Nov 20, 2012
ASD Mobile has had a busy season! Last month, our mobile app was recognized as the winner of the NFDA 2012 Innovation Award. Last week, we released “ASD Mobile for Android” to the Google Play Store and over 400 funeral directors downloaded our Android app in less than week. With so much excitement, we wanted to make sure you were aware of the new features and tools we recently added to enhance ASD Mobile. Many of these added features came from the valuable suggestions we received from our beta testing group and we have since added them to both our Android and iPhone app.
Use Re-Dispatch to Let ASD Know to Contact Another Employee
Have you ever received an urgent message while you were on call that was meant for a different funeral director? In the past, this would require an additional phone call on your part – either to contact the other staff member yourself and relay the message or to call ASD and instruct us to contact a different employee. Now, you can let us know to call another director with a message with one quick tap on ASD Mobile. This will also ensure that the other employee is notified of the message via text and/or push notification before being called by an ASD Call Specialist. The Re-Dispatch tool proves you with the added flexibility to remain on-call without having to respond to every message yourself.
When the message is displayed on the app, you will see an option that says ‘Re-Dispatch’ at the bottom beneath the message details. Tap on ‘Re-Dispatch’ and you will be prompted to select one of your funeral home’s employees from a drop down menu. ASD will then Re-Dispatch the message to the employee you select.
Share/Email Messages to any Contact on your phone
When we designed ASD Mobile, we wanted our app to be more than just a scaled down version of our website. We wanted to create a portable, mobile communication center that links together everyone at the funeral home. Our new ‘Share’ option helps make this possible. Using this tool, you can now send both the written message and the recording of the call with any of your phone’s contacts. This helps to keep everyone at the funeral home on the same page.
To share a message with one of your contacts, look for the option ‘Share’ or ‘Email’ on the message. (Our Android app will display the word ‘Share’ while our iPhone uses the word ‘Email’). You should see this directly below the ‘Re-Dispatch’ link. On the iPhone, the phone will then bring up a window for you to include an additional message to include with your email. On the Android, you will have an additional option to use either your email app, text-messaging or a social app.
Listen to calls on speaker or privately
We realize that the environment you are in while checking your messages may vary depending upon the day. There are times when you may be in a loud place and have to listen to a message with a high volume and other instances, such as when you are on a service, where you must remain completely silent. When a funeral director brought this to our attention, our programming team added a new ‘Handset/Speaker’ option that allows you to switch back and forth between your phone’s internal and external volume options. When the message is displayed, you will see an option in the upper right-hand corner that says ‘Speaker.’ You can keep this option selected to hear the call on speaker or tap it to change it to ‘Handset’ and listen to it privately.
Change Your On-Call In Less Time
When we first designed the On-Call tab on ASD Mobile, clients had to create a new status in order to set their on-call information through the app. Now, ASD Mobile allows you to edit your current status information or start from scratch, whichever option is more convenient at the time. So, if you create an on-call schedule and then realize you forgot to select ‘Death Only’, you can now edit your current status instead of having to start over. This additional option saves you time and makes changing your on-call with ASD Mobile easier than ever.
On the On-Call page, you’ll see a ‘tap to change’ option. Once you tap that option you will see your current status displayed. You can edit your current status from here or tap the X that is in the right-hand corner to create a new on-call status from scratch.
-
To Download our Android app, click here
To Download our iPhone app, click here
-
If you have any suggestions or ideas for ways we could enhance ASD Mobile for your funeral home we would love to hear your feedback. Leave a comment here or contact us at Support@myASD.com.
About The Author
Jess Farren (Fowler)
Jess Farren (Fowler) is a Public Relations Specialist and Staff Writer who has been a part of the ASD team since 2003. Jess manages ASD’s company blog and has been published in several funeral trade magazines. She has written articles on a variety of subjects including communication, business planning, technology, marketing and funeral trends. You can contact Jess directly at Jess@myASD.com