Insider view to SwiftPik: Trade/Giveaway

 

 

Our developers and test team are hard at work developing the new Trades and Giveaways feature for SwiftPik. Agents will be able to make trades and give/take schedules in this new system. Trade/Giveaway will be a Request option in SwiftPik:

 

 

 

 

In Phase one, Trade/Giveaway will utilize SwiftPik’s new Month View tab. Besides an agent’s schedule, the agent will also see any existing Trade/Giveaway requests they have out in the system currently. Trades that are currently in negotiation with other agent’s will also be shown:

 

Agents will use the Trade/Give Request(s) window to create new requests, view existing requests and see if there are any matching requests already out there in the system and start negotiations with other agents to make multiple types of trades and giveaways:

 

 

 

Request a Demo

Agents will also be able to use our new Trade/Giveaway(s) Negotiation window to view existing negotiations they have with other agent’s. This functionality is still in the design stage but will be rolled out with the complete Trade and Giveaway package.

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Back to School and Ferris Bueller's PTO Request

 

 Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Simone: Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 

 

How many of us had heard a similar, but more adult form of this classic high school excuse for being absent? Just when you thought you were finished using the Absence Manager. . . Not so fast!  While the bulk of managing vacation time has passed, you will now be facing a different challenge as school reopens in August.  There will be PTO requests for orientation, the first day of school, days when the kids are sick, snow days, fall break, winter break, Thanksgiving, Christmas, field trips, student recognition for outstanding athlete, talent, or academic triumph, holidays, prom, graduation, and on and on.

You manage your team to keep schedules optimized -- but remember parents must manage their family also – a happy employee is a productive employee. The Absence Manager will remain just as important during the school year as it was over the peak vacation period.

Pipkins hopes that you will enjoy a lull before the storm of requests breaks through again.  Sit back with some popcorn, grab the kids, and turn on a back-to- school classic.  Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield is such a classic, but our customer care team have submitted some others to think about:

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Clueless, Napoleon Dynamite, The Breakfast Club, Hairspray, 21 Jump Street, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Superbad, 16 Candles, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Grease, High School Musical, Dead Poets Society, Matilda, Oxford Blues, Legally Blond, Pitch Perfect, Mean Girls

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Our Newest Tester

 

 

 

 

Mike Obermeyer joined the Pipkins testing team in mid-July.  Mike is a Software Engineer with experience in data acquisition with embedded systems.  Mike studied Computer Science at California State University Los Angeles while working there.

He was the EE/CS team leader that built three generations of Cal State LA solar race cars. The third car won the national championship, with the first two finishing strong at World Solar Challenge in Australia.

On his off time, he enjoys 3D printers, mountain biking and ultra-light backpacking.

 

 

 

 

 

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Famous people work at Pipkins

The annual Missouri State Governor’s Cup Dart Tournament was held Aug. 5-7 in Osage Beach, MO at the Inn at Grand Glaize. This is a team dart tournament with teams comprised of 8 men and 4 women from around the state. Players compete in 4 different events – singles, doubles, triples and 4 person – to earn points for their team and cash prizes. The team that accumulates the most points over the tournament wins the coveted Missouri Governor’s Cup Trophy. The tournament started in 1991 so this was the 31^st year of the tournament.

This years tournament had 21 teams from across Missouri and the winning team was Dart Players St. Louis (DPSTL) captained by Pipkins web developer David Madison. David and his teammates scored 57 points while the 2^nd place team had 47 points and third had 36. David has been competing in this tournament since the late 90’s and this is his teams first win in 7 years. In the early 2000’s David captained a team called Team St. Louis and they won the Cup 5 years in a row and 8 out of 10 years. Darts while mainly thought of as a pub or bar sport is actually a growing sport in the USA with its own professional tour called the CDC Tour which qualifies players for World Championship events hosted by the Professional Darts Council (PDC) which are televised in Europe much like baseball and football are televised in America.

(Pictured with Dave Madison is one of his teammates – Bobby Dees, Jr.)

 

 

 

 

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Our team made it back from APCO in California with just a day delay. Scheduling and forecasting was in high demand. The winner of our prize drawing was Traci Lefever.

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