The pace of print and application work
With window film, vinyl, banners and vehicle wraps, production is short and the field work is heavy. A shop window graphic can be printed in the morning and applied in the afternoon; a fleet wrap is split over several days; the same crew visits two or three addresses in a day. Measuring, design, print, lamination, cutting and application follow each other closely.
At that pace the same things get lost: which job is off the printer, who is applying it when, whether the vehicle was dropped off, whether the application is really finished. What print job tracking needs is the office and the field looking at the same list.
Shorten the workflow to fit your work
The default workflow is built for a sign workshop, and you can change it. Add stages or departments for printing, lamination and cutting, and send repeat jobs that need no design straight to production. A job that does enter design moves on only with a verified design file, and you can send the customer an approval link to keep the sign-off on record.
Product templates hold the fields of the jobs you make most: size, material, lamination, vehicle model and so on. They are filled in when the order is opened, so the information for print and for the field is in the same place on every order.
The installation calendar
- Plan each application with a date and time, address, site contact, notes and the crew; one job can have several people.
- See the calendar by week or month; “Team rows” shows each installer's week on its own row.
- Undated jobs wait in a tray; a planner drags a job onto a day, a time or another crew member.
- Rescheduling changes only the date, so the address and notes are never lost, and a wrong move can be undone.
- Jobs at packing can already be scheduled, so the application day is set while the print is finishing.
The crew works from the phone
- 1
Today's jobs
An installer opening the SignFlow app or a phone browser sees today's jobs by time: customer, job, address and status. “Only my jobs” narrows it to their own.
- 2
Call and directions
Calling the customer and opening map directions is one tap. Jobs with no crew yet also show in installers' lists, so nothing sits unclaimed unnoticed.
- 3
Take a photo and complete
When the application is done, the crew takes a photo and closes the job. Without a photo it cannot be closed; the office sees the result and the photo on the order straight away.
Film and vinyl stock
Roll film, vinyl and laminate are used by the metre, sheets and accessories by the piece. SignFlow tracks materials per depot and shelf and converts between units. When you enter an order's material need, what stock covers becomes a material request for the depot and the shortfall a purchase request. A goods receipt updates the stock itself, and a wrong posting can be reversed.
What the office sees
When an application is completed, who completed it and when is recorded. An order that needs an application cannot be closed until it is done, so jobs that were printed but not yet applied stay open and visible. For the next day's applications, a morning reminder goes to the assigned crew, or to the planners when no crew is assigned.
For vehicle wraps the photos keep their value: how the vehicle looked at handover stays in the order's files with its date.