Colonial Fence Company
Custom Calendars
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About Colonial FenceColonial Fence, located in Norfolk, MA, is a veteran-owned, family-run business specializing in wholesale and retail fence installation. As a full-service fence company, they not only sell fences and outdoor products but also design, manufacture, and install them.
They had been using an off-the-shelf calendar for years, but it had several limitations, particularly its inability to integrate with their existing order management system. This resulted in error-prone double data entry across both systems. Latitude 40 was called in to help. |
A Seamlessly Integrated Custom Calendar
Latitude 40, already assisting with the maintenance and improvements of their order management system, was tasked with finding a calendar solution that met their unique requirements. The new calendar needed to share the same database, including customer information, order status, notes, and more. DHTMLX Scheduler was proposed as the solution, offering basic calendar functionalities with full customization capabilities.
Initial CustomizationThe project began with basic calendar customizations, including:
• A calendar for all active salespeople, with a week running from Monday to Friday. • The ability to select a customer from the order management database or create a new customer, requiring fields such as email and phone number. • The ability to set the type of appointment (initial, follow-up, etc.) and update the status of both the appointment and the order. |
Gradual ImprovementsOnce the calendar was operational, new ideas emerged over time to enhance its functionality:
• Displaying a checkmark next to jobs that have been sold and an exclamation mark next to those that were lost. • Adding the ability to search the appointments for a previous job done for the same customer. • Implementing auto-blocking periods for the week when the salesperson will not be available. Such as, after 4pm. • Creating a report that shows, by salesperson, the number of appointments made, how many were sold, and the revenue generated. |
An Installer’s Calendar
The installers required a separate unique calendar without specific time periods, focusing only on days. A crew works on a job until completion, which typically spans multiple days. The calendar needed an easy way to extend jobs across a period of days and if needed, move entire jobs to different days to account for rainy weather and other unforeseen events. Additionally, the appointment bucket needed to allow for multiple jobs, accommodating scenarios where a second crew assists part-time before moving on to another job.
Key Benefits
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Scalability and Customization: Tailored to perform various tasks specific to business needs, unlike generic systems designed for a wide range of businesses.
Ease of Use: Everything is conveniently located in one place, seamlessly integrating with other systems. User-Friendly Design: Features a color-coordinated layout that is more intuitive and visually appealing compared to Outlook Calendar and other similar tools. |
“Dan and his team have been phenomenal to work with. They have been custom designing our calendar and work order program for years and have always gone above and beyond with the customer service / price and final product. Everything that they have done for me has met or exceeded my expectations. Dan has always made himself available for me which has made a great partnership, I would highly recommend them. A+ rating!” - Ken Brown Jr. - Owner
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