SmartTrade Blog

What is happening at SmartTrade

SmartTrade Blog

News and views from the SmartTrade crew.

News and Announcements

SmartTrade news and announcements

Posted by on in News and Announcements

It’s footy season again across Oz and NZ so here’s some jokes about the 3 major oval ball codes!

First a Rugby Union joke!

14

Two elderly Kiwis, Leo and Frank, had been best friends all of their lives. When it was clear that Leo was dying, Frank visited him every day.

One day Frank said, “Leo, we both loved Rugby all our lives, we played together all through school and for the local rugby club afterwards and after we retired we still attended every Rugby game we could and we followed the All Blacks all around the world. Please do me one favour when you get to Heaven. Somehow you must let me know if it’s true Rugby’s the game they play in Heaven.”

Leo looked up at Frank from his deathbed and said, “Frank, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favour for you.”

Shortly after that, Leo passed on.

A few nights later, Frank was awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him, “Frank! Frank!”

“Who is it?” asked Frank sitting up suddenly. “Who is it?”

“Frank, it's me, Leo.”

“You're not Leo! Leo just died.”

“I'm telling you, it's me, Leo”, insisted the voice.

“Leo! Where are you?” said Frank.

“In Heaven”, replied Leo, “I have some really good news and some not so good news.”

“Tell me the good news first”, said Frank.

“The good news”, Leo said, “it’s true Rugby’s the game they play in in Heaven!

“Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before us are here, and we all play Rugby!!”

“Better than even that, it's always warm and it never rains or snows, the grounds are always in perfect condition!!!”

“Even better still, we're all young again and we never get tired or injured!!!!”

“And best of all the after-match beers are free!!!!!”

“That's fantastic,” said Frank. “It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news Leo?”

“You're listed in the run-on side next Saturday!”


Next an Australian Rules joke which epitomises the fact AFL supporters are more passionate than we Kiwis are about Rugby!

15

A family of dyed in the wool Hawthorn supporters head out shopping one Saturday before Christmas. They are in a Rebel Sports shop, the young son picks up a Collingwood guernsey and says to his older sister, “I've decided I'm going to be a Collingwood supporter, I'd like this Collingwood guernsey for Christmas” (for non-Australians “guernsey” is their name for a footy jersey).

The sister is outraged at this, whacks him round the head and says, “Go talk to your mother.” Off goes the little lad, with the Collingwood guernsey in hand and finds his mother. “Mum?”

“Yes son?”

“I've decided I'm going to be a Collingwood supporter and I'd like this Collingwood guernsey for Christmas.”

The mother is outraged at this, whacks him round the head and says, “Go talk to your father.” Off he goes with the Collingwood guernsey in hand and finds his father, “Dad?”

“Yes son?”

“I've decided I'm going to be a Collingwood supporter and I would like this Collingwood guernsey for Christmas.”

The father is outraged at this, whacks his son round the head and says, “No son of mine is ever going to be seen in THAT!”

Half an hour later, they are all back in the car heading home. The father turns to the son and says, “Son, I hope you've learned an important lesson today?”

The son turns to his father and says, “Yes, Dad, I have!”

Father says, “Good son, and what is it?”

The son replies, “I've only been a Collingwood supporter for half an hour and already I hate you Hawthorn b*****ds!!!!”


Then a Rugby League joke!

16

What does the Kiwi rugby league team do when they’re playing the Kangaroos and their captain tells them to assume their normal positions?

Line up behind the goalposts to wait for the conversion, of course!


Finally, another Rugby Union joke to celebrate the forthcoming British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand!

17

The Archbishop of Cantebury is a fanatical Rugby Union supporter so comes to New Zealand to watch the British & Irish Lions rugby team playing the All Blacks.

Between matches the Archbishop goes to the beach. Shortly after arriving at the beach he spots a commotion just off-shore. A helpless man, wearing an English rugby supporter’s jersey, is struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a 20 foot White Pointer.

As the Archbishop watches in horror, a boat with three men wearing Welsh, Irish and Scottish rugby supporter’s jerseys races from the shore. The Irishman quickly fires a harpoon into the shark's side while the Scotsman and Welshman reach out and pull the hapless Englishman from the water. Then, using long clubs, the three men beat the shark to death and haul it into the boat.

Immediately the Archbishop shouts to summon all three men to come and see him, “I give you my divine blessing for your brave actions” says the Archbishop.

“I always thought there was bitter hatred between the English and Celtic rugby fans, but now I have seen with my own eyes the proof that you can bond in the spirit of true brotherly love to support the British Lions.”

As the Archbishop drives off, the catholic Irishman asks his mates, “Who was that?”

“It was the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s the head of the Anglican Church”, replies the protestant Scotsman. “He is in direct contact with God and has access to all of God's wisdom.”

”Well”, the Irishman says, “he may have access to God and his wisdom, but he doesn't know anything about shark fishing! Is the bait holding up OK? Or do we need to go get another Englishman?”

Major changes to New Zealand’s Health and Safety laws took effect on 4 April 2016!

ln this article we give a general introduction to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) then focus on the following two aspects of the Act:
  • worker participation - Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) and Health and Safety Committee (HSCs); and
  • the need to notify WorkSafe NZ prior to the commencement of particular hazardous works.

Seek advice!

We strongly recommend SmartTrade’s New Zealand customers visit the WorkSafe New Zealand site and get professional advice, to make sure they have an in-depth understanding of how the (HSWA) will affect their business.


An introduction to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015
The Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) was enacted in August 2015 with most provisions of the Act taking effect on 4 April 2016. The new Act is based on the Australian Model Work Health and Safety Act.
The HSWA shifts the focus from monitoring and recording health and safety incidents to proactively identifying and managing risks. The primary duty of care is now on the business itself rather than the
employers or principals to ensure the health and safety of workers and others affected by the work it carries out. Key changes introduced by the new law include:
  • Introducing a new legal concept of a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). A PCBU will usually be a business entity, such as a company, rather than an individual;
  • Imposing a new due diligence obligation on officers. Officers are directors and other people who make governance decisions that significantly affect a business;
  • Imposing a new duty to take “reasonably practicable steps”;
  • Including a new object of securing workers’ health and safety;
  • Promoting continual improvement and good practice, benchmarked on internationalstandards;
  • Implementing a presumption in favour of the highest level of protecting workers from harm;
  • Increasing the penalties for noncompliance.
The actions your business needs to take include:
  • Identifying health and safety hazards and risks, and taking steps to prevent these from happening;
  • Making sure health and safety in your business is led from the top, has involved and is understood by your staff, and is reviewed regularly;
  • Holding regular training on health and safety matters;
  • Engaging workers in health and safety matters that affect them;
  • Supporting all officers to get up to date with health and safety issues and key risk factors;
  • Reporting and monitoring health and safety goals;
  • Regularly reviewing any incidents;
  • Carrying out frequent health and safety audits.

SmartForms, an excellent tool for managing workplace safety compliance in the field!

The ever increasing complexity of workplace safety and compliance requirements means more and more forms are needed to be completed and managed.
SmartTrade Mobile’s SmartForms feature enables businesses to complete workplace safety checklists on Android or IOS smart devices and store the resulting SmartForms in the cloud.
SmartForms can be emailed to your client, your clients can be setup to view their SmartForm results in the SmartGate online portal. SmartGate is a SmartTrade Ultimate feature, you need to have at least one SmartGate Ultimate licence to be able to use this feature.

For more information about SmartForms please contact our sales team.
Au 1800 350 495, NZ 0800 327 943 or email us at [email protected]

Capture

Worker Participation - Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) and Health and Safety Committee (HSCs)
The Act requires businesses to engage with workers so they can contribute to health and safety on an ongoing basis, this is an absolute requirement so there’s no escaping it. To facilitate this outcome the Act introduces Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) and Health and Safety Committee (HSCs).
One of the most asked question is do I need to organise the election of a Health and Safety Representative or setup a Health and safety Committee? The rules are:
All businesses with 20 or more workers, or who are in one of the  high-risk sectors or industries listed in the Regulations, must:
  • arrange the election of HSRs if requested by a worker, and
  • consider whether existing worker participation practices are sufficiently effective and whether to set up an HSC if one is requested by an HSR or five or more workers.
    Schedule 2 of the Act lists high-risk sectors or industries as:
  • Aquaculture
  • Forestry and logging
  • Fishing, hunting, and trapping
  • Coal mining
  • Food product manufacturing
  • Water supply, sewerage, and drainage services
  • Waste collection, treatment, and disposal services
  • Building construction
  • Heavy and civil engineering construction
  • Construction services
Accordingly, SmartTrade users working in any of the defined high-risk sectors, and those not in a high-risk sector but having 20 or more workers, will be obliged to elect HSRs or setup HSCs if requested to do so by workers. Many SmartTrade users will fall into the Building Construction and Construction services categories.

If a business asked by a worker to elect HSR(s) refuses to do so because it employs less than 20 workers and is not working in a defined high-risk sector it must give the worker written notice of its decision within reasonable time.

Notifying WorkSafe NZ of particular hazardous works

Businesses may not know that they’re legally required to notify WorkSafe NZ at least 24 hours prior to the commencement of a particular hazardous work.

Notifiable work is defined by the regulations as:

  • Any restricted work, as that term is defined in regulation 2(1) of the Health and Safety in Employment (Asbestos) Regulations 1998:
  • Any logging operation or tree-felling operation, being an operation that is undertaken for commercial purposes:
  • Any construction work of one or more of the following kinds:

a. Work where workers could fall five metres or more, excluding work on a two-storey house, or work on a power or telephone line, or work carried out from a ladder only, or maintenance or repair work of a minor or routine nature;

b. The erection or dismantling of scaffolds from which a person could fall five metres or more;

c. Every excavation more than 1.5m deep in which people are required to work and which is deeper than it is wide at the top;

d. Any form of tunnel or drive where workers work underground, irrespective of timbering or support;

e. Those excavations where the excavated face is steeper than one horizontal to two vertical;

f. Any construction work where explosives are used or stored;

g. Work such as diving, where construction workers breathe air or any other gas that has been compressed or is under pressure;

h. Lifts of half a tonne (500 kg) or more a vertical distance of 5 m or more carried out by use of a lifting appliance other than by a mobile crane, excavator or forklift.

Particular Hazardous Work Notification SmartForm available!

SmartTrade Mobile users wishing to complete Particular Hazardous Work notifications electronically and email these to WorkSafe NZ can purchase the applicable SmartForm for $ 95 plus GST. The price includes our customising the SmartForm with your company logo plus any minor modifications you want made, provided the modifications are advised to us within a month of us emailing you the SmartForm.

For more information about SmartForms please contact our sales team.
Au 1800 350 495, NZ 0800 327 943 or email us at [email protected]

ss

  • Any restricted work, as that term is defined in regulation 2(1) of the Health and Safety in Employment (Asbestos) Regulations 1998:

Posted by on in News and Announcements

Voice Recognition Dictation into SmartTrade Mobile 
Dictate text into SmartTrade Mobile using the voice recognition feature on your smart device!

Most modern smart devices enable the user to dictate text using voice recognition.

Voice recognition dictation works with SmartTrade Mobile so give it a try, a little practice and you will be a wiz!

SmartTrade users will be amazed how much time can be saved dictating notes rather than having to type them in, it even autocorrects possible spelling mistakes! Voice recognition can even be used for entering numbers which is particularly useful when entering data into SmartForms.

Important!

  1. Not all smart devices are the same so you will need to check out your device’s capabilities!
  2. Using the smart device’s native voice recognition service will consume data if your device is connected through the cellular network! For more information about how this works see below.

Voice Recognition – how to use it

11   On Android Devices(shown on a Samsung
  Galaxy  S5)

  Using the native functionality:

  1. Tap in the field you want to insert text into [1]
  2. Tap on the microphone icon [2]
  3. Start dictating.
  4. Tap on the microphone icon to stop the dictation [2]
  5. Edit the message if needed.

 To download an offline app:

  1. Go to “Language and Input” in the Settings.
  2. Tap on "Download offline speech recognition" under the "Voice Search".
  3. Choose the language pack you want your Android device to recognize.
  4. Download the pack and start using the offline voice recognition functionality.
 
qwwq   On Apple Devices - shown on an iPhone 5s
  Using the native functionality:
  1. Make sure Siri is enabled - Settings > General > Siri
  2. Tap in the field you want to insert text into to open the keyboard [1]
  3. Tap on the microphone icon [2]
  4. Start dictating, the text won’t appear yet
  5. Tap on Done, both work, to stop the dictation [3]
  6. The text will appear in the text field [4]
  7. Edit the message using the keyboard if need be.

   To download the offline app –
   available on iPhone 6
 and later devices!

  1. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard
  2. Scroll down to Dictation. If you own a supported device that is set to the right language, you should be able to download the offline dictation files from here. This will take a couple of minutes and take up some space on your device, which is why they recommend enabling it only if needed, and the available device storage space allows for it!
 
ggg

I 

Voice Recognition - data use

  1. 1. Using the device’s native voice recognition will use data if your device is connected through the cellular network, the data is sent to the cloud to be processed and returned to the device. You will need 3G connectivity or higher.
  2. 2. Wi-Fi usually gives you better results and means data isn’t being consumed on your phone account, data on your internet account is still being used.
  3. 3. You can download voice recognition apps so the voice to text processing is done offline thereby avoiding using online data. Instructions on how to do this are shown below. The app will take up space on your smart device and may affect performance.
I 

Voice Recognition – tips (from the Apple website)

Talk into the microphone: You don’t need to speak very loudly; but you should keep your smart device close to your mouth, especially if you’re outdoors. On an iPhone are two microphones at the bottom, but only a single microphone on iPads, located at the top of the device. It’s not easy to speak directly into the iPad mic while looking at the screen. Speak into the tiny hole at the top of your tablet.

You’ll find dictation in noisy environments works much better with an iPhone, because it’s easier to speak close to the microphone. The iPhone also has a noise-cancelling mic, which filters out background noises. You might find that the Apple earbuds that come with an iPhone—which have an inline mic—offer better speech recognition, as do third-party headphones with mics, as long as you hold them fairly close to your mouth. The problem is Apple didn’t give the iPhone 7 an air phone jack.

Dictate when connected to Wi-Fi: Dictation to an iOS device requires that your voice be sent to a server, where it is recognized and transcribed, and then sent back to your iOS device. For this reason, dictating to an iOS device works best when you’re using Wi-Fi; it also works well with a 3G connection; but anything slower is hit or miss, in my experience.

Speak clearly: You don’t need to speak especially slowly, but speaking too quickly will lead to errors. The general idea is to talk like a newscaster: Enunciate, but don’t exaggerate.

Don’t say too much: Your voice has to be sent to a remote server, so keep your dictation segments under 30 seconds. (Longer than that might be too much for a 3G connection.)

Speak punctuation and symbols: To include punctuation in your dictation, you need to say “comma,” “period,” “hyphen,” and so on. Watch out for language differences. For instance, if you’re using British English, you need to say “full stop” instead of “period.”

You can say “new line” to dictate a return character, and “new paragraph” to add two returns. You say “apostrophe” for a possessive noun, such as “Jerry Garcia apostrophe S guitar,” for Jerry Garcia’s guitar.

You’ll also say things like “dollar sign,” “euro sign,” and “pound sterling sign” to get type the corresponding symbols.

When you want to capitalize a word, say “cap.” If you’re sending a message to someone about a movie preference, for example, you might say “I’d like to watch cap lord of the cap rings.”

Take advantage of autocorrect: While you can’t correct mistakes in iOS dictation by voice, you will occasionally see words that iOS thinks might be incorrect. They appear with dotted blue lines underneath them. Tap an underlined word or phrase, and you’ll see one or more options you can choose from.

Add emoticons: Do you want to type smileys? It’s easier to dictate them than to switch to the number keyboard. Just say “smiley,” “winky,” or “frowny,” for :-) , ;-) , or :-( .

Proof read what you dictate: While some errors will be obvious, and other misinterpretations may have blue dotted lines highlighting them, there will be typos—or, more correctly, speech-o’s.

As you get used to dictating into your iPhone or iPad, you’ll figure out the right cadence and volume to get the most precise recognition. If you need to type a lot on an iOS device, try using dictation. Whether you use it for text messages or emails, it may save you a lot of time.


If you want a more comprehensive beginners guide to voice recognition dictation have a look at this article.

https://zapier.com/blog/best-text-dictation-software/

Spell Checking on SmartTrade Essential and Ultimate

I 

tinySpell - a free spell checker that works with SmartTrade Essential and Ultimate

We sometimes get asked why SmartTrade Essential and Ultimate, our office based software solutions, don’t incorporate a spell checker. The reason is there are a many free online spell checkers that do a better job than we could do with our own spell checker.

Our favourite free online spell checker is tinySpell, you can get it at http://tinyspell.com/.

It’s easy to install and use so if you need a spell checker give it a try. If you want more information on tinySpell, an online search will throw up plenty of reviews.

Posted by on in News and Announcements

We’ve just released a software upgrade – here’s the new stuff in SmartTrade!

SmartTrade Mobile - in the Field

Invoicing on SmartTrade Mobile is now available!

Mobile users will now be able to:

Create an invoice on the job from the Job Sheet tab;

Confirm invoices;

Preview the invoice;

Get a signature on the invoice (optional); and

Email the invoice to the customer.

In the last release we added:

Quoting on the job; and

Downloading a SmartForm from the cloud to SmartTrade Mobile.

The feature additions allow you to undertake a comprehensive job workflow on SmartTrade Mobile:

Create a new customer and site;

Create a new job;

Create a quote and email it to the customer;

Accept a quote;

Complete the job including:

Add materials, including MyData kitsets;

Download a SmartForm, complete the form, email a PDF copy to the customer;

Attach photos to the job or SmartForm;

Update assets (Assets is a SmartTrade Ultimate feature);

Raise order numbers;

Complete and return timesheets; and

Create an invoice, preview it, get the customer’s signature and email the invoice to the customer.

Free “customer satisfaction survey” SmartForm!

Customer Satisfaction Survey form – this SmartForm is available at no cost, you can find more
           information in the article about SmartForms. If you want to use this form please get back to
           us and we will add your company logo to it, again at no cost. If you have any suggestions how
           the form could be improved don’t hesitate to tell us!

Click here to open the latest version of the "Guide to working with SmartTrade Mobile"

SmartTrade Essential & Ultimate - in the Office

SmartTrade Discovery

You can now self-audit which SmartTrade features and functionalities you are using to make sure you
          aren’t missing out on stuff your business could benefit from.

IT’S SIMPLE – NO REASON NOT TO DO IT! THIS MAY BE ONE OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE THINGS YOU DO THIS YEAR!

Find out more about SmartTrade Discovery.

Customisable fields

New field type "URL".

Timesheets

Edit an approved timesheet and automatically set to unapproved.

Jobs

Allow adding and editing of dispatched initial Job notes.

Sub-Jobs

New "Search for... Sub-jobs" option available while editing jobs;

Create sub-job - four new tick box options:

re

Click here to open the "A short guide to Sub-Jobs"

Posted by on in News and Announcements

To finish on a bit of humour

David Cameron, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin all die and go to Hell. As they arrive at the gates of Hell they spy a golden phone and ask the Devil what the phone is for. The Devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth.

Obama asks to call the US and talks for an hour. When he is finished the Devil informs him that the standard Hell to Earth call charge is 1 million US dollars per hour, so Obama writes a cheque for 1 million USD.

Putin calls Russia and talks for two hours. When he is finished the Devil informs him that the standard call charge for two hours is 2 million US dollars, which converts to 100 million rubles, so Putin writes a cheque for 100 million rubles.

Finally, David Cameron gets his turn and talks to the UK for 4 hours. When he is finished the Devil informs him that the standard call charge is 12p.

Obama and Putin go ballistic and demand to know the why Cameron got to call the UK virtually free when it cost them 1 million US dollars an hour?

The Devil smiles and replies:

"After BREXIT the UK went to hell, it's now a local call to the UK!"


THE WILL

Doug Smith is on his deathbed and knows the end is near.

His nurse, his wife, his daughter and two sons are with him.

So, he says to them:

"Bernie, I want you to take the Mayfair houses."

"Sybil, you take the apartments over in the east end."

"Jamie, I want you to take the offices over in the City Centre."

"Sarah, my dear wife, please take all the residential buildings on the banks of the river."

The nurse is just blown away by all this and, as Doug slips away she says, "Mrs Smith, your husband must have been such a hard-working man to have accumulated all this property."

Sarah replies, "Property? .... The asshole had a paper run."