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With Domestic Services, ease the management and monitoring of your home upkeep needs. Communicate with your service providers and easily plan, organize and keep track of every work you leave in their charge. Keep the history of past labors and do a precise a follow-up of their payment status.
Plan scheduled labors, either one-shot or recurring. Associate these tasks with the appropriate service provider (maid, plumber, gardener, etc.) that you have previously entered in the application or imported from your iPhone address book. |
Domestic Services thus allows you to: contact the service provider by sending an automatically generated text message or e-mail receive a reminder when the next scheduled work is about to begin (you can customize the notification time in the settings.) Once the work has been carried out, you can validate its state and modify the beginning and end time if necessary (in case it was shorter or longer than planned). Should you need to remember anything, you also have the opportunity to add a comment. |
If you choose to call upon a commercial service provider, Domestic Services automatically calculates the amount to pay according to the duration of the task and the hourly rate associated to the provider. You also have the opportunity to associate a flat rate for each provider. You can then register the amount of money you spent for each labor.
A schedule view and a synthetic dashboard allow you at any time to keep track of the number, amount and hourly total for the works, whether scheduled, planned or paid/completed. You can also consult the detailed information for each task that you entered. Domestic Services also provides you with monthly reports presenting you lists and graphics about past and paid works, as well as a projected estimate of your expenses for services scheduled for the next weeks and months. You even have the opportunity to export these data and send them by e-mail thanks to CSV files (processed with spreadsheet programs). |
Help & FAQ
How can I add a new service provider?
Hit the “+” button on the Directory tab. Choose whether you want to fully create it or import it from your address book.
You can then enter the information related to this person or company (cleaning company, plumber, gardener, etc.).
If you input a commercial service provider, don’t forget to specify its flat rate or hourly rate so the application can calculate the financial amount of labors associated to this provider. On the other hand, leave this field blank if you won’t have to pay anything to this provider (friends, family member, etc.).
How can I schedule a new work?
Hit the “+” on the Works tab. You can then enter its planned date and time, and specify the service provider (use the directory tab to add third-party providers and reference all the persons or companies you call upon).
If necessary, you can enter a description of the task(s) needing to be done, a specific place (your home or somewhere else), instructions, and a recurring frequency (every week, month, etc.).
Use the “Send” button to forward all the related information to the chosen provider by text message or e-mail. This feature is only available if:
the labor is set in the future
you specified the phone number and/or e-mail address of the service provider
You can modify or delete a planned work at any time until it actually took place.
How can I schedule recurring works?
The main characteristic of recurring works is the preset periodicity: they are scheduled according to that frequency until the end date you specify.
To define recurring works, create the initial work as a normal one, then fill in the recurrence cell with:
the frequency (every day, week, two weeks, month, etc.)
the end date of the series (for example, 3 months later)
The application will then create the predefined number of works, all based on the information entered for the initial one.
You then have the opportunity to modify the whole series or just a part of it (should you need to change the time or place).
What is the life cycle of a work?
When you create a new work, its status is “Scheduled”.
When the specified date and time has passed, it is displayed in orange in the scheduled work list.
You can then use the “Performed work” button to indicate that it was indeed carried out and if needed:
enter the effective start and end times if they differ from the planned ones
type anything you want to remember in the “Comment” field
The work will then appear:
either in the list of works you have to pay for
or in the list of completed works if the rate of the care provider is null (in case you called upon a family member or friend for example).
For works carried out by commercial providers, you can now select the “Pending Payments” label in the “Follow-up” tab: the works which payments are yet to be settled are then displayed. Select the work you just paid for, and input the amount of money (which can be different from the amount calculated by the application).
Once paid for, the status of the work if “Completed”.
How can I group payments?
If several work payments are pending, you have the opportunity to register a grouped payment once and for all.
For example, if your gardener performed four different works for you and you are still to pay for these labors:
select this service provider on the Directory tab
on the provider description, select the “Outstanding balance”, which will display the list of works related to that provider that need to be paid for
hit the “Grouped payment” button
select a method of payment and validate
If you plan monthly payments for a provider you frequently call upon, you can also use the following method:
on the “Follow-up” tab, select the “By provider” cell
select the provider
select the month concerned by the payment you want to trace, which will display the list of works performed during this period that need to be paid for
hit the “Grouped payment” button
select a method of payment and validate
How can I transfer my "Domestic Services" database to another device (v1.03 and above) ?
This process will allow you to export your iServices database to another device.
A) From your source device (device A):
select About, Settings, Database Management
select “Export Database”
connect your source device to your computer
in iTunes, select the device (below Devices), and click on the “Apps” button.
below “File Sharing” from the list on the left, select the Domestic Services application (it may appear as PT01)
from the list on the right, select the “Database_Export.db” file and click on “Save to”.
in the window that appears, select the destination where you want to save the file, and click Choose.
B) From your target device (device B):
connect your device to your computer
in iTunes, backup your device.
in iTunes, select your target device (below Devices), and click the “Apps” button.
below File Sharing, from the list on the left, select the iService application (it may appear as PT01)
from the list on the right, click on “Add”
in the window that appears, select the the “Database_Export.db” file you saved at step A.6 (see above).
the file is transferred to your device.
on your target device, select About, Settings, Database Management
select “Import Database”
Just confirm the import by clicking on “Yes” in order to replace the former database by the one just transferred.
Once finished, device B contains exactly the same data as device A.
(Please note that databases are not synched, this is just a database replacement process.)
Note 1: the Export feature can be used to backup your app database : in this case, select the “Database_Export.db” file from iTunes, and click on “Save to” to backup the file to any support (hard disk, usb storage, etc).
Note 2: another way to backup your device is to Sync it with iTunes
How can I save the application data?
Application data backup is a built-in feature of your iPhone-iPad and iTunes, as long as you regularly synchronize your device with iTunes on your PC or Mac.
At the beginning of the syncing process, iTunes saves the following data from your device:
Contacts and Contact favorites
App Store Application data
Application settings, preferences and data
Music, videos, photos, etc.
When you change your device, or even with your current device, you are able to restore that backup with iTunes. You will thus be able to retrieve all the data and content saved during the last syncing.
For more information about backup saving and restoring, please visit:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766?viewlocale=us_US
If you have many data stored in your database, it is strongly recommended that you backup manually your database onto your PC/Mac (or any other support) using the "Export Database" feature. (see "How can I transfer my "Domestic Services" database to another device?").
Restoring your database from backup is then possible with the "Import Database" feature.