Turn Data Into Direction
Table of Contents
Your outside sales reps, drivers, and technicians spend most of their workday away from a desk. On Oct. 13, Point of Rental hosted a webinar showing how the latest POR One updates help those teams get more done while on the road.
Martin Baugh, POR One product owner, walked through what the team shipped this year and what’s coming next. Irfan Ahmed, solutions engineer, followed with a live demo, and AJ Lynch, product marketing manager, moderated the Q&A.
Read on for the highlights and watch the full recording below.
Create Quotes From the Job Site
Outside sales reps can now build a quote in POR One without opening a laptop or calling the inside sales team. A five-step wizard pulls customer and inventory details directly from Elite, then sends the finished quote right back into Elite.
Here’s how it works:
- Customer and contact: The customers a rep viewed most recently appear at the top of the list, so if they looked someone up on the way to the job site, that name is ready to go. Reps can also search any customer record, choose a contact, or add a new contact.
- Dates: The start date defaults to 8 a.m. the next day. Reps choose a day, week, or month range, and POR One fills in the end date.
- Notes and addresses: Reps add job details, like a changed gate code, which entrance to use, or who to meet on site. Delivery and pickup addresses can match, differ, or be skipped for will-call orders.
- Items: Reps choose which store to pull inventory from, then add cat-class items, specific serialized items, parts, and fees.
- Summary: A final review screen comes before the Create Quote button.
The quote lands in Elite as an unverified transaction. When your team converts it to a reservation, Elite asks them to verify it first, since it came from the app. Reps also get a PDF of the quote and can text it to the customer directly from POR One.
In the demo, Ahmed built a three-day quote for three generators, then pulled it up in Elite using Universal Search.
New AI Features
POR One now uses AI in three places to cut down on typing and typos.
Polish with AI on quote notes. Reps can dictate job notes with their phone’s voice-to-text, then tap Polish with AI. It groups related details, strips out filler words, and fixes grammar so the notes look professional on the customer’s quote. In the demo, Ahmed dictated a note full of “ums” about a back-of-building delivery and a gate code. One tap turned it into a clear instruction with the updated gate code included.
Polish with AI on work order notes. The same feature now cleans up technician notes on work orders. A rushed “hose boken” becomes “hose broken.”
AI-powered OCR scanning. When searching inventory, yard workers and technicians can snap a photo of an item’s ID, serial number, barcode, or key instead of typing it in. Baugh said it can even read an item number spray-painted on the side of an asset. If the photo captures several pieces of text, like a manufacturer’s placard next to your item ID, POR One shows each option so the user can pick the right one. The inventory results show the item’s availability and any related contracts, which helps prevent double-booking.
Driver Communication Call Logs
The top-voted idea on uInnovate, Point of Rental’s customer idea platform, asked for a better way to flag critical stop details for drivers. The answer is a new Driver-Communication call log type.
Anyone on your team, from the counter to a manager to another driver, can add a call log and tag it as Driver-Communication. Those notes then show up where drivers can’t miss them:
- In the task actions list when the driver taps Arrived
- In a pop-up every time the driver opens the stop details page
- In the call logs section on the contract
Notes display newest first, so the latest gate code or site instruction is always on top. Drivers can add their own notes from the field, too. If a delivery driver leaves dollies on site or learns a driveway has closed for construction, the pickup driver will know before they arrive.
Record360 Integration and Attachments
Record360, a Point of Rental company, is now fully built into POR One. If you license both, your team no longer has to switch apps or download Record360 separately, though the standalone app still works.
From the POR One home screen, users can run an ad hoc Record360 inspection with a custom checklist. Inspections also work inside the Ready Tags flow. Enter an item ID, key, serial number, or part number, and the inspection links back to that item’s record in Elite.
The attachments tab on Elite contracts got a cleanup, too. POR One photos now show the task name, the date and time they were taken, and whether they’re linked to the item or the contract. Users can filter and sort them.
For cloud customers, attachments added to a contract in Elite now appear in POR One. In the demo, Ahmed attached a convention center layout to a contract in Elite, and it showed up on the same contract in the app. Not sure which version of Elite you’re on? Ask your account manager.
Coming next: Record360 inspections will power checkout and check-in. Each inspected item will link to its Record360 inspection from the contract, so you can bookend every rental with video, image tagging, and AI damage detection.
Q&A Highlights
Attendees kept the questions coming. Here are a few worth sharing.
Do these features cost extra?
POR One comes in Basic and Advanced tiers. Creating quotes and creating or editing work orders require the Advanced tier. Record360 inspections also require a Record360 license. Your account manager can walk you through what your contract includes.
Who needs the Advanced license?
Baugh said salespeople and technicians benefit most, since Advanced lets them create transactions in Elite. Technicians can also update work orders with complaint, cause, and correction and add parts. Drivers and yard workers can stay on Basic.
How do I know a driver read the note? Can drivers reply?
Drivers respond by adding their own call log. Because logs display newest first, the whole conversation stays visible.
Can drivers get a push notification when a stop changes?
Not yet. Phone operating systems shut down apps that aren’t open, so the team is building components to work around that. Push notifications are on the roadmap, and Baugh said the team plans to tackle them early next year.
Can reps see real-time availability and pricing while building a quote?
Not today. Baugh said real-time availability is scheduled for early Q4. Two more enhancements for sales reps are also in the works: customer stats, like recent transactions and outstanding payments, and support for special rates, which Baugh expects early next year.
Can reps create a new customer from the field?
Reps can add a new contact today. Creating a new customer record is on the roadmap, and Baugh expects it in the first half of next year.
Can attachments open inside Elite instead of a new browser window?
Not yet. This update focused on cleaning up the attachments tab, but the team has heard the request.
Get These Features Working for Your Team
Want to know which of these updates your license covers, or how to roll them out? Reach out to your account manager or email [email protected].
And keep the ideas coming on uInnovate. Many of the features in this webinar started there.