Trimble Business Center

A few things on this that I would like to be able to do here:

 1. Download all the workorders from a specified data collector locally to my PC - don't always have access to the internet or have really pour internet. Canada is pretty vast and coverage isn't great. Especially for remote projects. The constant loading when switching back and forth between collectors also takes too much time. I tend to import/process data for month end based on what the work order is (e.g. import/process all the subcut WOs in chronological order from each collector, then on to say subgrade, then sub-base, etc.)

2. The tiny window that we have to look through the workorders on a collector is ridiculous...I prefered the old popup window for the work order import. I didn't like how the size would always revert back to the small box and you had to adjust everytime, but at least you could adjust it.

3. A quick little indicator that shows if a workorder has been imported or not. My old process used to be to adjust the popup window to size for the WOs I had to deal with from a specific collector, take a screenshot and cross them out as they were processed. I also used to colour code/cross out WOs that didn't need importing in to that particular TBC drawing (compaction test locations, layout, etc.) so that I could just glaze over them and they weren't taking so much of my attention.

I'm sure there's more, but these are the first things that jumped out at me this morning as I started process through WOs for month end.


Thank you!
Katie

Hi Katie, 

Thank you for these suggestions.

I want to make sure that I am understanding number 2. Is this a pop box you are seeing in WorksManager, or on the data collector in SiteWorks?

Thank you,
Chad

Hey Chad,

Thank you for responding.

This is the box that you end up having to use with WM in TBC. I don't understand the organization of how they show the order or the WOs. I end up having to sort them each time and you only have that tiny window to find your WO you want to import. On top of that, if you want to switch to another data collector, it has to load again because it's online, If you close that window by accident, it has to load again because it's all online.
This is the old pop-up box that you used to have to import WOs into TBC via the old way when you could download locally to your computer. The nice thing with it, was that you saw everything that you had downloaded and could flip back and forth between collectors really easily to see what was on them/import. The only real grievance that I had with it was that when you adjusted the size of the window, it would revert back to this roughly 3.5"x3.5" box every time.


I just played with the old Office Synchronizer for a minute and changed the TCC settings in it (removed the workgroup folder name since WM doesn't support workgroups atm), and synched it down to my computer. Then it goes to my Trimble Synchronizer Data folder on my PC, which I can then import the old way if the job is also connected the old way. So a temporary workaround fix I guess you could say that at least gives you the option to work offline.



While processing a couple weeks worth of data the other day, and wanting to work in the order of as-built type (material, etc.), I ended up going to each data collector through the project in the WM browser, highlighting the WOs in batches (as it would only copy what was visible in the window, not everything you highlighted and scrolled out of view) and pasting it in Excel, then moveing the modified date for each WO to the column beside it (it wouldn't paste side by side in columns, just one after the other), and then colour coding from there. I actually liked having it in Excel better as then you can save it and add notes and still read the WO name. Whereas my old screen snip and strikeout method worked for the immediate moment, but doesn't help you when you're looking for something two years down the road.


Thank you, again!
Katie

For work order imports I use TCC Explorer, a Windows Explorer addon that gives you access to the file structure behind Worksmanager.

https://www.sitechsolutions.com/helpdesk/helpdeskdownloads/

That's the link to the download page.

Once you're logged in go to your Company File, then TrimbleSynchronizerData, you can then access all folders from all of the data collectors.

This means you can pick and choose the folders that you download or just bulk download them all and sort them locally.

Regards,

Matt

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Matthew Pitt
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Hey Matthew, thanks for the suggestion! We actually used to use the TCC backdoor all the time. Once upon a time, that was where we kept 95% of our documents as well until they were going to take it away (which obviously hasn't happened yet), then we switched all of that over to Google Drive as an alternative. Since then I have been trying to adapt to the new stuff in the hopes of helping it at least be as good as the old way haha hoping to have to go the least far back in time as possible. But you're right, that is another easy option that I did kind of forget about. I wasn't sure how well it would work now that we've moved on to Windows 11. Some of that older stuff gets pretty clunky as time goes on. Also trying to avoid dragging and dropping where I can for WOs.