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Simpro Integration

Mark G
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Index

Introduction

The Simpro Tradie Integration synchronises OurTradie jobs with Simpro, so that you can manage everything in a single system. It lets you receive and respond to OurTradie offers, send and receive notes and attachments, send job schedules, and submit quotes and invoices - all the while tracking their progress.

 

To access the application, go to Settings - Third Party Integrations, and click the
"Connect" button next to “Tradie Integration” to be redirected to the integration site.

 

The same simPRO account can be linked with any number of OurTradie accounts.

 

Table of Contents:

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Section 1: Setup

Step 1: Setup OurTradie environment

  1. Sign in to the OurTradie website.

  2. Ensure OurTradie account has been set to Quote/invoice style = Complete.   Change can be made via OurTradie > Profile > Quote/invoice style

  3. Open the “Preferences” page (Settings - Preferences).

  4. Scroll down to “Your Fees”.

  5. Remove all values for "Standard price markup", "Standard call out fee", and "Out of hours call out fee". This is the same as setting them to 0.

    1. The intention is for the tradie to handle all prices in simPRO. If you do not do this step, quotes and invoices sent from simPRO may have additional fees and may not match up.

  6. Open the “API Access” page (Settings - API Access).

  7. Make sure “Redirect URI” is blank.

    1. If it is not blank, delete the current value and click “Generate New Key”.

 

Step 2: Setup OurTradie

  1. Sign in to OurTradie portal.

  2. Open the page Third Party Integration (Settings - Third Party Integration).

  3. Click the “Tradie Integration” link.

  4. You will now be on a different page and asked to give OurTradie authorisation. Click Authorise.

  5. If successful, you will be on a page asking to select the service you would like to integrate with. Click on "simPRO" from the list of services.

     

Step 3: Setup simPRO

 

To get your details from simPRO:

  1. Open a new tab and sign in to simPRO with an admin account. Do not close the OurTradie tab.

  2. Click on System (Settings Cog) - Setup.

  3. Near the bottom of the page, click on API - Applications.

  4. Click “Create Application”.

  5. Under “Company” enter “OurTradie” (or as you desire).

  6. Under “Name” enter “OurTradie Integration” (or as you desire).

  7. Under “Redirect URI” enter “https://tradieapi.ourproperty.com.au/index.php”

  8. Under “Authorisation Method”, select OAuth 2.0 and “Authorisation Code”. You do not need to modify the “Client ID” or “Client Secret” fields - these should be different from the OurTradie ones.

  9. Click “Create”.

  10. A popup will appear, download the key file.

Back on OurTradie Integration Site:

  1. Click "Choose File" and upload the key file from simPRO. This will fill in the client details and Build URL

  2. Under “Company ID”, enter your simPRO Company ID. This will be “0” if you aren't using the multi-company add-on.

  3. Click “Authorise”.

  4. You will be on a different page and asked if you want to Authorise the application to access your simPRO data. Click “Yes”.

  5. If successful, you will be on the page “Activate Integration”. Click the button on this page to start the integration. This will take a few seconds to run, potentially longer if you have a lot of active jobs.

  6. If successful, you will be taken to the Home page. Any jobs created after this point will now sync information between OurTraide and simPRO.

Step 4: Choosing Settings

After you have started the integration, you will likely want to click simPRO settings and select the options you want. Settings are explained in detail in Section 2: Settings, and will affect both the functionality of the integration and what is displayed in simPRO.

 

Step 5: Linking Older Jobs (Optional)

After step 3, integration will be set up for all newly created jobs. If you want to add older jobs to the automatic integration, you must link them manually. If you do not wish to do so, you can skip this step.

 

  1. To access the linking page, please go to the home page of the integration application and click the ‘Link Jobs’ button.

  2. From the drop down, select the type of linking you would like to use. This can be “Create New simPRO Jobs” to create new jobs in simPRO out of OurTradie Jobs, or “Link to Existing simPRO Jobs” if you already have the OurTradie Job in simPRO.

  3. After selecting this, you will be provided with a drop down of options that will perform the type of linking you choose. There are 4 different ways to link jobs, each designed to support different functionality. The types of linking are listed below:

Type 1: Create using OurTradie Job ID

On this page you will be able to enter an OurTradie Job ID, and have an entry created in simPRO.

  1. Enter an OurTradie Job ID.

  2. You may enter multiple, separated by either a comma “,” or a space “ “.

  3. Click the Create Entries button.

  4. If data is formatted correctly, this will queue the jobs to be created. This may take a minute or two, perhaps longer if more jobs have been entered.

You may click the button “View Queued Results” to see the results of creating these jobs. This will only appear once they have been processed. If you view this page, you can click “Return” to return to the linking jobs page.

 

Type 2: Create using OurTradie Job Status

This method should be used if you want to add all jobs of a specific OurTradie category to simPRO at once. This method may create duplicates of jobs you already have added to simPRO. It should only be used if you do not have any current offers in simPRO already.

  1. Select the categories of jobs or quotes you wish to add to simPRO. This is currently limited to offers Offers for Jobs or Quotes.

  2. Click the Create Entries button. This will create a lead for all active jobs of this type in simPRO.

This is an alternative to type 3, and is used to link jobs that already exist in an unfinished state in both OurTradie and simPRO. It is only available if the simPRO company ID is only linked to 1 OurTradie User.

  1. For each job you wish to link from simPRO, open the job in simPRO and add the OurTradie Job ID to the Job as 'OrderNo’.

  2. For each job you wish to link from simPRO, open the job in simPRO and add the 'OurTradie' Tag to the Job.

    1. If you do not wish to do this step, you can select the option to not require this tag.

  3. Click the 'Link Jobs' button on this page.

This type should be used when the job already exists in an unfinished state in both OurTradie and simPRO.

  1. Enter the OurTradie Job ID.

  2. Enter the simPRO ID. This is the type of job (“lead”/”quote”/”job”) and the ID, split with a “-” in the middle. For example, "Job-352", "Quote-42", "Lead-162" are simPRO IDs.

  3. You may click the “+” button in the top right to have extra fields to link multiple jobs at once.

  4. You may click the “x” button next to a row to delete that row.

  5. Once everything is entered, click “Link Jobs”

  6. If all jobs are linked correctly, you will see 1 success message. If not, you will see a number of error/success messages for each link individually.

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Section 2: Settings

You can access the Settings page for simPRO by clicking the “Settings” button next to simPRO on the home page.

 

Basic Settings

  • Sync Changes: This will turn sync on/off.

  • Force simPRO Status Changes: This relates to the Status Triggers mentioned below. If selected, this will attempt to force the status change (so it will always be in that status). If this isn’t selected and you have a trigger set, this application will still attempt to set the status code, but this may be overridden by simPRO settings.

  • Send Entry Notices for Schedules: If selected, this will automatically send entry notices for all schedules you have created. This can be overridden by the Entry Notice custom field in simPRO.

  • Quote Schedule Functionality: This will give you the option to choose what you want the integration to do when you schedule a quote.

    • Create an Appointment: Creates an appointment at the scheduled time. Appointments are currently awaiting fixes and not working.

    • Use as Estimated Job Times: Saves the scheduled times into the job start/end time custom fields. These fields are used as the Estimated Job Times when sending Quotes.

  • Job Schedule Functionality: This will give you the option to choose what you want the integration to do when you schedule a Job.

    • Create & Update OurTradie Schedule: If selected, this will convert your schedules in simPRO to OurTradie. All simPRO schedules for this job will be combined, so do not select this if you use scheduling for anything unrelated to the tenant.

    • Do Nothing: Your simPRO Schedule will not be synced with OurTradie. If this is selected, you will have to manually schedule times with the custom field.

  • Quote & Invoice Styling: This will let you choose how to display items on Quotes and Invoices.

    • Fully Itemised: This will take individual work items from all your cost centers, and display them individually on the quote or invoice. Cost Center names and descriptions will be completely ignored.

    • Cost Centers with Items: This will combine a Cost Center to be one item, named after the Cost Center name, and will list the Work Items in the description. The Cost Center description will be included if it is set and there are multiple cost centers.

    • Cost Centers without Items: This will combine a Cost Center to be one item, named after the Cost Center name. Work Items will not be listed. The Cost Center description will be included if it is set and there are multiple cost centers.

    • Single Item using Job Name: This will combine all items into one, with the name of the job.

    • If you have a preference for items to be styled differently from the above options, please describe how you would like them to be formatted.

  • Automatic Submission of Invoices: If enabled, invoices will be automatically submitted when marked as approved in simPRO. If not, you will have to trigger them manually by adding a note titled 'Submit Invoice' to the job timeline.

  • Automatic Resubmission of Invoices: If enabled, invoices will be automatically resubmitted when there are changes in simPRO. If not, you will have to manually trigger the resubmission by adding a note titled 'Submit Invoice' to the job timeline.

  • Lost Quote Archive Reason: This will let you choose the default archive reason in simPRO for lost quotes. This will load your Quote Archive Reasons from simPRO as options, similar to the status options for status triggers.

Status Triggers

simPRO offers many automated status triggers for events, and we can do the same for certain updates from OurTradie. This will load your “Status” options from simPRO and offer them as an option. OurTradie will try and set these “Status” changes on the relevant changes, however certain status may not be able to be overridden automatically or will automatically be changed again depending on your simPRO settings.

  • The “Invoice” related statuses related to changing the status of an Invoice, while others are changing the status of a lead/quote/job

  • Reload Status Codes: If you’ve added a new status code to simPRO and it is not showing up, or no status codes are being shown, press this button to reload them.

simPRO Display

  • Add Tenant as Site Contact: Enable this if you would like the tenant to be added as a site contact in simPRO.

  • Add Landlord as Site Contact: Enable this if you would like the landlord to be added as a site contact in simPRO.

  • Add Notes to Timeline: If enabled, notes from OurTradie will be added to the simPRO job timeline. If you do not wish for them to appear there, you can show them in the description or notes by using Display Locations.

  • Site Address Display Name: Select how you would like site addresses to be named. Currently this is limited to 4 display options, but more may be added in the future.

  • Company Display Name: This will set how the name of a company customer is formatted in simPRO.

    • Company Name: This will use only the main name of the company. The company will also be auto matched to a simPRO customer based on other fields such as email address.

    • Company Name & Office Name: This will add the office name (often location) on to the end of the company name. If selected, this will need to be an exact match with the customer name in simPRO. If this is not the case, you will need to set up Name Mapping, otherwise a new customer will be created.

  • Display Locations: The display locations section allows you to decide where information is displayed in simPRO. You can drag and drop to move and order items between the description and notes fields, or not include them at all.

Name Mapping

The name mapping section allows you to connect a Real Estate Agent name with a specific customer ID in simPRO. This is only needed if the name, as formatted in “Company Display Name”, does not match the name in simPRO, or you want to override the default.

 

Restore Features

  • Reset SimPRO Custom Fields: This button should not be required for normal use. However, if you are missing some custom fields in simPRO, this button will set simPRO Custom Fields to their default status.

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Section 3: Integration Functionality

Responding to an Offer

  • When a Property Manager creates a new offer for a job or quote for you in OurProperty, this will be created as a Lead in simPRO. The following information will be added:

    • The Customer will be the Agency

    • The Site will be the Address of the Property

    • Tenant and Landlord information will be added as a site contact, if enabled in settings.

    • The Primary Contact will be the Property Manager associated to the job

    • The ‘OurTradie’ tag will be added

    • The FollowUpDate is currently set as 3 days

    • Attachments from OurTradie are uploaded to simPRO

    • OurTradie Job ID will be added as ‘Order No.’

    • The cost center for that customer will automatically be added to the job.

    • Notes will be a list of other fields for the job. This will include:

      • Whether the lead is for an Quote or a Job

      • Completion Deadline

      • If the quote/ job is marked as urgent

      • The status of dogs at the property if specified

      • ‘Quote if Above’ values

      • Access Instructions

      • “Items” requested for a quote

      • Notes from OurTradie

  • If you intend to provide a Quote:

    • Make sure the notes say that the lead is for a Quote

    • Convert the lead to a “Quote”.

  • If you intend to accept the Job:

    • Make sure notes say that the lead is for a Job

    • Convert the lead to a “Quote” and then convert the “Quote” to a “Job”.

    • Alternatively, if you accept the Job via Email, this will be done automatically after around 5 minutes.

  • If you intend to reject the Quote / Job:

    • Archive the lead. If you wish to provide a reason, enter it into the custom field “OurTradie Rejection Reason” before archiving.

    • Note: Deleting the lead will not reject the quote/job.

       

Submitting a Quote

  • Add the job items as you would normally do in simPRO. If you wish to use optional items, please refer to the “Adding Optional Quote Items” section.

  • Add the estimated times in the ‘OurTradie Schedule Start/End’ custom fields in the settings for that specific quote. The time field will have to be entered manually, but multiple formats will work (i.e. 1pm and 13:00 will both work).

    • You must have estimated dates entered to submit a quote.

  • To submit a quote, there are 2 options:

    • On the activity timeline, add a note with either “Submit Quote” or “Send Quote” in the subject line.

    • Alternatively, go to “Forms”, and attach a form with the word “Quote” in the name. You do not want to send this form - attaching it is enough.

    • After this, save the quote and it will be sent to the Property Manager.

    • To resubmit a quote, follow the same steps.

  • If the quote is approved:

    • A note will be added to the timeline in simPRO.

    • Selected optional cost centers will be marked as billable.

    • The quote may also be changed to a custom Status in simPRO if one is set in settings.

  • If the quote is lost:

    • A note will be added to the timeline in simPRO.

 

Adding Optional Quote Items

  • Open a quote in simPRO. Click on ‘Cost Center List’.

  • Add a cost center as you would usually do.

  • Still on the ‘Cost Center List’ page, click on ‘Options’ for the cost center you want to make optional.

  • Click ‘Mark As Optional’. These will be marked as optional when sent to OurTradie.

    • Note that the optional cost center items will be combined - a user must select either all or none. If you want to give the customer multiple options, you will need to have multiple optional cost centers.

  • Once the options for the quote have been chosen, you will need to manually update the chosen cost centers in simPRO before converting the quote to a job.

  • After this, you can convert the quote to a job as normal and only the chosen cost centers will be attached to the job.

  • Please do not convert the quote to a job until the quote has been approved.

 

Sending a Quote for a ‘Job’

  • This can be done the same way as submitting a regular quote.

     

Scheduling

  • There are two main ways to schedule a job in simPRO, you can either schedule it in simPRO as you normally would, or enter times in the ‘OurTradie Schedule Start/End’ fields. The time field has to be entered manually, but accepts multiple time formats (i.e. 1pm and 13:00 will both work).

If you choose to schedule jobs in simPRO normally, the behaviour of the system will be decided by the Settings in the Integration application for ‘Quote Schedule Functionality’ and ‘Job Schedule Functionality’.

  • Quote Schedule Functionality

    • Create an Appointment: Creates an appointment at the scheduled time. Appointments are currently awaiting fixes and not working.

    • Use as Estimated Job Times: Saves the scheduled times into the job start/end time custom fields. These fields are used as the Estimated Job Times when sending Quotes.

  • Job Schedule Functionality:

    • Create & Update OurTradie Schedule: If selected, this will convert your schedules in simPRO to OurTradie. All simPRO schedules for this job will be combined, so do not select this if you use scheduling for anything unrelated to the tenant.

    • Do Nothing: Your simPRO Schedule will not be synced with OurTradie. If this is selected, you will have to manually schedule times with the custom field.

If a schedule in simPRO is modified, it will be rescheduled in OurTradie if either the new start time is earlier, or the new end time is later than the previous schedule.

 

 

Submitting an Invoice and Recording Payments

  • Create an invoice as you normally would in simPRO.

  • When all invoices attached to the job are marked as approved in simPRO, they will automatically be sent to OurTradie when a simPRO update occurs. You do not need to attach anything.

    • All invoices will be merged to one, so it is best to try and keep everything in one invoice to start with.

    • Footnotes are currently not added to the Invoice. Include all details in the description.

    • You may attach a credit note to try and reverse the invoice. This will be combined with the invoice and attempted to be resubmitted to OurTradie (this may fail if it cannot be resubmitted at the current status).

  • To mark the invoice as paid, add a payment in simPRO. When all invoices attached to a job are classified as fully paid in simPRO, the job will be moved to the reconciled status in OurTradie.

 

Sending Notes and Attachments

  • Sending notes or attachments to simPRO:

    • Notes and attachments can be sent from OurTradie to simPRO automatically. However, they will usually only be added when the status changes in simPRO.

  • Sending notes or attachments to OurTradie:

    • Uploaded attachments will be automatically sent to OurTradie. This currently may not be working for quotes.

    • To send a note back to OurTradie, simply add a note to the timeline. This will be sent as long as it doesn’t have keywords that correspond to an action.

    • Sending to specific users is currently not supported.

    • If you wish to send a note back to OurTradie for a lead, you will have to use the ‘Send Lead Note’ custom field instead due to simPRO API limitations.

Cancelling a Quote / Job and Responding to Cancellations

  • The only way to cancel a job in simPRO is to fill in the custom field “OurTradie Cancellation Reason” and archive the job.

    • Deleting a quote or job will not cancel the job in OurTradie. If you do so, you will need to cancel the job manually in OurTradie.

  • If you wish to retract a cancellation of a job, there are two options:

    • On the activity timeline, add a note with “Retract” in the subject line.

    • Re-opening the related lead or quote and converting it to the next stage again.

  • If a job is cancelled by a property manager, a red message will show up in the description and a note will be added to the timeline in simPRO.

    • If you wish to dispute a cancellation by a property manager, you can add a note with “Dispute” in the subject line. The content of the note will be provided as the reason.

    • If you wish to accept this cancellation, you will have to do so manually in OurTradie.

       

Replacing a Quote / Job

  • It is not recommended to replace quotes or jobs as it may cause sync issues. However, if you’ve lost a quote or job for whatever reason, you may try and restore it with the following process.

    • Re-open the related lead or quote, and convert this to the desired state.

    • This will unlink the previous quote or job - a red message stating this should appear in the description of the previous quote or job, if it still exists.

    • Note: This cannot be done for jobs that have already been invoiced. In this situation a red message will show up on the new job instead.

Recurring Job Templates

  • If you deal with recurring jobs, you have an option to save a template for the job.

  • To save a template, simply open the recurring job with the description and cost center you would like to save and add a timeline note “Save Template”.

  • This will save the description and cost centers of that job as a template.

  • Future recurring jobs that have the same Job Name and same Address will automatically load the template you have saved.

 

Other Statuses

  • A job may be deferred by a Property Manager.

    • In such a case, a note will be added to the timeline in simPRO.

    • No changes will be synced until the job is no longer deferred. Any changes made during will have processing attempted when the job is resumed.

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Section 4: Data Synchronisation

Synchronising information to and from OurTradie with third party services is done automatically. Updates from simPRO are currently processed every minute, while updates from a property manager in OurTradie are processed every 5 minute. Invoices from simPRO are checked less often - roughly once every 10 minutes during work hours.

 

When sending updates from OurTradie to simPRO, there may be delays if a user has a quote or job open when the integration application attempts to update them.

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Section 5: Known Issues

  • Appointments are currently not working:

  • Attachments for quotes will not automatically be sent to OurTradie

  • Notes and attachments from OurTradie will only be added to simPRO after a status change in the job

If you would like to report issues with or provide any feedback on this integration, please contact us at tradieintegrations@ourproperty.com.au.



inspection invoice archived lease lettings maintenance maintanance ourtradie rent settings overide product update inspections quotes tenant tenent entry notice landlord lead tradie product update entry notice

 

 

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