Annual services are the easiest money in the diary and the easiest to lose track of. Service Reminders is the list that stops that happening: every recurring service you do, when it's next due, and a drafted message ready for you to approve when the time comes.
Turn the skill on
Service Reminders is a skill, so it isn't on by default. Open the skills marketplace from Settings, install Service Reminders, and it appears in your sidebar under Operations.
Add a reminder
Go to Service Reminders and tap New reminder. You need four things:
- Client. Who the service is for.
- Service. What it is, in your words. "Annual boiler service", "AC service", "Pump check". This is what the reminder message and the job get called, so keep it plain.
- Due date. When it's next due.
- Repeats. Yearly, every six months, every three months, or one-off.
There's also a Remind setting: how far ahead of the due date you want Mucka to bring it to you. Two weeks, one month or two months. A month is the default and suits most annual work.
Add a note if there's something the reminder should mention, like tight loft access or a gate code.
What Mucka does with it
Nothing until the lead window opens. When the due date gets within your Remind setting, Mucka drafts the reminder message and puts it on your Overview as an approval card. You read it, change the wording if you want, and tap to send. Mucka never emails your customer without you approving it first.
Once it's sent, the reminder shows as Reminder sent in the list, and it stays there until the work is booked in.
When a few are due at once
Approving them one at a time is fine for the odd reminder. When more than three are due together, Mucka stops making a card each and gives you a single card instead: "you've got 12 service reminders due". Tapping it brings you here rather than sending anything.
On Service Reminders there's a button to send the ones that are due. It ticks everything inside its reminder window, and you can untick any you'd rather leave. Tap Review and send and you get the full list of who it's going to, and then the message itself — written out exactly as the first customer on the list will read it, with their name and their service filled in. Everyone else gets the same message with their own details.
If you want to change the wording, tap Edit the wording underneath. That's where you'll see the {{client}}, {{title}} and {{due_date}} shorthand — Mucka swaps those for each customer's real details, which is why the message above reads properly and the box below has curly brackets in it.
Type a field name Mucka doesn't recognise and it will say so, and it won't send until you've fixed it. Better a message that waits than one that arrives saying "your is due".
Nothing sends until you tap the send button, and you see every name before you do. Anyone without an email address on file is listed separately and skipped, so you know to give them a ring instead.
Afterwards Mucka tells you exactly who got one. If an email didn't go out, that reminder stays on the list to try again rather than quietly showing as sent.
The statuses, in order
| Status | What it means | |---|---| | Scheduled | On the list, not due yet. Mucka is watching the date. | | Reminder sent | You approved the message and the customer has it. Waiting on them. | | Booked in | The job is in the diary and linked to this reminder. | | Done | The service happened. A recurring reminder has already rolled the next one forward. | | Cancelled | Mucka won't chase this one. |
Certificates add themselves
You don't have to set up the first reminder for work you certificate. When you approve a CP12, a Boiler Service Record, a CD/11 or any other certificate that carries a next service due or next inspection due date, that visit goes onto this list on its own, with the date your engineer wrote on the certificate.
It shows up as a normal reminder and behaves like one: it sits there as Scheduled, and when the due date comes within your Remind window Mucka drafts the message and asks you to approve it, same as any other. Nothing goes to the customer off the back of a certificate on its own.
This is the bit that used to catch people out. A customer's first service produced no reminder at all, because there was nothing before it to roll forward, so the next one only got booked if somebody remembered. Now the paperwork does it.
Two things worth knowing:
- You can still change it. Move the date, rename it, change how often it repeats. It's your list.
- If you'd already added one by hand for the same visit, Mucka joins them up rather than leaving you with two lines for the same boiler. It keeps your wording and just links it to the certificate.
Certificates that don't come round again, like a Warning Notice or a tank risk assessment, don't add anything to the list.
No certificate? Finished jobs add themselves too
Plenty of recurring work never gets a certificate. When you finish a job that looks like it comes round again, and there's nothing in the book for that customer at that address, Mucka puts next year's in the list for you overnight. You'll see it there the next morning.
It's dated a year on from the day the work actually happened, named after the job, and set to nudge you a month before. Change any of it, or delete it, same as any other reminder.
Nothing goes to the customer. Adding it to your list is just bookkeeping. You still approve the message next year when it comes due, the same as every other reminder.
Mucka only does this where it's confident the work repeats: annual services, safety checks, planned maintenance. Breakdowns, repairs, call-outs, installs and quote visits are left alone. If it gets one wrong, delete it, and if it misses one, add it by hand.
What happens when the service is done
You don't have to come back to this list. When the linked job is marked complete, Mucka marks the reminder done and schedules the next one automatically, counting forward from the date the work actually happened. A boiler serviced in March is next due the following March, even if the reminder originally said January.
You can still mark one done by hand if the work happened outside Mucka. Open the reminder and tap Mark done.