Measuring a route or several jobs in one go

A route is measured a span at a time: dozens of near-identical jobs, the same two or three rate items on each, one contract and one customer order. Recording them one by one means dozens of forms and dozens of rows to approve. Instead, pick the jobs once and fill a grid: items across, jobs down.

The result is one measure whose lines carry the jobs. It is approved once, billed once, and each job still earns its own lines on the invoice. This screen needs a desktop-width window.

Measuring several jobs at once is for people who can search the job list: holders of Manage commercial, Manage jobs or Manage schedule. Someone who measures only the jobs they were sent to records them one at a time with Record measure — see Contracts and measuring work.

Finding the jobs

On Commercial › Measures, open the arrow beside Record measure (More ways to record) and choose Several jobs at once. The Jobs to measure finder opens.

Narrow the list with the same tools as the Jobs tab: search, Workstream (one or several, or All workstreams), Status, Quick filters, Filter and a saved View. Scheduled asks when the work was booked — This week, Last week, Last 7 days, Last 30 days or Pick dates… — which is how you tell this week's visits to a span from the one you measured last week.

When the list spans several workstreams, fields that share a name, such as a Project Area on two route workstreams, are one heading in Quick filters and one field in Filter. A filter on a field only some workstreams have narrows only their jobs; jobs from the other workstreams stay on the list.

Tick the jobs, or use Select all above the list, then choose Done. One measure covers at most 50 jobs; the finder stops offering more once you reach that.

You can get here from the ordinary Record measure form too: tick more than one job in its job finder and the grid opens with them.

Filling the grid

The Record measures page has three parts. The details at the top and the totals at the bottom stay put; only the grid scrolls.

The details apply to the whole run:

• Contract — required. Maliru picks the one the jobs already share, or the only one for their client.
• Measured on — one day, or the first and last day of the run. Forty spans are rarely walked in an afternoon; a span tells your customer the week it took.
• Client PO — blank takes the jobs' own order. If the jobs carry different orders, the box becomes required: "These jobs carry different orders … Name the one this run was placed under." Typing an order here covers every job in the run, whatever each job says.
• Note — applies to the whole measure.
• Who earned it — asked where your workspace pays piece work by the unit: who every job in the run is credited to. Each row has its own Who earned it as well, for a span somebody else laid; a row that differs from the run is shaded. See paying for measured output.
• Shown to the client — the job facts that print under each job on the invoice. Each job prints its own values. Choose Change to pick them.

The grid has a row per job and a column per rate item:

• Item adds a column. Choose the rate item at the top of the column.
• Type quantities in the cells. A blank cell means that item was not measured on that job — not zero. A job with every cell blank records nothing.
• Fill all: type a figure in the box under the item and use the arrow beside it to put it in every empty cell below. It never overwrites a figure you typed.
• Remove job takes a row out; Remove item takes a column out.

Each row shows the job's workstream, and says so if the job has already been measured or billed. Measuring it again may be right — a second visit, extra work — so the grid tells you rather than stopping you.

Click a job's name to open its record over the grid: its fields, updates, visits and evidence, the same record the Jobs tab opens. Close it and you are back where you were, with every quantity still entered.

The Total column and the footer add up as you type. The footer says how many jobs will be recorded, and how many have nothing entered.

Job fields beside each job

The spans of a route look alike in the grid; what tells them apart is on the job record. + Field, on the Job heading, adds columns from it:

• any workstream's own fields, such as a length laid or a duct section. The fields of the run's own workstreams are listed first;
• the fields every workstream shares;
• the record's own Site, Client PO, Scheduled, Team, Assignee, Description and Notes.

Tick the ones you want and choose Done. The columns are for reading: change a value on the job record. A job whose workstream does not have a field shows a dash. Your columns are remembered on this device for the workspace, so the next run opens with them; the × beside a column's heading hides it.

Opening a job and showing its fields need Manage jobs, the same as opening a job from a measure.

Without Manage commercial

Someone who manages jobs or the schedule but not Commercial gets the same grid without the money: no rates under the items, no Total column or footer total, and uplifts by name only. Shown to the client is not shown — the measure takes the workstream's standing list. The item picker offers only the rate items the chosen contract prices; if a column's item is not priced under the contract you then choose, Submit says so and waits for another item.

Uplifts on a run

An uplift can be set two ways, because both happen:

• On the column — the button under the item (Uplift on this item, for every job below). Use it when the whole run was a night shift.
• On one cell — the small button in the cell (Uplift for this job only). Use it when one span ran into the night and the rest did not. Choose Follow the column to hand the cell back to the column's uplift.

A cell with its own uplift is highlighted, so a job billing at a different rate from its column is visible without opening anything.

If your workspace has set Working hours and a card's uplift is set to Suggest, the jobs worked outside those hours carry a small pill with the time, and a notice above the grid offers the uplift: "3 of these jobs were worked outside working hours." Apply … to those uplifts only those jobs; the rest keep the base rate. Nothing is uplifted until you choose it. See Rate cards, priced items and uplifts.

Submitting

Choose Submit. Maliru checks the whole run before it records anything:

• every job belongs to one client — a mix is refused and the clients are named;
• the jobs share one client PO, unless you typed one for the run;
• every item is priced in one currency;
• every job is one you are allowed to work on.

The run lands on the Measures board as one row: the first job, with +N more jobs under it. Searching for any job in the run finds it.

Correcting a run

Open the measure and choose Edit. A measure covering several jobs reopens in the same grid, with the finder's filters remembered — so Change jobs picks up where you left off when you need to add one more span.

Emptying a row while correcting takes that job off the measure; the footer warns you before you save. As with any measure, correcting the figures on an approved run sends it back for a decision.

One case the grid cannot hold: two lines of the same item on the same job. Such a measure opens in the ordinary measure form instead, where every line names its job.