How To Use The WIP List

This document discusses the use of the Work In Progress ( WIP List). The WIP List is like a central switch board for your operators. All contacts to be made for the day may be accessed through the To Do List displayed in each operator's WIP List.

You can set up your operators so that the WIP List loads as soon as they sign into Collect!.

The Work In Progress displays all the work each operator is scheduled to do. Each item is a Contact scheduled on an account that you want the operator to work. These contacts may be scheduled individually or through a contact plan. Scheduling of contacts is beyond the scope of this topic. Please refer to Help topic, Contacts Versus Contact Plans for details about that aspect.

The WIP List would seem overwhelming if all your contacts were shown at the same time. However, there are many possibilities in Collect! for managing and organizing your work through the WIP List, filtering the contacts and types of contacts, setting date ranges and time zones to display.

The demands of your business may require special settings for the WIP Options. We will discuss general principles in this document. You can refer to How To Setup the WIP List for further details. We will also mention several other areas in Collect! that you will want to be familiar with. All of these subjects are connected with the WIP List. Debtors, Status Codes, Mode, Priority, Contacts and Contact Types all play a part in what your WIP List displays. If you are using the Auto Dial feature, you will want to be familiar with that as well.

WIP List And Mode

The first and perhaps most significant point about the WIP List is that only Active accounts appear in WIP lists. If you have set the Debtor's Mode to Closed or Suspended, these accounts will not show even if they have contacts scheduled for the day. The Mode is set in the Debtor form's Mode field. All accounts that you are actively working should be set to ACTIVE Mode.

Contacts In The WIP List

Every item that is displayed in the WIP List is actually a Contact scheduled for the Debtor with a Due Date and a Type. The Type and Due Date determine if and when a Contact appears in the WIP List.

Work In Progress To Do List

Usually each Operator has their own WIP List. Contacts are generally assigned to the Operator who owns the Debtor account. Then the contact is displayed in the WIP List for that particular operator. If you were to load the contacts for a different operator, you would see all the contacts scheduled for that operator's accounts.

Items in the WIP List are contacts, not accounts. When you work the contact and mark it done, it disappears from the WIP List.

Please press F1 for more information about the WIP List. The general screen is called the Work In Progress and the actual list of contacts is called the To Do List.

Choosing A Way To View Your Contacts

The Work in Progress contains several settings which enable you to filter your Contacts or organize them. We will touch on these now.

Priority

Use this column to view your contacts according to order of priority. 99 is highest and 10 is lowest. Select High and the To Do List will show you the Contacts with the highest priority.

You can also use Priority to flag certain types of contacts pertaining to the way you do business. For instance, you might want to use Low Priority for your own particular filter, not necessarily meaning unimportant, but flagging certain contacts you want to be handled in a certain way.

Type

Maybe you have to make all your Phone calls before Noon. Choose Phone type and Collect! will display only this type of Contact for you to work.

Maybe you need to know at a glance, how many Review contacts need to be handled. Choose Review from the Type drop-down list and Collect! will show you.

You can set the Types of contacts you want to load by making choices in the WIP Options form.

Client

Filter your To Do List to only view contacts in your WIP List for the particular Client that you select.

Status

Choose a Debtor Status if you want to filter the list by Status. ACT, NEW, SKP and other Status Codes may be used. This Status is the current status of the Debtor account in your system. It is set in the Debtor form's Status field.

Sort Columns In The To Do List

Each column in the To Do List may be sorted. Select the column header to sort in one direction. Select the column header again to sort in the other direction. This is a very convenient and flexible way to organize and work your WIP contacts.

Reload

Press the RELOAD button to refresh your list. As you work your contacts and mark them done, you can refresh your list to see what you have left to do. Reload your list as often as you wish to view the latest information about your accounts. Changes are recorded automatically and show up whenever you press Reload.

WIP Options And Filters

There are many ways that you can customize what displays in each operator's WIP List.

Phone Contacts
You can set up your WIP List so that Collect! will automatically start dialing if the contact you select is a Phone Contact.

Time Zone
Set up your WIP List to load contacts for a particular Time Zone.

Force Feed Contacts
Set up your WIP List to feed contacts to the operator in a particular order. This means they have to work the accounts in the order that the contacts appear in the To Do List. You can also set the sort order so that contacts are force fed by Priority or Date.

Pick a Date Range
You can select a particular range of dates to load in your WIP List.

These are just a few of the settings you can use to control your WIP List functionality. Please refer to Help topics for WIP Options, WIP Reload Filters and Reload Work In Progress List for details.

Orphaned Accounts

Ensuring that you are working all your Active accounts regularly is an important consideration when using the WIP List. Ordinarily, when you work a contact, you mark it "Completed." You should always have at least one "In Progress" contact on each Active account in your database so that it does not get lost in your system, or "orphaned." By default, Collect! will prompt you to schedule a fresh contact as needed. Please refer to Help topic, Schedule Next Contact for more information.

Summary

The WIP List is like a central switch board for your operators. It should be a list that they can load each morning to see all their work for the day. As new contacts are scheduled, the WIP List can be reloaded to show all the latest activity. Many options exist for setting up this To Do List for your way of doing business. You can customize the settings differently for each operator or type of operator in your office.

See Also

- Working With Collect!
- How To Setup The WIP List (Administrative)