I once wrote this beautiful paper for an Economics class. I wrote it using Microsoft Word and I saved the document frequently, because Dad always warned me about crashing programs and dying computers. Then my computer died. Of course.
Luckily I had a partner for this project, and I had recently emailed him a version of our paper! This email stored our paper in “The Cloud.” The cloud saved me from spending many hours rewriting this paper.
Cloud computing is as beneficial to businesses as it is to students with flakey old computers.* This includes businesses involved with job dispatching. Below are notes that emphasize the benefits of the cloud and web based dispatch software like vWorkApp.
1. Access files from any web-enabled device
A dispatcher might sit at a desk, in front of a computer, and dispatch jobs. This dispatcher might job sheets, sticky notes and a phone to dispatch jobs. He might print out job sheets or write schedules every morning, then he might spend hours sorting paperwork at night.
While this method of job dispatch does work, it’s not the most efficient way to dispatch. It’s a bit like printing new versions of my Economics paper, then retyping each new version instead of just saving my paper in an email (or the computer, if it’s reliable…)
Web based dispatching software allows a dispatcher to quickly update schedules from any web-enabled computer. He isn’t shackled to his desk, rewriting and printing new schedules for his mobile workers.
2. Automatically back up your data
Information within vWorkApp is stored in the cloud. This could include customer data, such as business locations and billing addresses. It could also include employee data, such as who the employee’s customers are and when your employee last visited this customer.**
This is invaluable data when it comes to analyzing and streamlining business operations over any period of time. And keeping this data in the cloud means you won’t lose it. So when you need to do your taxes, you have months or years of data in one safe location.
In addition, the data back up is automatic. You don’t need to create folders—virtual or physical—to hold this information.
3. No extra installations or software updates
One holdup for companies that are considering using software instead of pen-and-paper or cell phones is the expensive hardware that’s often involved. With a dispatching software that uses the cloud (such as vWorkApp), there is no hardware (except smartphones). And this web based software is updated and reviewed frequently by a team of engineers and programmers.
4. Data is easy to analyze and share
Since data is kept in the cloud, it’s easy to consolidate. If you need to run reports to analyze business operations, simply export data to Excel. Perhaps you need to put a bunch of data into an external accounting system like QuickBooks? This is easy with vWorkApp, and it means dispatchers don’t need to spend hours manually typing data into accounting software.
5. Dispatching operations are scalable
The more dispatched employees you have, the harder it is to dispatch without software. Printing schedules for two dispatched workers is a lot easier than printing schedules for twenty workers.
A web based dispatching software like vWorkApp has information stored in virtual servers in the cloud. This makes it easy to add extra workers or update information anywhere in your job dispatch operations.
For example, a company could use some proprietary software on their own servers (versus virtual servers) for job dispatching. This proprietary software and the servers might not easily accept changes or additional software or information. Virtual servers (in the cloud) are highly adaptable.
The Cloud explained
I really like this video. It explains cloud computing really well. Clicking on the image below will take you to YouTube, where you can watch the video.
Below is a portion of a cool infographic that I found on mashable.com. Click the image below to see the article and the rest of the infographic.
*NOTE: We got an A on our project :)
**NOTE: All data is EXTREMELY safe and secure. Read about vWorkApp’s information security here.
