Update: We’ve posted a follow-up article titled “Data Integrity” that further explains why we disabled snapshots. Read it here…
Snapshots are being moved to Premier Services
You’re reading this because you’re hearing that measureQuick has turned off screenshots. Some people have not updated their version of the application recently causing the screenshot feature to fail. Updating the application will permit screenshots until they become a paid feature of measureQuick, starting May 1, 2023.
That we made the changes without first giving you a heads up is our mistake. It was not intentional. We screwed the proverbial pooch (not Waffles)… we own it and we apologize.
Other features like diagnostics with just-in time education, simultaneous multiple measurements, and target zones remain available without charge.
Why We Do What We Do
We are on a mission to fix an industry: that is broken, missing opportunities, wasting energy, and in no position to meet the challenges of electrification. We invest over a million dollars a year back into the measureQuick platform for the mutual benefit of all stakeholders. It is simply a matter of economics and protecting the long-term health of the industry and measureQuick.
We transitioned screenshots into a Premier Service for the following reasons:
- Screenshotting is a half-assed way to digitize the check sheets of old. Half-assed because pictures are not easy to scrape, too large, and inconvenient to store. It’s a shortcut to avoid paying. Snapshotting simply undermines everything that we have built this platform for.
- Because measureQuick is growing at a tremendous rate, and we have real expenses that come along with that growth. A fraction of our user base currently supports our storage, technical support, training, marketing, operational employees, benefits, human resources, graphic artists, taxes, legal, accountants, trade shows, a lab to design and test diagnostics, and other expenses that come with running a business, like taxes.
Once we discovered the full measure of abuse we realized we had to remove screenshots. Let’s face it, we need to make money in order to continue to provide the measureQuick experience. And if you don’t already know, you only pay for measureQuick when you yourself make money. Read more about our pricing model here.
All of our staff, vendors, and contractors work for real money, just like you and your team.
If you’re that upset, there are other options that you can use – but none are designed to be an end-to-end commissioning platform like measureQuick.
The question to reflect on: How many services do you offer in your business that are free?
FAQ About This Change
How do I get the ability to screen capture?
Login to The Virtuoso Portal on a computer or tablet and under the Billing tab, load your account. Once loaded you can begin unlocking projects and using screen captures and advanced diagnostics in the application.
5 QBits is too expensive for me, a single technician. Any suggestions?
Yes! Ask your employer to add a new line item option to invoicing. On jobs that you specifically use measureQuick on, you can add the line “Digital assessment for advanced diagnostics” and the fee is $5. Ask your employer to pass on the expense. Customers will also enjoy receiving a comprehensive 3rd party report of their system for that $5.
I currently use Premier Services, how does this affect me?
It does not. Carry on!
I am an instructor, can I use snapshots images for educational purposes?
Absolutely, we will continue to provide FreeBits to high-school and college students/instructors for measureQuick training. Freebits can be used to unlock projects and provide unlimited access to screenshots.
Can I use measureQuick snapshots in blog posts or for websites?
Yes, by unlocking a project, you are authorized to use screen captures of the measureQuick application for blog posts, or on social media.
Well, a step in the right direction deserves congratulations… banning your userbase without letting them know in advance was certainly an interesting business decision.
Unfortunately, there's still a few blatant issues here moving forward, and telling the 90% of your userbase that doesn't pay (I'm inferring, since you're telling us that just a "fraction" supports) to just go use the JobLink app is pretty emblematic of the mentality that got us here…
Let's try to make this simple for everyone.
First, creating a currency that gets bought/sold through your own portal, and then used in-app, is just you reaping the benefits of in-app microtransactions without paying the host of your app for delivering it to the masses… It's literally the same as unpaid use of your app is.
Second, screenshotting is for most technicians faster, easier, and more productive than the report generating; it's not a workaround to paying, it's a workaround to things we don't need. If we just need to document for the next technician what we were seeing, or send a quick screen to a supervisor for help, it's a screenshot. You're treating it like it's an aggression against you, when it's not.
See how it feels to read the first point and be called out for cheating someone out of their cut of your product? That's how it feels to be told that taking screenshots is exploiting you; you don't offer a way to contribute to MeasureQuick that isn't buying QBits and paying the way that you think it should be paid.
The same way your opinion about how the app should be used is prompting you to redefine the way your users interact with it, instead of the other way around. You think that screenshots are clunky and inferior, and yet it's what we all do; sometimes the designer needs to recognize when they're not actually the end user…
You don't have paying users because you don't offer a way to pay that makes sense for your users.
Which brings us to point 3:
Rethink how you bill. You frame it as "pay for what you use" I hear it as "pay more if you work more" – so now if I book my technicians a full day, my operating costs are going up. Take on a customer with multiple systems? Don't forget that $5/per system technology fee… and so on…
Billing per system implies that the greatest cost of MQ is data storage, since that's what "per system" implies. We all know that isn't actually true… the cost are in development, adding features, fixing bugs, etc… your payroll costs don't go up in the way that your billing does if I start logging more projects.
Literally every large successful piece of software that serves this industry bills per technician. JUST LET US PAY YOU A FIXED FEE!!!!!!!!
I guarantee if you gave in and started offering alternative billing schemes, you wouldn't have had to try to force people to pay in the first place.
You don't have to patronize tradespeople about getting paid what you're worth; we deal with this BS all day long. We all want to pay you, we want you to succeed, we want you all to have what you deserve and be recognized and appreciated.
But c'mon; a moment of introspection here… fix the way you bill, and lose the savior complex / my-way-or-the-highway dynamic; it's all great to preach about how the industry is in crisis because we're installing complex units we can't commission, but in the same breath you're not leaving space for different levels of technicians to progress at different paces… If a screenshot is all that we can get some guys to remember to do, we have to take what we can get, and collectively recognize that technology is challenging for some of our staff, and that a lot of our staff work under pressure to move faster – reporting is an added step that their particular company may not be interested in allowing time for.
MQ is the future of the industry, but not if you're going to try to force everyone to see it the same way as you do.
Be flexible.
Listen to your userbase.
And if all else fails, just show some freaking ads!!! We've already got to scroll past 6 different things no one uses just to get to classic gauges…
We really do appreciate how hard you all work for this, we would love to support you all, we have no interest in paying $5 per system per year to do that. I would happily pay $20/month per technician without thinking twice, and I'm confident that at $5 or 10 you'd have a winning formula.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, and I agree with you on many levels.
Believe me, I have thought long and hard about the model and how we could change things to service everyone they way they would like. The primary issue as we have a B2B product with a lot of end users (technicians) that are using measureQuick outside of the business. That is not how it is intended to be used. We do not want to burden technicians with any costs.
Why? Because measureQuick was never designed to create cost for technicians or for business owners for that matter. It is designed to be a passthrough to the consumer who ultimately is the beneficiary of the services. For a company, it is as simple as adding a line item to an invoice. I go to an auto repair shop and they add line items for oil or tire disposal or even remote diagnostic fees. Consumers are fine with this. Many of our customers simply raised their price $5.00/ticket and rolled it in. The consumer only pays for it when you use it and it follows your seasonal trends as a business without the overhead cost of a subscription. It is truly and operational cost to a business just like a capacitor or wire nut.
We are selling a standardization product/process for measurements and reporting for a business. Technicians are trying to use measureQuick as field a tool. That is the disconnect. It is very challenging to separate out the features that technicians would be willing to pay for on their own without undermining our core business. This is the problem with screenshotting. It only gets you part way there and devalues the rest of the platform.
Thanks again for your feedback.
Jim Bergmann
You can listen to what Definitely Not Martin is saying or stick to your guns and double down and go out of business.
Its up to you.
Someone will come along and provide a pricing model people actually want.
Challenge accepted. The pricing model is for the decision maker not the technician. We never intended or wanted technicians to pay for anything. Take us to your leader and let us work with you to get them using measureQuick the way it was designed. We are glad to help.
What about publishing the classic version for a flat rate as a tool, and calling it something else so it doesn't affect your core business? The problem great technicians run into in our industry is often trying to do the best work we can in spite of bosses who are just business owners – often don't understand the trade or the benefits of the app – and have the mindset of "we've done it this way for this long and had no problems, why would we change". If we truly want to change the industry we need to enable the younger techs and those who want to do a better job to bring better work forward. Encourage new users and better work. Yes, there are benefits to the business with benchmarking, commissioning, reporting and so on, but a lot of businesses – especially bigger corporations – do not want to change what they have done. honestly I think the majority of techs where I am are still using analog gauges. If you charged a flat rate that technicians could afford, most would be happy to pay out of their own pockets. In a lot of cases techs could convince their company to give them a fee to pay for using the tool, but they don't want to change the way they are doing things. I think everyone respects the work you guys do and supports you wholeheartedly and would be happy to back that financially, but the owners just aren't generally on board. Limiting screenshots limits the ability of senior techs to remotely support and advise junior techs when the company they work for doesn't understand the value. Most companies here don't provide tools. The techs that care have scrimped and saved to buy high end tools and understand doing things well costs money and enables them to learn better and faster. These same techs would have no problem paying $100 a year or whatever to back you guys and support you. The structure you have is set up for a business to use, but leaves the technician striving to do work honestly and properly limited. I'm sure there are people who abuse the screenshots and attach them to work orders and such, but I'd like to think the majority aren't for that. They're using it to learn and get support from coworkers. I know your intention is to improve the industry and help the technicians. I feel like this is leaving those stand out technicians behind. Please consider some alternative method of billing for those technicians that are using it independently of their business to help educate and improve. I don't think anyone feels that should be free, but the current structure leaves no option for those technicians to pay for the tool/diagnostic features without the reporting, benchmarking and so on
Thanks for reaching out and voicing your opinion. We have looked at every angle of this to find and easy resolution that would not undermine our core business as well as the spirit of what we are trying to do to improve as you implied a very antiquated industry. The frustration of moving features is very mutual but necessary.
Okay. And what is your answer for those of us who don't do our own billing and are one of the few people in a company that uses this service?
What you are failing to realize is that MQ isn't not implemented shop wide in a majority of shops and in most cases only a handful of technicians are using the app.
So by your pricing standard, me being one of 3 techs out of 10 that uses MQ daily, now has to pay out of pocket at the rate of 5$ per unit so I can take screenshots for my own personal reference down the line. I don't do my own billing. So please tell me how I can add 5$ per unit to an invoice I NEVER SEE.
And if you think I am the only one in this situation then you fail to realize the average age for hvac technicians is 56 years old and most of them don't trust "technology"
Your first point is "We are on a mission to fix an industry: that is broken, missing opportunities, wasting energy, and in no position to meet the challenges of electrification." Which is a nice way of saying most people don't understand the technology. Yet you assume those same people all understand MQ and have managed to get it implemented shop wide at their shops?
Offer a flat fee rate. 25$ a month I don't care. I'd happily pay it because it makes my life easier and allows me to keep personal records for myself easily accessible.
Good Grief Charley Brown! Heck Fire Gomez! But Shirley…!!! Jim Bergmann, Bryan Orr and their cohorts around the country. Great job and keep on rockin the HVAC world, I salute you. Don't sweat the small stuff. At the end of the day, have no regrets. It's all good at beer thirty.
I agree with every single point that someone not named Martin made here.. I also love MeasureQuick and Jim and see all the good they have done and I am grateful.
Excellent!
This is frustrating as a Sr. Technician who supervises a couple of Jr Techs. I have begged and pleaded with ownership to use measure quick to its full potential or at any faced. They simple do not see the justification I can not control this. I have used MQ for 4 or more years. I can not remember how long exactly. It is does exactly what it is suppose too and has assisted me in teaching several younger techs coming into service with great success. I want to see the company succeed and prosper. I have no problem paying for a membership or even getting my company too since it makes them money. I just can’t get past the old school mentality of “No customer cares about that, or that just takes up too much time and so on.”. So I get it if people are miss using or degrading your software you would want to stop that. I can only speak for myself, We use the screen shot so techs and installers can screenshot the readings and attach a digital photo to our CSM software (ST). So there is a copy of their readings not just number listed in invoice notes.
I will still use MQ and I will still encourage younger/newer techs to use. I will still try and get it implemented at the company I work for because it is second to none.
With all that being said it’s just frustrating. I can not afford to spend $5 on every service call to get these features and I wish my company would put a fee on there in some form so you guys get paid what you deserve for the development and support of this awesome program.
Jim,
You are so passionate about the industry and doing things right, and that challenges all of us. But I wonder if receiving some of this feedback and having a dialogue with your core user base is more important than "being right." It may be that maintaining the relationship with current users and giving people some of what they want even if you disagree will end up being a better move than doing what you think is best and trying to challenge the industry to rise up. Sometimes the best leaders are taken where they do not want to go, and allow themselves to be led by their followers. Even God listened to Moses sometimes and changed his mind 🙂
Agreed, leaders have to make a lot of hard decisions and I am willing to talk to your company leadership on your behalf. Let's not spend 40 years stuck in the desert.
The problem is that not many people want to use your app the way you say it needs to be used. You can’t make an app like this and then tell us how it’s supposed to be used and then start taking features away that we were using for years and basically strong arming us techs into paying you for these features. The app has gotten too difficult and frustrating to use lately anyway. I’m using it less and less and just the other day I couldn’t use it at all the app was crashing, wouldn’t recognize any of my tools, kept having black message boxes appearing ever 5 secs saying error: need android permission for attribution source Bluetooth scan measurquickhvac attribution tag=null token. Wtf is that about? My phone and mq were up to date. Just come out with a version of the basic app only without all the reporting crap. No one pays because no one wants that. This was a bad business decision to take screenshots away from us techs who need them. It has nothing to do with scamming you guys so we don’t have to pay for your reports. I used to take all these same measurements and write them down on paper before mq. Now I look at the screenshots to look at the system as a whole. I save the file as the unit number and date so I can look at what it was doing last time I was working on it for example. It’s too confusing to save jobs and sites in the app, this is easier for me. Now, I’m not sure I’ll have much use for mq in the future. This app could have been the future but not if you’re starting out like this already.
Come guys , really ?? Charging user for screenshots is like charging kids to use a play ground .
If we were on the playground I would agree wholeheartedly, but we are not. We are in the business of making businesses money while simultaneously improving our industry. We would be glad to talk to your leadership and show them how they can improve revenue per ticked up to 60%.
I have been a huge fan and supporter of MQ for many years. There is not one comment yet posted I don't agree with. That's because there's more than one way to run a company. My techs do things my way, your techs do it your way. That's the point, that's the goal, and recognizing different strokes for different folks is a productive outlook. But I don't go telling my customers I'm changing the basic features of the benefits I provide to them without notice and hold them financially hostage. That's bad for business.
I agree with user named Brian, measurequick is used for a lot of different reasons, and a classic version with classic pay style is needed. From the beginning, I wanted to support the program and donate. I've never done it. The pay sctructure is too cumbersome, and too forced. I have used the premier with other people's money, and it's great. It truly is a mountain of educational and technological knowledge, and Jim has done an outstanding job building it. And he's definitely smart enough to know if you're good at something to never do it for free. And if a man were out to solely make money, he would never put a cap on how much another person might pay for his services. This is qbits, and it sucks.
I have customers that loved MQ, and would pay 5 bucks for it in a heartbeat. But I have to spend additional time on site to complete testout and get reports. They are not ok paying 5 bucks plus 20-25 minutes of union labor for a picture of their working equipment performing normally, every year.
Jim, I hear where you're coming from, even if we ignored the money. And I value your core beliefs you've stated over the years, and I think you're right. But this is not the best way to progress. Let me use the classic version the classic way. If I just need a screenshot, fine, I'm OK not digging through the system. If I want to do a full workup, great, I'll pay for it. You want to include paid ads, fine, we're used to it. A monthly subscription to MQ classic, call it measurequicker, measurecheaper, measuredumber, who cares.
But I don't let the developers and designers of my tools tell me how to use them. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. You can either straight charge your users or force them to abandon you, because the next generation of techs are not buying or paying for digital anything, I promise you that.
You will continue to have techs taking pictures of a tablet with a phone cam and uploading them to their software the hard way, knowing they are f****ing you, and they appreciate the workaround more than the education you provide. Your call, your circus. But, the monkeys are smart. They will forgo the pay walls and go back to doing a shitty job the shitty way, and all your efforts to revolutionize the industry will be for nothing.
Good luck, folks. I hope it works out.
😂 "If you’re that upset, click Here to download the Fieldpiece Joblink app."
That’s classic, I love it! Did Jim write this? Touché to whoever did.
I am a brand new one man business and I have no problem with paying 5 Qbits to deliver MQ quality to my customers. Thank all of you for your hard work and dedication to improving the HVAC industry.
I have worked with Jim and his team for quite some time, back to the earlier development stages of mQ. I do not disagree with anything posted here by anyone. I truly understand and respect all of the points being made. My position is based on what myself and our company has experienced through our mQ journey. My takeaway from all of this stems from one question that I think everyone needs to ask: "How am I going leverage this product in order to better myself, my company and the end product provided to the customer?" My message is directed not just toward the technician, but the owner as well. You can take the methods we have used to achieve great success and apply them. Or, simply view all of this as junk. That's ok as well……
Early on, we decided to separate ourselves from our competition by offering a "thorough diagnostic report" (not a screen shot of readings) for our technicians to review with our customers. From the beginning, we never saw the $5 as an issue. Sorry for the folks that struggle with that, but that's the truth. We planned on it. We embraced it.
You see, for us, that's just it. That's the secret sauce built into measureQuck. It's the report! It's not screen shots. Why? Because when you deploy ALL of the probes and and run a report, that report will arm you with factual, independent data to discuss with your customer. That information, pays for that $5 in the work it generates. It's that simple and here is the data I can share… (we are a Service Titan company, we track all of this)
-We raised our $59 basic tune up price to an $89 Digital Maintenance Service…….(zero loss in tune-up volume)
-Average ticket increase over 20% (that paid the $5 right there)
-Warranty call backs went down 15%
-Maintenance agreement visits experienced increased revenue of about 20%
-We actually saved maintenance agreement labor on return visits because the system was already benchmarked and all of the profiling was already done.
…and what about "delivered performance"……With utility costs, electrification, and all of the stuff hitting this trade, if you are not talking about delivered btu's, combustion efficiency and actual WATT draw, you really need to start or you are going to be left behind. (Another reason to be talking with the customer about the REPORT)
measureQuick has allowed us to attract better technicians that have the drive to do a better job. (And I think that is the case for most, if not all of the folks reading this or they wouldn't be here)
For you folks working for the boss or owner that doesn't see the value and won't pay the $5, I honestly do not have a lot of answers other than if you truly want to better yourself in your career, you may have to make some hard decisions. Tough words, I get it, and I have been there, but the ability to take screen shots for free is not going to get you to the next level.
For those of you that "aren't given the time" to run a report by your boss or owner, I get your frustration. But please understand measureQuick was never designed to simply take screen shots of gages, or other readings. That is not it's purpose, never was.
My final point is this….figure out a way to make the $5 work. Don't fixate on what was free, that is not free now. I get the frustration. I do. But that is truly waisted energy. Take ALL of the benefits that Jim has built into this product and use them to YOUR benefit. Find a way. We did by simply going over the report findings and letting the customer choose what, if anything they wanted to correct. It truly is that simple, but you have to generate a report. When you consider all of what measureQuick crunches into useable data, that $5 is pretty reasonable. However, if you aren't using the data (REPORT) to your benefit, the $5 is worthless. Just like anything, I guess it comes down to a choice.
If the “secret sauce” is the report, then why does it matter if people are taking screen shots of gauges?
Not everyone wants the reporting. Those that do can pay $5/ system.
Why not allow those that just want to record their readings to pay a flat monthly or annual fee?
We really looked hard at that, it simply does not fit our model.
I totally get you guys charging and I’m surprised it took this long!
Thank you for all that you do
Question: why not just charge an annual fee?
Thank your Jim for your work. I am a new user with less than 1 month using the application. I understand charging for the use of the app. My biggest reason why I hadn't decided to pay for it yet is because it was confusing to pay for it. I didn't know what the benefits are of being a premier user and it wasn't super clear how to even purchase "a bit".
Thanks again for your work Jim. I respect your decision and look forward to continuing to use your app!
Literally the only person at my company that uses this app will no longer use it as the only reason I use the app if for the gauge section. That’s literally it. Not paying you money to take a screen shot it’s pathetic, just increase the ads that’s more understandable but to remove basically the only function i use this for because I don’t pay you is bull. You make money off the ads I see and click. But you don’t care about the less thans and for this I’m leaving after faithfully using this product for years. Btw I’m the only hvac tech in housing on a military base. I service 2000 homes. $5 per system is a joke.
Yes Sir, I share the same feeling
I am seeing an opportunity for an app developer to design an app that would fill the gap between the simple field piece app and the super advanced measure quick app. I see some market opportunity to offer a limited measure quick app for a flat annual fee. If my company was to follow the current measure quick pricing.we would be looking at about $150,000 a year . We are in the hvac business not the billing our customers more to pay measure quick business. Good luck with your venture You will do well but your market will be small.
Ronald,
There is a cost to using measureQuick but a far greater cost not to. Customers implementing measureQuick as a standard in their business are seeing across the board 40-60% increases in revenue per ticked and much lower callbacks. We can simply find more problems and that leads to more opportunity. It you cannot identify the opportunity you have no chance in making the sale. A better way to look at the cost is to take your gross revenue and divide it by .60 then determine your typical net and back out the cost of measuresQuick.