Work In Progress

The Work In Progress (WIP) list displays all the work one operator has to do. If another operator signs on to Collect!, this WIP List would display all of that operator's work.

The WIP List can show as many contacts as you need. There are many possibilities for filtering the list and setting it up to help you organize your work. It is very flexible yet thorough and is directly linked to your entire web of contacts, reviews, and follow-ups. Every contact scheduled for every debtor is accessible from this list.

Work In Progress To Do List

By default, contacts are loaded with today's date at the top and then by oldest to newest dates. Contacts with the same Date are subsorted by Priority, from oldest to newest. Contacts with the same Priority are subsorted by Name and then by Type. Timed contacts always go below normal contacts and are sorted by Time.

Selecting a column heading in the WIP List enables you to sort and subsort contacts according to what you need. You can also select choices to filter the list by Priority, Status, Type or Client.

Supervisors may review the WIP List of any user by selecting the RELOAD button.

If a debtor does not have a pending contact, they will not show up on any operator's WIP List. Collect! refers to these "lost debtors" as " neglected debtors." There is a way to "reactivate" them but it is best to set a rule to always have at least one contact scheduled for any debtor you want to keep track of.

Learning to use the WIP List efficiently is one of the best ways to utilize Collect's wonderful contact management aspects. There are so many possible ways of building sub-WIP Lists to organize and arrange your work!

If you notice that the WIP List is displaying data erroneously, it may be that you have no contacts that meet the criteria you have set. Then Collect! will do the best it can to display information in a helpful way.

Contacts

Collect! calls every interaction that you schedule with your debtors a "Contact." It some other systems this is referred to as a "tickler."

Some types of contacts that can be scheduled include:

* Letter - Put a letter in the Daily Print queue to be printed and sent to a Debtor.

* Review -- Review a Debtor's account.

* Promise -- Set up promised payments from a Debtor.

* Phone -- Set up phone calls to contact a Debtor.

* Other -- Used for any purpose that you can think of.

For an explanation of all the contact types and help on scheduling contacts for your Debtors, press F1 when you are viewing the Contact form.

Contacts And The Work In Progress

Contacts are the backbone of the Work In Progress. From this To Do List, you work your accounts by working contacts. If you wish, you can build a sub-WIP List by filtering the complete WIP List to show only contacts meeting a certain set of criteria. Then you can choose other criteria, and work those contacts.

Each contact has a date and time when it appears in your WIP List, a type which indicates what type of Contact you are dealing with, and a description of the Contact. As you "work debtors" in your WIP List by "working" contacts, you will schedule new contacts, and the contact you are currently working will be marked as 'Done' to indicate that you have completed the task. A contact that is 'Done' disappears from the Work In Progress To Do List.

Only Active accounts appear in WIP Lists. Closed or Suspended accounts do not show even if they have contacts scheduled for the day. These modes are set in the Debtor form's Mode field.

Loading Your WIP List

When you start your WIP List, all contacts that are assigned to your ID will appear in your WIP List, based on the settings used. A Debtor may have several contacts assigned.

For example, a phone call could be scheduled for a collector and then a few days later a review by a supervisor. The contacts will appear in the WIP List of the assigned person.

When you work an account, you run contact plans to schedule contacts for your WIP List. When you use contact plans, your To Do List is actively maintained so that new contacts are entered into the list and appear on the graph as they are scheduled, and completed contacts are removed.

To view new contacts that fall into the criteria, reload.

By default, Collect! starts up by loading Promises, Reviews, Others and Phone calls scheduled for today and the past for your Operator ID from the database. You can change load settings by selecting the Reload button.

List Of Contacts To Work

The part of the Work In Progress form that lists the contacts is called the To Do List. Click on this list to activate it and press F1 for help. Each item in the list represents one contact. You can select an item to view the complete details of the contact, work the account, even begin a phone dialing routine if you are setup for Auto Dialer.

Click on the heading of any column to sort the To Do List by that column. One click sorts in Ascending order. Click again to sort in Descending order. This is very nice to quickly find the High Priority if you prefer to be set in Date or Type order.

Work In Progress To Do List

Sub WIP List

The To Do List can be filtered to show only those contacts that you want to work at a given time. Notice the top part of the Work In Progress form. Several of the fields are choices that can be selected to build a sub-WIP List. We will look at them now.

Several different combinations of selections are possible to build a sub-WIP List.

Priority

Choose the priority of the contacts to display. Choosing ALL ignores the contact Priority and displays contacts regardless of Priority.

You can set a contact's priority level when you schedule or edit a contact, and for individual events within a contact plan when you set up the plan.

Priority levels are as follows:

66 to 99 - High
34 to 65 - Medium
1 to 33 - Low

All

This selection displays ALL contacts regardless of Priority. Choose contacts by priority to create Sub WIP Lists. Press the Spacebar to select.

By default contacts are listed regardless of Priority.

High

Choose High to display contacts with Priority from 66 to 99. Choose contacts by Priority to create Sub WIP Lists. Press the Spacebar to select.

By default contacts are listed regardless of Priority.

Medium

Choose Medium to display contacts with Priority from 34 to 65. Choose contacts by priority to create Sub WIP Lists. Press the Spacebar to select.

By default contacts are listed regardless of Priority.

Low

Choose Low to display contacts with Priority from 1 to 33. Choose contacts by Priority to create Sub WIP Lists. Press the Spacebar to select.

By default contacts are listed regardless of Priority.

Type

Pick a Type of contact from the drop-down list to display only contacts of that Type in your To Do List. Click the down arrow to view the pick list choices or press F2 or press the spacebar.

Filtering your contacts by Type is a convenient way to organize your work load. For instance, you might want to make your phone calls in the morning. Choose Phone to see only those contacts. Or perhaps, you want to handle all of your reviews, Choose Review to see only those contacts.

If you can't find the contact types you are looking for, select the Reload button to control the contacts that are loaded into your WIP.

Client

You can create a sub-WIP List for a specific Client. Simply select the down arrow to the right of the field to select a Client. When you select a Client in the Client list, your To Do List is automatically filtered to display only contacts for that Client's Debtors.

Status

Press F2 to pick a Status Code.

When you pick a Status Code, the To Do list will only display contacts with that specific status. The list is updated as soon as you make a choice.

Press the Spacebar to clear the status.

A yellow 'S' will display in the status bar at the bottom of the Collect! screen, when the To Do List you are viewing is a sub-WIP List and not the complete list of contacts.

Date Range

You can view contacts scheduled for a single day, a week, a month, or a year at a time.

This option is set in the WIP Reload Filters form. Set the Look Ahead Days to suit your needs.

If there are contacts scheduled for today, then only today's contacts are shown by default. You can change that manually after it is first displayed. If there are no contacts requiring attention for this date, Collect! displays the month or the year, depending on the dates of contacts requiring attention. The spacebar or mouse click selects a date range. The graph displays your selection.

From

This is the month of the earliest contact.

It's set to the first day of the month of the earliest contact found.

To

This is usually today's date, and is the most recent date the system has searched for contacts.

Start And End Dates

These dates are set automatically by Collect! depending on the date range (see above). When you change one of the dates, the other will change appropriately, depending on the range setting. Use the arrow buttons to the right of the dates to change the dates.

Total

This field displays the total number of contacts in your WIP List. This is the number of accounts loaded into the list. The To Do List may contain a Sub WIP, which will contain only some of the items loaded based on your selection of Dates, contact Types, Status and Priority.

Graph

This list shows the contacts you have loaded from the database.

Total includes all uncompleted contacts for today, past, and the future if you've loaded those too. Contacts are also shown by basic type. Note that promises for the past are broken promises while promises for today are due today.

Work In Progress

The To Do List displays pending contacts assigned to you. You can select which contacts are displayed by choosing the various criteria shown at the top left of the Work In Progress form or using the Reload command. Press F5 to move to the To Do List and then press the Enter key to open the Debtor form associated with the contact or, select a contact to open the Debtor form. Press F1 for help on the To Do List when it is activated.

Press Escape to exit from the To Do List and move onto the criteria selection controls in the top half of the Work In Progress form.

Reload

Select this button to reload your current contact list and load contacts for date ranges you specify, for other operator IDs, for specific clients or other settings.

WIP Reload Filters and WIP Options are both accessed through the Reload Work In Progress List form that opens when you press the Reload button. You can also control the behavior of the WIP List, for instance dial phone settings.

You SHOULD reload your WIP often so that it always shows most current contacts loaded in your To Do List.

Exit

Select this button to close the Work In Progress form. You will return to the Main Menu or the Welcome to Collect! screen depending on your Access Rights.

If your supervisor has modified your system startup defaults, a dialog may pop up stating that you have no rights to leave this database.

See Also

- How To Start Using Collect!
- How To Use The WIP List
- How To Setup The WIP List
- How To Manage Contacts
- Reload Work In Progress List
- To Do List
- WIP Reload Filters
- WIP Options
- Auto Dialer Preferences