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SPS Contact Manager The
SPS Contact Manager application provides the primary user interface into the
SPS relationship management database.
In addition to capturing basic contact information such as addresses and
phone numbers, the Contact Manager application also:
·
provides access to the expanded custom relationship
database using SPS
AttributesTM, ·
allows the addition of historical and formatted comments
to contact records using the SPS Editor, ·
provides both dynamic and static document associations to
contact records, ·
tracks ongoing activity with contacts including emails and
calendar events related to contact records, ·
provides the ability to add and view electronic business
forms (and approval chains) related to contacts in a historical fashion, and ·
provides dynamic and configurable detail reports about
each relationship. Check this emotional intelligence source it
Category
Ownership Your
SPS administrator will establish the ownership rules in regards to
categories. This means that he may
decide to grant access to certain categories to specific groups. Only the categories to which you have been
granted access are listed in the drop-down menu of the Contact Manager primary
screen. Consult your SPS administrator
if you feel that there is an error in regards to the categories that you
receive. Adding, Viewing, or Editing a Contact To
add a new contact, choose the point of the contact tree under which this new
contact will be added and click New.
The selected item of the tree will now become the “parent” of the new
contact record.
If
your SPS administrator has designated the contact category (to which you are
adding this contact) to be comprised of both company and individual contact
records, you may be asked to decide which type of contact you wish to add
before proceeding.
Based
on the type selected, you will receive different input fields (such as DBA for
a company or First, Middle, and Last name fields for individuals). Additionally, attributes created by your SPS
administrator may have been designated to only apply to the specific type of
record as well. To
edit or view a contact, simply choose the appropriate contact from the contact
tree (as shown above) and click Open (or double-click on the
contact). You will now be at the
Contact Manager detail screen. The name
of the contact will appear near the top of the screen.
As
mentioned above, you will see different input fields based on the type of
contact. Company contacts will contain
a Name (required field) and DBA input fields while individual contacts will
have a First (required field), Middle, and Last (required) name fields. You may also see different input fields if
your company has purchased an industry specific version of SPS. The
General tab of the Contact Manager detail screen contains basic address and
telephone information that you may wish to capture about the contact. The following sub-sections detail helpful
features of SPS as they relate to the General tab. Postal
Code Lookup SPS
can provide the city and state related to the postal code of a contact. Simply enter the postal code in the input
area next to the Postal Code button and click the button. The City and State input areas would
automatically be populated with the appropriate information.
Avoiding
Multiple Data Entry To
avoid duplicate typing of data, you may automatically copy addresses from
either the Shipping Address or the Mailing Address section by choosing the
“Copy from …” button.
Additionally,
any individual type record may automatically inherit the addresses or
phone numbers of its parent by choosing the “Use parent’s…” checkbox found in
the address and phone sections. This
will cause information (either address or phone numbers) to be automatically
linked back to the parent in order to prevent a re-entry of the data.
Link
Contact To SPS Mail Server Address Book If
you wish for a contact to appear in the company email Address Book, you must
enter a valid email address into the “Email” input field.
Now,
you will effectively have ‘linked’ the contact to the SPS Mail
Server Address Book. This means
that you may compose an email to the contact without having to ‘look up’ the
email address and you may avoid having to maintain the contact in multiple
places – simply keep the email address current in the contact record and
EVERYONE in your company with the permission to access the contact has the
current address.
Phone
Number Formats Based On Country Codes The
Contact Manager phone number inputs restrict access to appropriate formats
based on the country code.
While
the default entry format is for the United States, you may change the format of
any phone input field by clicking the telephone icon next to the phone
input. You will receive the Country
Codes pop-up.
Choosing
the appropriate country will format the phone number field for which it was
selected. Please note that changing the
format of the input will erase any entry that existed in the phone number
input. The phone number input field may
also be changed by selecting the appropriate country in the Shipping or Mailing
address section. You will be asked to
confirm the phone number format change based on the country selected.
The
Attributes tab found in the detail screen provides access to the expanded
custom relationship database defined by your SPS administrator using the Attribute Builder –
Contacts application. Of course,
the inputs found in this tab will vary based on those fields created. The following figure illustrates a sample
view of custom fields that may be created under the Attributes tab of the
Contact Manager. Your screens WILL
VARY depending on the custom interface (if any) that has been created by your
SPS administrator.
Comments
for a contact may easily be added, viewed, or modified through the Activities
tab of the detail screen. Much like
contact categories, your SPS administrator may create comment categories (using
the SPS
Categories application) in order to organize comments related to
contacts. To add a comment, go to the
Activities tab and choose the category from the category tree to which the
comment will be associated and click New. Of course, the categories found in the comments category tree may
differ from the figure below.
You
may also add a comment to a contact from the Contact Manager primary screen by
choosing the contact from the contact list and clicking the Notes
button.
In
either case, you will receive a new window containing the SPS Editor.
Comments
may be formatted in a variety of ways, including colored text, bold,
highlights, font variations, and more.
Furthermore, spelling may be checked by using the S button found
in the SPS Editor. See the section
titled “SPS Editor Functions” in the SPS User Manual for more details about
formatting comments. The Comment window
allows multiple saves. Once added, the
comment will be listed in the table found in the right side of the Activities
tab screen.
Comments
found in categories below the “Notes – Comments” section of the Activity
Categories tab can be seen collectively by clicking on the Notes – Comments
activity category. Of course, comments
found in specific sub-categories can be found by clicking on the desired
sub-category. To view or edit the
comment, simply select the Comment entry (causing it to highlight in yellow)
and click Open (or double-click the comment). You may delete the comment by selecting the comment and clicking Delete. Additionally, you may move the comment from
one sub-category to another by choosing Move. Keep in mind that your SPS administrator may not have provided
you with appropriate permissions. The
Contact Manager application provides a central repository for all information
associated with a contact. Documents,
emails, calendar events, notes and comments, and electronic forms are all
incorporated with a contact record as “activities” related to that
contact. The Activities tab of the
Contact Manager detail screen provides a common facility to track the
above-mentioned contact activities. Attachments The
Attachments activity category provides you the ability to attach a “dynamic”
document to a contact record. The
“Attachments” activity category represents dynamic attachments while the
“Attachments – Historical” category represents static, uploaded documents.
A
“dynamic” attachment in this scenario means that users with appropriate
permissions may change the document at any time. For example, if you wish to use a Microsoft Word document for
project documentation that can be modified as project requirements change, you
may attach the Word file to the contact by clicking on the “Attachments”
activity category and clicking the New button.
A
pop-up will appear with the documents available for sharing. Choose the document to share and click OK. The document will now be associated with the
contact record and will display in the right-hand side of the Activities
tab. You may edit the document by
selecting the document and clicking Open (or by double-clicking the
document). Your desktop will
automatically launch the appropriate editing utility (such as Microsoft Word or
Excel) and any changes to the document will automatically retain their
association to the contact record.
Historical
attachments (static in nature) can be uploaded and associated with a contact by
clicking the “Attachments – Historical” activity category and clicking the New
button. Much like an email attachment,
you will receive the Upload File dialog that allows you to browse the file
structure of your local hard drive for the file you wish to upload.
Once
a file has been chosen and uploaded, it can only be viewed by users with proper
authority – no further changes to the document itself are allowed. This feature is ideal for company documents
that should not be changed, for example, images of completed contracts, drafted
letters, notices, and other important documentation. Email
History If
a contact detail record contains an email address and an email has been sent
using the Same Page Mail Server to that address, a link to that email is
established under the “Emails” activity category of the Activities tab for that
contact. In this manner, all email
communication via SPS users (regardless of the email client used) is tracked
and historically available.
Email
addresses which have been designated as private (by checking the Private
checkbox next to the email address) or those contacts without an email address
listed under the General tab of the detail screen will not track email
communication with that contact under the Activities tab. For all others, emails listed under the
“Emails” activity category can be opened and viewed (but not edited) by
selecting the email and clicking the Open button (or by double-clicking
on the email listing).
Calendar
Events In
order to provide better calibration between company events and the contacts
that those events are associated with, calendar events may be “linked” to a
contact. This can be done in one of two
ways from the Contact Manager detail screen.
First, the event may be added by selecting the “Events – Appointments”
activity category from the Activities and clicking New.
Second,
you may open the calendar for any contact by clicking the Calendar
button found in the upper left-hand corner of the Contact Manager detail
screen. The SPS Calendar application
will open in a new window with the calendar data filter applied to only display
the data for the requested contact (see the section in this manual discussing
the Calendar application
for more details about calendar filters).
Once
an event has been associated with a contact, it will appear under the “Events –
Appointments” activity category within the Activities tab for that
contact. To view, or edit this event,
simply click on the event listing and choose Open (or double-click on
the event listing).
Electronic
business forms created in SPS (known also as “Tickets”) are
linked to contacts found in the Contact Manager and can be viewed under the
Tickets tab of the detail screen. To
view, edit, or delete a ticket, simply select the ticket from the listing and
click View (or double-click on the ticket entry), Edit or Delete.
For
more information about creating a new ticket for a contact, see the section
below titled “Creating a New Ticket For a Contact”. If
your SPS administrator has configured the SPS Scheduler function to track
customized events related to this contact category, you may access the
scheduler application for each contact using the Scheduler button found
at the upper left-hand corner of the Contact Manager detail screen.
Details
of the function of the contact scheduler will be provided to you by your SPS
administrator since much like the contact attributes function, the contact
scheduler application is entirely configured to your company requirements. As such, details of its operation depend
entirely upon the configuration scheme applied by your SPS administrator. Calendar
events filtered specifically for a contact can be accessed by clicking the Calendar
button found at the upper left-hand corner of the Contact Manager detail
screen. A new window will open the SPS Calendar application
with calendar events representing only those pertaining to the selected
contact.
From
this calendar screen, you may view, edit or delete related events if you have
been given permission to do so by your SPS administrator. Additionally, you may add calendar events
specifically linked to the selected contact.
See the manual section pertaining to calendar filters for more
information on how to adjust the calendar data filter to view information
regarding different contacts. Form
letters that have been composed using the SPS Document Manager may be merged
with the information from a given contact by choosing the appropriate contact
from the Contact Manager primary screen and clicking the Merge
button. A dialog will display the
available documents from the Document Manager file folders. From this new window, choose both the
document that you wish to merge and the delivery method from the lower
left-hand option menu. The delivery
method allows content to be sent directly to a new browser window or an email
screen.
Mail
merge may be used to incorporate names, addresses, and other company
information found in the contact record with pre-formatted letters and other
documents in order to quickly compose standardized letters and emails. Please see the section in this manual
discussing the mail merge features of the SPS Document Manager for more
information. Contacts
listed in the Contact Manager primary screen may be targeted as recipients of
emails by selecting the contact and clicking the Email button. A new window will open and provide the Compose Email
screen.
The
email address of the selected contact will be displayed as the “To” recipient
if that contact has an email address listed under the General tab of the
Contact Manager detail screen.
Once
the email has been delivered, an entry can be found under the “Emails” activity
category found in the Activities tab of the detail screen. Searching For Contacts (Find Function) Clicking
the Find button of the Contact Manager primary screen will allow a
detailed search of all contacts found within the selected contact
category. This detailed search includes
not only the items found within the General tab of the Contact Manager detail
screen (such as address information and phone numbers), but also any
user-defined information found within the Attributes tab (described above in
the Contact Attributes section).
You
may search on any combination of available search fields found in either the
General or Attributes tab of the Find dialog.
The following are specific search rules: (1) Any field left blank (or any numerical field
containing zeros) will not be included in the query conditions of the search, (2) You may execute a “wildcard” search by
placing an asterisks (*) after any character entry,
(3) You may execute a “wildcard” search on phone
numbers by entering a few numbers and leaving the remaining numbers as zeros.
(4) Attribute input fields may appear different
in the Find dialog than in the Attribute tab of the Contact Manager detail
screen because input types are represented in a manner required to establish
appropriate search criteria. For
example, whole number inputs are represented in the Find dialog as a range of
numbers and any attempt to execute a query based on that input field would
require completion of the range.
If
your SPS administrator has given you the ability to delete a contact record,
simply highlight the contact that you wish to delete from the Contact Manager
primary screen and click the Delete key.
You
will be asked to confirm the action.
Please note that deleting a contact permanently removes all links to
that contact, including any comment and ticket histories. The
contact detail report provides a comprehensive view of the data captured about
the contact in the General and Attributes tabs of the contact detail
screen. Collapsing any unwanted
sections of the report may further customize this report. To run the detail report, choose the contact
from the contact tree of the Contact Manager primary screen and click the Detail
button. You will receive the contact
detail report in a new window.
To
collapse any unwanted sections of the report, click on the appropriate section
header (changing your cursor from an arrow to a hand).
Please
note that you cannot undo a collapse action.
To reverse the action, you must re-run the contact detail report. All printing and export functions are
performed through the browser print, print preview, and export facilities as
found under the File option menu. Creating a New Ticket For a Contact If
your SPS administrator has created electronic forms
(tickets), you may create and link those tickets to any existing contact
record found in the Contact Manager by choosing the contact from the contact
tree of the primary screen and clicking the Ticket button.
You
will receive a pop-up containing all the available tickets for the contact
category to which the contact belongs.
Simply choose the appropriate ticket and choose OK. You will now receive the ticket pop-up for
that ticket. Of course, all ticket
pop-ups will vary based on the information designated for the ticket by your
SPS administrator. Your screens WILL
VARY depending on the custom interface (if any) that has been created by your
SPS administrator.
Once
a ticket has been completed, it may be viewed (among other places) under the
Tickets tab of the detail screen for a contact record. See the section above for more information
on ticket histories. You
may export information from the Contact Manager application to a Palm Pilot or
to any other application capable of accepting contact information in a comma
separated file format by clicking the Sync button from the Contact
Manager primary screen. The export will
only contain those records found in the selected contact category.
Choosing
the comma separated file format delivers information using SPS defined
headers. This data can then be
formatted further to your specifications using any text editor or spreadsheet
program (such as Microsoft Excel). The
Palm Address Book file format delivers a file in the proprietary .aba format
that can be imported into the Palm Pilot Desktop software’s address book
application.
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