Hey BC'ers! Over the last 1-2 years, I've been slowly developping my stringjob logging platform to keep track of my work and keep a history of my customers' rackets and stringjobs. I decided to make it a website so that everyone would be able to access it anywhere, mobile device or computer, provided that they are connected to internet. The website is free, but keep in mind that no one but me and my staff has used it yet, so there might be some bugs left around! MyStringJobs.com allows you to: Manage your customers Manage your stringjobs Quickly see what racket you need to string next depending on who needs it first and who brought it in first. Know who still needs to pay for their stringjob Check out the racket and stringjob history of each of your customers See your turnover rate over the last month and overall Print work orders and receipts for all your string jobs Allow multiple stringers to have access to the same company account, with each of them having different login information. I plan on adding a lot of new features in the future such as email alerts when a string job is complete, more statistics regarding strings used and tension used as well as some stats about SBS if it is requested. While there are other platforms that do about the same thing, I thought that they were all too simple or too complicated, or too limiting in their platform (local computer only, mobile only, etc.). I created the website for my own purpose and I needed it to be globally accessible, simple and very fast to use. Once a customer and its racket are already in the system, I can enter the new stringjob in the system in less than 10 seconds, and since customers are always in a hurry, they're happy to be in and out in under a minute. I have been using the system myself for more than a year now and I find it does the job well for my situation. But keep in mind that I'm a store owner and that most customers come see me in store, so the focus has been to make the website work well in that situation. All in all, if you were looking for a platform you could use from your computer, I think this is the best option right now. Here are some screenshots of the website: https://goo.gl/photos/YYr9mcqZttkBytHW6 Link to the website: http://www.mystringjobs.com I hope you like it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here!
That is simply awesome! I was looking near and far for anything comparable (without success), started (and failed) to set up my own database so I'm still stuck to good old Excel. Which is okay to track the string jobs, but is of course missing things like printing receipts or properly managing customers. So of course I didn't waste a second to get an account and started toying around with it. Interface looks nicely clean. Adding customers worked fine, but I directly hit a failure when I wanted to add a second racket to a customers profile (Windows 7/Firefox): The same thing happens when I want to enter and "complete" a string job. Apart from these getting-started hickups, I see a lot of potential. And if I had to make a wish list for future updates, it would look like this: - import function for old string jobs - add ping frequency fields in string jobs - extra "string warehouse" section where you can track your current string stock (incl. material cost per set) - more financial data like price payed, material cost and profit per string job (plus monthly/yearly statistics). Maybe include the financial stuff in an "advanced view" for the string job to avoid customers from seeing this kind of stuff by accident in the shop And one question: What does "SBS" mean? EDIT: Just logged out and in again and the failures seen before haven't appeared again. Overall, I'm very impressed already. Really, really well done!
Very nice! Wish this had been around when I first started. I haven't tried it as I use a google sheet that does everything I need, but I bet lots of people will find this useful! BTW @s_mair - Stringbed Stiffness
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! In the last 2 days, I've worked on it a lot to make it more public ready, and unfortunately I had to remake a major part of the application because something I was using wasn't up to date anymore. As a result, some bugs were introduced during that time and I think the bugs you mentionned are part of them. I'll look into it tonight, sorry for the hiccups! As far as Ping Frequency, I figured that stringers could use the SBS field for ping frequency or for actual SBS. So I'd recommed putting your frequency in there, but if you or someone else would like to use both SBS and Frequency, let me know, I'll add an extra field! And for the financial data, I intentionally kept all financial data (outside of "Paid") out of the website to keep it simple. Something I didn't like about the other options around was that they imposed some financial stuff like stock keeping and billing when I just needed something to keep track of stringjobs and nothing else. I do want to add these options in the future, maybe as a module to not impact the complexity of the website for everyone. I'll post an update as soon as the fix is live!
The bug you experienced with adding a second racket is now fixed. I was however not able to reproduce the second bug with the stringjob and for some reason the system did not log the error, so if you encounter it again, please let me know how you made it happen and I'll fix it asap!
Okay, so here we go again. Adding more rackets is now working well. However when I wanted to add a string job, I ran into the same failure again: I created the string job and directly hit "complete" before saving it. Looks like that was the reason since it has now worked fine with first saving it and then hit "complete". Regarding the other stuff, personally I'm fine with using the SBS field for the ping frequency. Would be nice if that field showed up in the stringjob listing overview. Leaving the financial stuff out is understandable since it seriously enlarges the complexity of the application and there are a lot of users that wouldn't be using it anyway. Maybe it's really an idea to implement it in a separate module as kind of an "advanced mode". The string warehouse on the other hand would be really nice and shouldn't be that complicated to implement. There's another feature that came to my mind which could be useful. Sometimes you discover certain things on a racket during the string job (like broken or almost broken grommets, damages/cracks) that you should keep in mind before the next string job or that makes that racket special in terms of pattern or process. If you put in those things in the comment field of a string job, it would be so nice to have that comment re-appear automatically as you enter the next job for the same racket. Kind of an alert feature. Not sure if that needs a separate field or if it would be enough to implement a check box in the sense of "keep comment for next job". Oh, and maybe adding a pre-stretch field would also be a good thing.
So I'm now tracking my string jobs in my own Excel sheet and in parallel in MyStringJobs.com. And I have so say that doing it via the website definitely has its advantages. First of all, I don't really need my worksheets anymore. I enter the client/racket data via mobile phone when I receive the racket (e.g. during or right after club night), so there is not more need for any paperwork. I found there is still a lot of potential in the visual clarity of the page when it's used with a mobile device. Here's an example screenshot (iOS/Safari on an iPhone 5S): So it happens quite a lot of times that I literally got lost somewhere in between the input fields and that I'm not getting a one-glance overview when I'm actually strining the racket. So maybe a first stept would be simply to reduce the standard font size for the mobile version. What might also help is to be able to let each use customize, which fields are needed. For example, I will never use the fields weight, balance point, swing weight when I enter a new racket, so they basically just eat up a lot of screen surface. What would also make sense is to keep the "Date created" and "Date completed" field pre-filled with the current date, but still editable. Sometimes you still need some time to enter the new job or to mark it as finished. And this will then ruin your delay stats. Overall, I'm still missing some small features that I'm used to from my custom Excel sheet, but there's a high chance that I will switch to your website in near future if some minor things will be added.
Yes the mobile experience definitely needs to be improved. It is definitely a planned improvement that I'd like to see soon, as right now it is the biggest disadvantage! Other features will also come, if I'm lucky I'll be able to work on it a little this weekend! Thanks for the feedback!
You're welcome, I'm glad my feedback is of some use. I'm looking forward to seeing the page improve step by step.
And here we go again: 1) There should be a "view" button in the dashboard for each string job to directly access it (e.g. to add ping frequency) 2) I need to log in again and again after very short periods if inactivity. I wish there would be a "stay logged in" checkbox. And on top of that, I just can't make my iPhone remember my login and password. No matter what I do, the field remain empty. Weird.
You can click on the "Order ID" and it will send you to that stringjob's page. As for #2, I'm not sure what's going on with that. I have it set up so it logs you out after 4 hours of inactivity. I don't have an iPhone, so I'll have trouble testing that, but I'll try to see what's happening.
I've had some time to make some changes: (NEW) Added a pre-stretch value field to Stringjobs as well as a default pre-stretch value in the company profile options. (NEW) It is now possible to see customer and racket notes from the stringjob page. (BUG FIX) Entering an invalid racket number in the quick New stringjob field on the dashboard should no longer cause an error.
I added the SBS column on the stringjob listing page like you requested. I also added a Remember Password option on the login page. It will not fix your getting logged off issue, but it should make it less annoying. Could it be possible that your iPhone does not accept cookies or something of the sort ?
Damn, you're quick. The remember password feature does work perfectly already, thanks. I'll check if the cookie setting might have anything to do with the repeated timeouts. Any chance you are going to make the "date created" and "date completed" fields editable?
Yes, I will add this possibility soon. This one takes a little more time to implement, but hopefully I can do it by next week.
Really Cool Website, Great Work! One thing i mentioned is that if you have a customer with more than one Racket of the Same Manufacturer and Type its a little bit hard to determine which one you are choosing for a new String Job. It would be great if the displayed Name in the Dropdown for choosing the racket would be "Brand Type (serial)" instead of "Brand Type (random number)".
Hi there! Thanks for the feedback! The number next to the racket is a unique identifier for the racket. This number allows you to quickly create a stringjob for that racket the next time the customer comes in. In our case, every racket we string has a sticker on the buttcap with the strings, tension, date and racket number, so when the customer comes back, we just enter that number on the dashboard and in less than a second we're already creating a new stringjob for that racket. We also differentiate rackets with the printed work orders that we put around the handle when we create the stringjob so we know which one is #101 and which one is #102. With that said, I can definitely understand how you would need to differentiate the rackets if you do not use printed work orders. Maybe we could add a user enabled option to add the serial number at the end of the racket name ? So it would be something like Yonex ArcSaber 11 (123456) #101. How does that sound ?
