FEATURE 2432 – New options for item batches

Two major improvements have been made to the item batches feature, which allows you to save commonly-used sets of items. First, any user within your company who creates an item batch can make it public so that it is shared and made available to all users within your company (including all company branches). To do this, once an item batch has been created, check the "Public" checkbox in the header above the first item in your batch. The next time you synchronize mobile claims, this "public" batch is uploaded to Symbility.NET. After that, the next time another company user synchronizes mobile claims, your public item batch is downloaded and becomes available for them to use (it automatically appears in their list of available item batches). Only the user who created the batch can make changes to the content of it (such as it's name, what items are part of it and the properties of items in it), and any changes that are made are also automatically propagated to all other users. If other users do not want the batch that you created to be in their list of batches, they can delete it. Note that you can only make a batch public if you've created the batch. Finally, if you uncheck the "Public" checkbox of a public batch that has already been shared among other users, any further changes you make will no longer be shared. The batch that other users currently have in their list is now indiscernible from any private batch that they've created—so they can now make any changes to it they wish.

 

The second improvement we've made is the option to price the items in the item batch using either the pricing information stored with the item in the batch or the current pricing information in the item database. You select the option with the dropdown labeled "Price using:". Specifically, the following item properties are affected by this option (these are all the properties that affect the item's unit price):

• Materials price component

• Labor price component

• Equipment price component

• Wastage

• Trade/crew

  • Base wage

  • Paid Leave

  • Taxes and insurance

 

FEATURE 2658 – QuickList

The QuickList is a new handy feature that saves you from typing the same commonly-used sentences and paragraphs over and over again. The obvious place you may find the QuickList useful is for the Report fields on the Loss Summary page. The Initial Loss Report you enter from claim to claim may not vary too much—the QuickList allows you to re-use a set of text, so that all you need to do is alter a few particulars. The QuickList feature can be used in both Symbility.NET and mobile claims—and QuickList text is kept synchronized between them.

 

First you need to build a QuickList. If you already know what text you'd like to have available for re-use, enter it on the QuickList page: Preferences|QuickList (in mobile claims, you do this in the Preferences dialog box—Tools|Preferences). To use the QuickList when you want to quickly input a bunch of text into any of the Report fields on the Loss Summary page (in either Symbility.NET or mobile claims), click the QuickList icon that appears beside the field label. The QuickList appears in a floating window—just click/tap the entry you want to insert into the Report field and the text immediately appears in the field. You can then insert another QuickList entry (it will be appended to any text currently there) or edit the text that was inserted. Note that you can also edit the contents of your QuickList using the Edit QuickList link that appears in the QuickList window.

 

The QuickList can be used in more places than just the Report fields—in fact anywhere you might find yourself using the same text over and over again:

• Report fields of the Loss Summary page (Symbility.NET and mobile claims) - use the QuickList icon.

• Manual journal entry field (Symbility.NET and mobile claims) - use the QuickList icon in Symbility.NET and QuickList command of context menu (tap-and-hold) in mobile claims.

• Photo and voice annotation captions in mobile claims - context menu

• Callout and textbox annotations on diagrams and photos - context menu

• Notes attached to items - context menu

• Item description in Item Properties dialog box - context menu

• Any field in a form - context menu

 

FEATURE 6559 – "File No." field now available to contractors that originate their own claims

Several releases ago we introduced a "File No." field on the Loss Summary page for those companies who were assigned a claim and wanted to attach their own identification number to the claim file instead of using the claim number. This field was available to enter data into when the claim was assigned by the originating insurance company, but was not available if your company originated the claim. The field will now be available in either case. As before, the contents of this field are unique to your company and will not be seen by any other company.

 

 

FEATURE 5995 – Ability to share your estimates with any other participating company

Estimates created by an assignee have always been able to be viewed by the claim originator (as long as they were marked as "complete"—and the same is true for estimates created by peers of an assignee). However, if an originator had wanted to share their estimate with with an assignee, or an assignee had wanted to share their estimate with another assignee, they were out of luck until now. Now any participant company in a claim can share their estimate, whether complete or not, with any other company also participating in the claim.

 

To share an estimate with another company who would normally not be able to see it, use the Share estimate with dropdown in the bottom right corner of the blue Estimate header either in Symbility.NET or in mobile claims (you do not need to have ownership of the claim) and synchronize (the other company must also synchronize before they will see the estimate). You can select one or multiple companies from the list. When your estimate is shared, the other company can view your estimate but cannot make changes to it. When you no longer want to share your estimate, uncheck the company in the Share estimate with dropdown list (again, you do not need to have ownership of the claim) and synchronize again.

 

 

FEATURE 5685 – Sub-branch offices

The ability for companies to create branches offices of the company's head office has been a popular feature in Symbility—the head office is afforded access to claims handled by any branch office and could create management reports using the data from the head office and/or or any company branches. The only drawback we found was that branches were only a single level deep. That is, a head office could have branch offices, but those branch offices could not also have their own branch offices.

 

Now branches can be any number of levels deep, so your branch offices can create their own branch offices, and their branch offices can create branch offices, and so on. Branches form a hierarchical structure, with each "parent" able to see and report on the claims handled by all "children" and their children's children. For instance, in this branch office structure:

• Canada (head office)

  • Ontario

    • Toronto

    • Ottawa

    • London

  • British Columbia

    • Victoria

    • Vancouver

    • Kelowna

  • Québec

    • Montréal

    • Québec City

    • Trois-rivières

The branch office "Ontario" has access to all claims created by the "Toronto", "Ottawa" and "London" branches, but the Canada head office has access to all claims created the head office as well as by all branches shown above.

 

To create a new branch office for your company and manage the list of existing branch offices, use the "Manage Branches" command in the Administration menu in Symbility.NET (available to company administrators only). If you would like to have one or more companies that already exist in Symbility to be added to your company as branch office, please have those companies contact Symbility technical support. 

 

Once your company has one or more branch offices, you can view claims originated by or participated in by those branch offices in your Claim List using the Advanced Search panel—select one or more branch offices from the Originator company/branch criteria field (only claims originated by your company are shown in the Claim List by default).

 

 

FEATURE 6385 – New information included in claim assignment notifications

We received several requests to put more information into the notifications that are sent (via SMS, pager, email, etc.) when you are assigned a claim or added as a new participant in a claim. Now these notifications include the insured's name, phone number and address. An example notification might be:

 

 

FEATURE 3692 – "Distance-to-wall" dimensions of subtractions now ignore missing walls

Subtractions (doors/windows/openings) always include a dimension for the distance from it to the walls in the room perpendicular to it, so that it can be placed accurately within the room. If one or more of those walls are "missing walls", it's difficult to measure the distance from it, especially for users of Disto laser rangefinders, which require an opaque surface to bounce the laser beam off. Recognizing this, the "distance-to-wall" dimensions will now ignore any missing walls, so that the dimension is measured from the next physical wall.

 

 

FEATURE 6430 – Minimum wall length reduced to 4"

By popular request, we've reduced the minimum length of a wall from 10" to 4". When dragging, walls will still snap to 10", but the length can be reduced to 4" using the feet/inches gizmo.

 

 

FEATURE 5082 – Ability to print the Loss Summary page

Finally, the Loss Summary page can be printed! It will print on two pages, with the last page used for the "Cause", "Damages" and "General Comments" reports. Just like the rest of your claim, use the Print to PDF command in Symbility.NET and Tools|Print in mobile claims. We have one final change to make to the printed Loss Summary page, which is to add a section summarizing the financials of the claim. Also, once our upcoming Form Editor is available, you will be able to design your own Loss Summary page that can be printed instead of needing to use our design.
 

 

FEATURE 1841 – Ability to set the height of multiple rooms at once

This is a handy shortcut for setting the height of multiple rooms at once. Just select multiple rooms at once and tap the height dimension for one of them. Enter the desired height (using a Disto or the feet/inches gizmo) and check the "All" checkbox that appears. All selected rooms will be set to that height.

 

 

FEATURE 4103 – Auto-orientation of stairs and offset (3-sided room) shapes

When drawing a new stair shape or 3-sided room shape (offset) adjacent to an existing room, the new shape will be automatically oriented such that the missing wall of the new shape is positioned so it shares the common wall (which is usually how you want the new room positioned). We recently did this for bay windows.

 

 

FEATURE 1780 – Floorplan properties dialog box

The new Floorplan Properties dialog box (access it via Tools|Floorplan properties..., or you can also tap-and-hold any blank space in the Floorplan) contains several properties of your Floorplan consolidated in one place.

Floorplan name - You can rename the Floorplan diagram here (it can still be renamed in the Claim Explorer).

Default ceiling height - enter the height to use for all rooms drawn from this point forward. Check "Reset" to change the height of all previously drawn rooms.

Default base molding height - enter the height to use for all base molding in rooms drawn from this point forward. Check "Reset" to change the base molding height of all previously drawn rooms.

Default casing width - enter the width to use for all subtractions added from this point forward. Check "Reset" to change the width of all previously added subtractions.

Default door/opening height - enter the height to use for all doors and openings added from this point forward. Check "Reset" to change the height of all previously added doors and openings.

Interior wall thickness - sets the thickness of all interior walls in the Floorplan (see below).

Exterior wall thickness - sets the thickness of all interior walls in the Floorplan (see below).

 

When drawing rooms and subtractions, any of these height/width properties may be changed at some time. mobile claims remembers a change you've made and uses it for additional rooms/subtractions added to the Floorplan as well. For example, if you draw a room and set the height to 10', the next room is also drawn with a height of 10'. If you don't want any changes you make outside the Floorplan Properties dialog box to be remembered, check the "Lock" option beside the property. That way if you set the ceiling height to be 8' in the Floorplan Properties dialog box, then later set one room to be 10' high, the default height for new rooms remains at 8'.

 

 

FEATURE 2112 – Ability to specify wall thickness (interior and exterior)

Symbility has always based the Floorplan editor on all walls being 4" thick. If the walls of the structure you're measuring were not 4" thick, then numerous workarounds were needed to make sure all dimensions lined up. Now the thickness of walls can be changed accordingly, and the thickness of interior walls and exterior walls can be set independent of one another.

 

 

FEATURE 527 – Exterior wall dimensions

Now that mobile claims handles wall thicknesses, it can provide accurate exterior wall dimensions. Whenever a room is selected that contains an exterior wall, the dimension of the entire exterior wall is labeled, and you can edit this dimension in the normal ways.

 

 

FEATURE 5468 – Ability to specify start point and "Business days only" for "Elapsed days to..." data types when plotting claim status elapsed days in report 

With the introduction of Analytics in version 2.2 you were able to create virtually any management report you could dream up. What seems to be most popular (at least among adjusters and franchise owners wanting to keep track of how the efficiency of mobile claims processing translates into faster claim settlement) is reports plotting the elapsed days to reach certain claim status milestones, using the data type Claim status - Elapsed days.

 

This used to plot the elapsed number of days to the status chosen measured always from the Date of Loss. Now you can select to plot the number of days from any prior status. You can also select to include only business days (excludes weekends) in the count.

 

 

FEATURE 5933 – New look for Symbility.NET announcements panel 

We have redesigned our announcements panel, where we deliver all news regarding Symbility software to our customers. The following improvements have been made:

• The announcements no longer scroll endlessly

• Only the headlines are shown—view the details by clicking a headline of interest

• Announcements that we consider important are now indicated with a red exclamation mark

• All current announcements can be viewed at once by clicking the "more..." link at the bottom.