies with Google Calendar.

[megaphone]

Yep Google Calendar.

[Quattromaster]

Thanks folks, however would this not mean my lads iPhones would all need to be on the same iCloud as my iPhone, meaning they would get all my pictures, emails and other stuff.

Sorry if sounding/being thick.

[Bikerjon]

Quattromaster said:

Thanks folks, however would this not mean my lads iPhones would all need to be on the same iCloud as my iPhone, meaning they would get all my pictures, emails and other stuff.

Sorry if sounding/being thick.

No you would create some extra calendars in your iCloud account (van1, van2 etc) and then specify their iCloud account in the sharing settings. Each of your drivers would need their iPhones setup with an iCloud account.

If you wanted a bigger system than just shared calendars, this product looks quite interesting https://getjobber.com/

[bitchstewie]

What do you currently use for email?

Google Apps or Office 365 should let you do this pretty simply and cheaply.

[E36GUY]

bhstewie said:

What do you currently use for email?

Google Apps or Office 365 should let you do this pretty simply and cheaply.

Yeah. You can share calendars in outlook and as long as you have the correct permissions to edit your employees' calendars then you can update them accordingly. Assuming their have their mobiles synced to the work email then it should also update their phone calendar. Mine certainly works

[Akiraprise]

Try http://ovatu.com - not sure if it would be suitable but we use it all the time and it works really well. Also has an iPhone / iPad app

[loafer123]

Google Calendar has the benefit of a direct link into Google Maps for the locations you send them.

[karona]

Wunderlist is a cross-platform system with to-do lists, task allocation, automatic syncing etc. etc.
https://www.wunderlist.com/

[sgrimshaw]

TeamWork Projects might be worth a look.

The free version would be sufficient for your needs.

https://www.teamwork.com/projects/

[Quattromaster]

Folks, thanks so much for the info and links so far, more than helpful.

Yet to take a look at the last 2 links but the first, JOBBER looks good, and gives an option to set up invoicing, this is something I've been thinking about for a while, at the moment they write out by hand, with 90% of them being advice notes! which I then put onto Sage at the end of every month, sounds easy but I seem to employ lads who cannot copy a reg no from a car 10 ft away, and if they do get it right then I can't read their handwriting.

This way I can give the lads tablets and they can enter details on that, and it emails customer a copy.

Thanks again everyone, yet again the power of PH amazes me.