The BigWave User Manual

Start Here

1. Welcome What this manual covers, which parts to read for your role, and how it names screens.
2. Meet Beacon Electric The example company in every chapter: an electrical contractor with commercial and residential customers.
3. Quick Start: Your First Work Order in 30 Minutes Create a customer, open a work order, assign a technician, close out the job, and send the invoice.

Part 1

Understand BigWave

1. 1.1 What BigWave Is The four core records (customer, site, project, work order) and where partners, technicians, assets and workflows fit.
2. 1.2 A Tour of the UI Logging in, the layout every screen shares, the home page, quick search, and your profile.
3. 1.3 Grids, Views, and Controls How grids work on every screen: filters, saved views, exports, and the date and time fields.
4. 1.4 Who Does What in BigWave Access levels and roles: what office staff, technicians, customers, sites and partners each see when they log in.

Part 2

Set Up Your Company

1. 2.1 Company Profile & Global Settings The Setup screen: company details, staff contacts, holidays, invoicing settings, and the global items every project inherits.
2. 2.2 Users, Technicians & Access Creating logins for office staff, setting up technicians, the technician record, departments and regions, and what to do when someone leaves.
3. 2.3 Statuses & Workflow Design Designing your status list before you build it, status defaults, what a status change sets off, and workflow types.
4. 2.4 Customers & Sites Creating customers and sites, the duplicate check, combining duplicates, deleting records made in error, billing addresses, contacts and regions.
5. 2.5 Projects: Your Lines of Work How to decide which projects to create, what each Project Setup panel controls, and how to copy setup from one project to the next.
6. 2.6 Custom Fields & Tags Where to define custom fields, how to set one up, what to capture, and when to use a tag instead.
7. 2.7 Services, Rates & Materials Where prices come from: contract rates, markup types, the materials database, Assemblies, preferred materials and technician labor rates.
8. 2.8 Document & Email Templates Word and HTML document templates, document folders, deliverables with naming patterns, and branded emails.
9. 2.9 Alerts & Notifications Project alerts: the triggers, timers, recipients, custom HTML emails and emailed status action buttons.
10. 2.10 Customer & Partner Portals What customer, site and partner logins see, how to give a contact a login, and who should get one.

Part 3

Run Your Operation

1. 3.1 The Life of a Work Order The ways to create a work order, what each panel on the work order screen is for, and good habits with statuses.
2. 3.2 Scheduling & Dispatch Schedule entries, assigning technicians, the Resource Calendar, Scheduled Events, and a dispatcher's day.
3. 3.3 Technicians in the Field What a technician sees and does in BigWave: assignments, photos and comments on site, deliverables, and time and materials.
4. 3.4 Quoting & Estimating Building quotes from work order line items, adding Assemblies, emailing quotes, and letting customers approve by email.
5. 3.5 Invoicing & Getting Paid From line items to a sent invoice: billing statuses, PO numbers, payments, credit memos, and export to your accounting system.
6. 3.6 Assets & Recurring Maintenance Asset types, equipment registered at sites, the history of each asset, and Asset Scheduling, which creates maintenance work orders on a set cycle.
7. 3.7 Working with Partners & Suppliers Partner companies and their technicians, subcontracted work orders, and supplier orders for parts bought for a job.
8. 3.8 Projects at Scale: Rollouts & Imports Run a rollout from spreadsheets: import sites, create work orders in bulk, import schedules and assignments, then follow progress in Site Tracking and issues.
9. 3.9 Reporting & Operational Visibility Where to find the numbers: saved views and exports, the Reports area, each project's Reporting tab, report windows and audit trails.

Part 4

Report Details

1. 4.1 How the Reports Work The rules every report in Actions > Reports shares: the reporting copy, the records that never count, the date range, grouping, Show Top and checking a figure.
2. 4.2 Work Order Counts How many work orders were made in each month, quarter or year, and which work orders count.
3. 4.3 Work Order Counts by Customer Each customer's work orders in each month, quarter or year, and how Show Top and the ranges pick customers.
4. 4.4 Invoice Amounts How much was invoiced in each month, quarter or year, and which invoices count.
5. 4.5 Invoice Amounts by Customer What each customer was invoiced in each month, quarter or year, and which invoices count.
6. 4.6 Active and Quiet Customers Which customers were invoiced lately and which have gone quiet, on one day you choose.
7. 4.7 Days Between Two Statuses How many days work orders take to go from one of your statuses to another, and which work orders it leaves out.
8. 4.8 Site Retention Of the sites with work in a year, how many had work again the next year.
9. 4.9 Quotes Sent by Role How many quotes each person sent out, for the work order role you pick.
10. 4.10 Quote Follow-Up What share of the quotes you sent were followed up within a set number of days.
11. 4.11 Quote Value by Role The dollar value of the quotes each person sent, for the work order role you pick.
12. 4.12 Work Completed to Invoiced How many days finished work waits for its first invoice, and which work orders it leaves out.
13. 4.13 Quote Approved to Invoiced How many days approved work waits for its first invoice, from the customer's yes to the bill.
14. 4.14 Request to Quote How many days the office takes to send a quote, from the customer's request to Quote Sent.
15. 4.15 Quote Conversion What share of the quotes you sent the customer approved.
16. 4.16 Quotes Approved by Role How many quotes each person got approved, for the work order role you pick.
17. 4.17 Request to First Visit How many days a customer waits for the first technician visit, for work that needs no quote.
18. 4.18 Quote Approval to First Visit How many days approved work waits for its first technician visit after the customer says yes.
19. 4.19 Technician Visits per Job The average number of technician visits each job takes, for the jobs raised in each period.
20. 4.20 Warranty Visits How many visits were warranty visits, and the jobs and customers behind them.
21. 4.21 Unbillable Visits How many visits were unbillable, and the jobs and customers behind them.

Part 5

Reference

1. 5.1 Import / Export Reference Where each Import / Export Center is, which types each one offers, and the steps every import follows.
2. 5.2 Screen-by-Screen Reference Every screen and panel in BigWave, in the order the application shows them, with the chapter that teaches each one.
3. 5.3 Merge Field & Field Code Reference How merge fields and field codes work, how to format values, repeat and show sections, and write the status action token.
4. 5.4 Glossary BigWave terms in alphabetical order, each with the chapter that explains it.