How to create a Recurring Job

A recurring job is a job that you can set to run repeatedly over time. Whether that be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.

You are able to create these jobs in the Job Templates section in Ascora. This can be found under Advanced on the top menu. 

1. In the Job Templates section, you will start by clicking on the + New button in the top right-hand corner of the Job Templates page.

2. Once done, a new job template will be created. In order to make this a recurring job, you will need to choose "Recurring" (job templates will default to On Demand jobs.)

3. This will bring up your recurring template menu. From here you can set up the job information. There are many options to choose from in this section such as setting up the frequency, having jobs automatically booked or just created as unscheduled, and whether you'd like this recurring job to repeat for a certain number of occurrences or just continue running until stopped.

Please refer to the image below as a reference but a detailed explanation can be found in the succeeding steps.

4. The best place to start is in the Details section. Here you will see the same options you see when creating a standard job. Set your recurring job out like you normally would any regular job.

5. Next, it is recommended that you organise your Site Customer and Billing Customer. The address will automatically come from the site customer. If you need to enter an address other than that, you are able to manually input that address, if you so wish; just like you would on a standard job.

6. From here, set up your Job Description. This will populate onto all future jobs that recur from this template. So instead of having to come back to this job template to know what the job is about, you will be able to input that here and see it across all jobs. 

7. Now you will need to set up the specific settings of the recurring job. 

There are 5 main parts to this section. And they will be broken down to best understand how they each work.

8. The first section is to set when you want this job to start recurring from. In this example, we’ll have the job start on 01/01/2019. 

9. FREQUENCY: Next you will want to decide how frequently this job will be created. This will be done in the Frequency section. In the frequency section you can see that there are different options to choose from.

      a. You can choose a broad recurring time.

      b. You can choose that it occurs on a specific date of particular months.

      c. Or on the last day of a specific number of months. 

A. Here you can see that you are able to choose the recurrence frequency to be Days, Weeks, Month and Years.

 To the left of the drop down shown is a frequency number.

 So, for example, you can set that to 8 if you want it to recur every 8 days, every 8 week, every 8 months, or once every 8 years when paired with the corresponding drop down.

B. This second option allows you to choose a specific date of any sequence of months for the job to recur.

As you can see here, it is set to create jobs on the 5th of every 3 months. So, if they job was to start in January, it would make a job on the 5th of January, then the next would be the 5th of   April; 3  months later.

C. The next frequency option is to have it create the new job on the last day of a set number of months.

In this example, this template would create a job on the last day of every 6 months. 

10. CREATE AS: Once you have decided how frequently you would like the job to be created, the next step is to decide from the format in which you would like the jobs to be created as.

The 3 options we have in this section allow you to create a job that has no particular booking, a specified booking, or is immediately Closed and Invoiced. 

A. Unscheduled. The "Unscheduled" option will allow the jobs to be created without a particular booking but will be viewable in your Unscheduled jobs list in Scheduler. These jobs are also available in the jobs list to modify and create bookings on like a standard job.

B. Booked In At, For. The specified booking can be made in the Book In At box. Here you can choose what time you would like the job to be booked when it is created, who will do the job, and how long it will take them.

So, if you have a job that is set to be created every 3 weeks in frequency, you can also set that it be booked in for a specific time on that day (in this example 9am), and which staff member will do this job every time it comes up (in this example Courtney Smith). You can also set an estimated duration so that when the job is created you can see it in the Scheduler. So, in this example, Courtney Smith will have 4-hour job every 3 weeks at 9am. This means the job will appear in the Scheduler as the above. You can modify it if need be, but this just allows you to set a preferred time and day.

C. Invoiced. The last option is "Invoiced" and you have the option to also close the job or just leave it open. This is the option that allows you to generate a recurring invoice let's say every month and you can also tick the box "Close Job" so it doesn't clutter the Schedule or job list. 

    Note: Invoice will be generated on the same date the job is scheduled to be created.

This type of invoicing is popular amongst security companies and other services where you pay by the month/quarter regardless of any jobs being performed.

For example, it allows you to create an invoice for monthly security monitoring.

You can also set the Job description with text to dynamically change – for example “Security monitoring for October 2018”. There’s also a setting under Administration → Settings that will trigger Ascora to automatically email off the invoice when it is generated from the template.

11. REPEAT: Next you will want to set for how long you would like this Recurring job to run for. There are 3 options in this field too. 

a. Until allows you to choose a specific date that this Recurring Job will finish. It will not create any further jobs after that date. This is good if you have a contract or agreement with an expiry of a specific date or month. 

b. Times allows you to choose how many times the job is created in total before the job stops recurring. This is good if you have a set number of jobs that you have agreed upon with your customer. So, if they have only agreed to have you do the job 12 times, you are able to specify that. 

(This will not include Cancelled jobs. To elaborate, if you agree upon 12 jobs with your customer, and on the 7th recurrence of that job they have to cancel, and you cancel it in Ascora, that 7th job will not be counted as part of the 12 overall jobs. What was meant to be the 8th recurrence is now counted as the 7th, and the sequence will carry on from there)

c. Until Stopped is simply that the job will recur indefinitely until you manually come back to the job template and stop the recurring. You can just hit the Stop Recurring button to do that.

But if that customer comes back and wants that job to be continued at a later date, you are able to come back into that Job Template and Start Recurring button and it will start of from where you left off with the same settings; saving you from recreating the Job Template if they wanted your services again after having stopped them.

12. JOBS IN ADVANCE:

This section is able to help you with how many Jobs you would like to appear in your Scheduler in Advance.

There may be situations in which you would like to see 2 or 3 jobs in your Scheduler for this template at once, to help you book them ahead of times, there may be situations where you will only need to see 1; this part of the Job Template will help you choose that.

Simply toggle the Number box to choose how many jobs you would like to have active at any given time.

[This setting often goes hand-in-hand with “Recurring Jobs / Maintenance Jobs Creation.” Information on this setting can be found in the Hints & Tips section of this manual.]

13. Recur from Job Completion

Just to give a little explanation to what this is, basically, you can have a job to recur as frequently as you wish and set it to, but when this check box is clicked, it will only recur the job from the day the current job is fully completed. If you would like them to be set for the same time without change, untick this box. But if you would only like a job to be created once the previous one is finished, you’ll want to check this box.

14. Once you have filled all those fields in, and click Save, you will find that new tabs will appear above the Details. These are the same tabs you would see on a normal job. This is the point where you would treat this template like a regular job. (You will notice there are no bookings created yet in the Jobs tab. No need to worry, they will be discussed in the next step) Any Supplies, Labour or Callouts, Equipment that you need on all the jobs of this template, add them here, and they will be included in each job that is created from this template. Click Save.

15. Once you have completed all the steps up to this point, and you have the template exactly how you would like each job to be and all the information is correct, you will now be able to create the bookings and start the Job Template to create the recurring jobs. To do this, you will click Start Recurring in the top right-hand corner of the template.

When you have clicked Start Recurring, a new set of buttons will appear in that same place on the template. 

Now that these new buttons have appeared, in order to activate the template to start running based on the settings you’ve included, you will now need to click Run Recurring. A pop up will appear confirming this action. To which you would just click Yes, Run This Job Template to confirm.

There will then be a pop up to advise you that the change has been accepted by Ascora, you will just need to click OK.

16. You will now be able to see the next bookings/jobs that are created. If you have set for 2 to be set in advance, 2 jobs will be in the jobs tab. You can go to the specific jobs and change or modify them from there, if needed/wanted.

The jobs that are created from Job Templates are exactly like regular jobs from this point, and can be treated as you would any other job.

You have now finished creating a Recurring Job.

Hints/Tips:

Recurring Jobs / Maintenance Jobs Creation

There is an additional setting that you are able to choose. This can be found in the Defaults section in the Administration menu. At the bottom of the left-hand column of the page you can choose a custom setting for recurring jobs

Once you check the box for Use Customer Recurring Job Creation Settings you will be given the option to set how many days in advance recurring jobs are created.

For example, if you have your recurring job to create 1 in advance, and the next job isn’t for 3 months, and you don’t want to be able to see it in your Scheduler or job list yet, you can have it set to be created a certain number of days before it’s due.

You can have it be created the day before it’s due, so that you will be able to see it in your scheduler and book it in from there. Or even 7 days before, so you have more time to create a booking for it. It’s up to you. This is just to help with it not clogging your Scheduler with jobs that you don’t need to see far in advance.

Delete Jobs vs. Cancel Jobs

When looking at the job list in a recurring job template, you will notice in the top right-hand corner of the

table two buttons. Delete Jobs and Cancel Jobs.

Each of these two buttons have entirely different functions, and it’s incredibly important to remember the differences, as it could be quite devastating to scheduling to mistake them.

Delete Jobs: This button means that you are able to delete the jobs from your schedule. They will be removed and archived; meaning that when it comes time for that job to occur, it will still be available for regeneration.

An example of when this feature might be used is if you have Run Recurring and it has created too many jobs in advance because the setting wasn’t correct before selecting the Run Recurring button. You are able to delete the unwanted jobs so that they don’t appear in the Scheduler ahead of when you desire them to, fix the settings, and run recurring, and they will be created at the correct time according to the settings.

To give a more specific example, say you wanted to create 2 jobs on a template in advance, and all others are set to be created at the completion of a job (this means that there will always be 2 jobs for this template active at any time), but for some reason you accidentally set it for 3 and clicked Run Recurring Client Demonstration 10 September 6, 2018 and 3 were created, you are able to delete that 3rd job, fix the Jobs in Advance setting to reflect the desired amount, then save and Run Recurring again.

This will fix how many jobs in Advance are created without removing that deleted job from the sequence. It will still appear according to new settings.

Cancel Jobs: This button means that you are able to completely cancel that job from the sequence so that it doesn’t appear again.

This would be used if you are, for example, set to do a job monthly, and on a particular month your customer advises you not to worry about the next upcoming job, but come back the following month and all months from then on. You are able to go into the Jobs tab of the Job Template and find that particular month and Cancel that job. That way it won’t regenerate in the sequence, it will be completely removed as a job from the system.

It is important to remember the distinction between these two buttons. While selecting the Delete button when actually wanting to Cancel isn’t so bad because the job will just regenerate and you will be able to cancel it from there, if you Cancel a job when you only wanted to Delete it, you will not be able to get that job back.

So please be careful when removing jobs from your template for any reason.