GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Garage Door Software

The From House Picker: Filling In a New Garage Door Job From the House Record

Saving the equipment on the house is only half the job. The other half is getting it onto every new job at that house without anyone typing it again. In GarageDoorBossPro, that is what the From House picker does.

The Problem It Solves

What gets saved on the house is laid out in Doors, Openers and Springs Saved on the House: The Equipment Record in Garage Door Software. The From House picker is how that saved equipment gets used.

Without it, the office ends up in a familiar loop. A customer calls about a noisy opener. The office creates a job, writes “opener noisy” in the notes, and the tech arrives without knowing which opener, how old, or which of the two doors it runs. Either the tech calls the office, or the office digs through old jobs, or everyone just figures it out on site. The picker cuts that loop out.

How It Works

When the office creates a new job at an address that already has equipment saved, the From House picker shows the doors and hardware on file. The office picks the ones this job is about, and they fill onto the job with all their details: brand, model #, serial #, year installed, size, drive or material, bay and access notes.

For a broken spring on the left door, the office picks the left door and its springs. For a yearly tune-up, the office picks every door and opener, because the tune-up covers them all. For a keypad that stopped working, just the keypad.

What the Tech Gets

The picked equipment shows on the tech's job card in the tech app. A tech reading the card in the driveway sees something like:

• “Garage Door · Amarr Stratford 3000 · 9x7 · Wood · installed 2014”
• The serial number on the next line
• “Bay 1 · the left door is the problem”

Because the card says which door and what it is, the tech can make sure the right parts are on the van before leaving the shop. That matters most on spring and cable calls, where the wrong size means a second trip.

Changes Flow Back

The picker is not a one-way copy. When the tech changes equipment on the job, the change flows back to the house. Examples:

• The tech replaces the opener. The new opener's model and year installed go on the job, and the house record updates.
• The tech notes that the door is actually 16x8, not 16x7. The house record is corrected.
• The homeowner mentions a new keypad they had put in. The tech adds it and it is saved on the house.

The next job at that address, whether next week or next year, starts from the current equipment, not last year's.

From House on Estimates

Estimates work the same way. Equipment details can be filled in on the estimate, and when the customer approves it and it becomes the scheduled job, the equipment carries onto the job. An estimate for a new door at a house with a saved opener can include the opener so the installer knows what the new door will be paired with.

For more on how estimates turn into jobs, see Garage Door Estimates in the Software: From Service List to Approved Job.

When the House Has Nothing Saved Yet

New customers and new addresses start with an empty equipment list. That is fine. The office creates the job with whatever the customer described, and the tech fills in the doors and hardware on site. Once the job is saved, the equipment lives on the house and the picker has something to offer next time.

A good habit is to ask techs to fill in at least the door size, material and opener on every first visit, even if the call was only for a remote. It takes a minute on site and saves a phone call on every visit after.

Multi-Door and Commercial Addresses

The picker matters most where there are many doors. A three-bay house, a detached shop with its own door, or a commercial building with a row of rolling doors on the dock all benefit from picking exactly the doors a job covers. The bay field keeps them apart, so “Bay 3” and “Detached” never get mixed up on the job card.

The From House picker is one of the tools that make GarageDoorBossPro work for garage door companies specifically. See how it fits with everything else on the GarageDoorBossPro garage door software page.