Transcript
CBW Advanced: Skills for Mastering ClientBase for Windows Discussion Points: - Overview of ClientBase Training Options - My Login menu option - Workstation Defaults - Global Modify - Traveler Linking in Res Cards - Backup Dos and Don’ts - Customizing results screens in profiles and res cards on your own computer only - Profile Dupe Check - And more! ClientBase for Windows can be daunting at first. There’s so much to learn, and tons of features to implement. Hopefully today we’ll cover a few tips that will help you close the gap between being a CB “noob,” and getting the most you can out of the program. QUICK OVERVIEW OF CLIENTBASE TRAINING OPTIONS There is a wealth of information that can be found on the Trams Website, so it’s good to know where to look for certain things when seeking information on a particular topic.
Recorded Training: From the Trams Home Page, select Products, then on the following screen, select ClientBase.
The ClientBase Product page gives an overview of ClientBase and its features. There is a list of links, in red, that take you to different sections. From here you can jump to the Recorded Trainings.
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First of all, there is a paragraph that explains that you need to install certain webex video players to view these recordings. Their installation should be straightforward, just click the links provided, and run the installation files to install the players. List of Recordings:
The recorded trainings for ClientBase cover everything from Administrative topics on setting up Global Defaults, to Frontline Agent topics on Creating Profiles as well as Res Cards and Invoicing. *Note the “Prev” and “Next” links you can click to navigate the pages of recordings.
Live Classes: In addition to our recordings, there are live classes held every day during the week. To see a list of them, click on the Training menu item at the top of the Trams website:
From this page, you can (1.) view a page and document explaining the classes available, or (2.) go to the listing of classes and enroll. You can also get to the before-mentioned Recorded Trainings through a link on the left.
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Daily Q & A: Among the Live Training classes can be found a Daily Q & A Session for ClientBase for Windows. This is a great opportunity to ask questions and you’ll be surprised what you can learn just by listening in! After clicking #1, “ClientBase WebEx Training” from the previous screen snap:
All in Pacific Time Zone
USER ACCESS TO MY LOGIN MENU OPTION
By default, users that are given the security group “Agent Access” will not have access to the Utilities/My Login menu option. Since this option allows an agent to modify a number of settings related to their own user experience, and does not allow them to modify anything related to permissions, it’s recommended to enable this for option for everyone. With this available they will be able to: -Enter their own email settings. -Set default queries for each of the Manager screens. -Set default tabs to load when accessing Profiles. -Enter their own Live Connect logins.
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WORKSTATION DEFAULTS Another area that gives individual users power over their ClientBase experience are the options found under the Workstation Defaults menu. In this menu you’ll find 3 options:
Tool Bar Buttons This allows you to choose a Big or Small Toolbar button selection. Small buttons do not show their text labels.
Spell Checker A user can enable and set a few options for the built-in Spell Checker. After first installation, you must find and select the Dictionary file that ClientBase will use when checking spelling. That file is found under C:\ProgramData\Trams\Dictionary, or on older installations, under My Documents\TRAMS\Dictionary.
-The Highlight misspelled words option must be checked. -The options “Ignore Case”, “Autocorrect Case mistakes”, “Use autocorrection user entries” and “No compound word checking” are not available, and an error will be displayed if you try to select them. This is unfortunately a limitation of the integrated tool we used to implement spell checking. -Spell checking works in areas that use Formatted Text, i.e. Document Templates, Emails in Formatted Text mode, and the Remarks tab of a Profile. 5
Environment Under Environment, the user will have several tabs that have options to control various behaviors of ClientBase, many of which have Global Default counterparts, but here the user can choose to use the Global Setting, or specify their own. The most common options a user may want to change for themselves, are the Automatic Query settings found on the General Options and Profile Options Tabs.
Automatic query settings on this tab control whether or not ClientBase will automatically refresh the query results when using Level 1 or 2 queries. Level 1: If enabled, the query automatically runs when the user pauses typing for about 1 second. When disabled, a user can pause as long as necessary to correct typographical errors and will need to click the Refresh button to execute the query. Level 2: If enabled, the query begins after clicking okay on the Level 2 filter window. If disabled, the user will need to click the Refresh button to execute the query.
The Automatic Query settings on this tab affect how much data is pre-loaded when opening a Profile. -Disabling the Travel History and Payment History tab automatic queries simply stops ClientBase from populating the data on these tabs when opening a Profile. You can still run queries on those tabs. -Profile Indicators are the small icons that appear in the upper right of a Profile that show whether a Profile has any Res Cards, Travel History or Activities. Disabling this option turns off the background queries that display these buttons.
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GLOBAL MODIFY “With great power, comes great responsibility.”
Our Global Modify Utility in ClientBase is a powerful tool. It has numerous uses, but without a careful eye, it is possible to make irreversible changes with devastating effect to your profiles. In that light, we recommend running a backup before any project that involves using this Utility.
From Profile Manager: 1. Field Type Tabs 2. Action (set or exchange value) 3. Field to update. 4. Value. 5. Records to Update 6. Run the Global Modification
7. Category Selector 8. Codes 9. Selected Codes 10. Add or Remove Code
11. Action for Group
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From Res Card and Activity Managers
Be Careful! As mentioned before, you can cause irreversible (without a backup) harm to your profiles with this utility. An example we always use to illustrate this was an agency that we were working with wanted to take all profiles where the State in their addresses was blank, and set it to a specific State. They were not careful with their query, and set every single one of their profiles to have the same State in their address, and did not have a backup to recover from. Always backup, and always be certain you have the right query results before using the Global Modify Utility.
TRAVELER LINKING IN RES CARDS In 3.08 of ClientBase for Windows, there were significant changes in how Traveler records are handled in the database, which we referred to as a “decoupling.” Travelers became more independent records which can be linked to multiple Profiles without the duplication that occurred in previous versions. For example, a Corporate Profile’s Traveler contacts the agency about booking some personal travel. The correct practice would be to create a Leisure profile for them, and with this “decoupling,” you can link the Traveler record from the Corporate profile to the new Leisure profile without having to reenter much of their information:
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In 3.09 of ClientBase for Windows, there were changes in how emailing was handled from the Res Card. In short, when selecting the Email button in a Res Card, or from a generated invoice, ClientBase will now only show you email addressed for 1. Travelers assigned to that Res Card that are properly linked to the Traveler Record of the Profile, or 2. Profile level email addresses. This new functionality was implemented primarily because for Corporate profiles with large lists of employees, previous versions would bring up a very long list of email addresses to choose from, where now, you’ll only see a limited list based on the Travelers for that particular Res Card. Where this caused some confusion, was when a Traveler that was added to a Res Card was not properly linked to the Profile Traveler record. When Travelers are imported into a Res Card via PNR Import or Live Connect, there’s an attempt to match the names that are already added to the Res Card. If the First and Last name match, then the name is kept along with the link to the Profile Traveler record. However, many agents would skip adding Travelers to their Res Card, and jump right to PNR Import or Live Connect. This causes the names to be populated only by the import, and no link is created between that name and the Traveler record of the Profile. We are working on an enhancement to better handle Traveler linking during PNR Import and Live Connect, but until this change happens: 1. Make sure your Profile Travelers are updated and complete before beginning your Res Card. 2. Select all appropriate Travelers when starting your Res Card, before using PNR Import, Live Connect, pulling from Inventory or adding any Reservations manually. 3. If you add a Traveler to a Res Card that should remain linked to the Profile afterwards, use the Add to Res Card and Profile option from the Res Card Traveler screen. 4. Set the Global Default that automatically adds Leisure Travelers to the Res Card Travelers list when beginning a new Res Card.
Option to Add a new Traveler to both the Res Card and the Profile
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Global Defaults|Res Card Defaults|Default Field Values for Res Cards
BACKING UP YOUR DATABASE, DOS AND DON’TS Do: Backup every day/evening! The Trams software can always be reinstalled on a new machine, but your database backup contains all of your actual data. To recover from a system failure, you absolutely need your backup! Don’t backup only to your local drive! A backup is only useful if you have access to it. If you regularly backup but only to your local drive, and that drive fails, you’ve lost your database as well as your backup. Backups should be made or copied to an external device. Do: Set up a scheduled backup. The support team can assist you with this process and is relatively simple to do. The Windows Task Scheduler is used to launch the backup utility with a set of parameters that provides the login, compression options, and destination for the backup. Don’t rely only on third party backup applications! This can be tricky to explain, but the bottom line is that because the Trams/ClientBase database is always prioritizing and handling the transactions that are sent to it, making a live copy of the database runs the risk of producing a corrupt copy. Third party backup programs do not access the database file the same way as our backup utility does, so it is very important to include our backup utility in any third party backup process. In short, it is okay to use third party backup programs to further backup a Trams backup, but should not be used to make copies of the live database.
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CUSTOMIZING RESULTS SCREENS IN PROFILES AND RES CARDS Use the bottom scroll bar, if necessary, to find the column you wish to move. Click and hold the left mouse button down on the heading name for the column you wish to move, and drag it left or right. Release when the column is where you want it to be. Repeat this with other columns to create the view you desire. You can also resize columns by clicking and dragging on the lines between column header names. The changes you make stick for any screen you make the changes on, but only on the computer you are currently working at (the order and sizes of the columns are stored in the Windows Registry).
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PROFILE DUPE CHECK As the ClientBase customer database grows, so does the possibility of having duplicate profile records. If you have Trams Back Office, you may already have several duplicate client and vendor profiles. Since duplications only water down the effectiveness of the database, ClientBase has a utility to identify possible duplications in the system. Once you’ve decided what criteria to use, you can run the tool and review the results. If a true duplicate is found, set one profile as the master and then merge the duplicate into that master profile. You can then delete or mark as inactive these unwanted profiles.
TRAVELER FIELDS IN A PROFILE QUERY More than one agency has been thrown off when they’ve added a TRAVELER/CONTACT field to their query results, and found that the number of rows seemed to increase by quite a bit. The reason is that since we are now looking at both the TRAVELER and PROFILE tables of the database, we are going to see row results for each TRAVELER record that exists for each PROFILE record. In short, you’re going to see all Family Members and/or Employees for a particular profile. In this way, you could produce a printable list of Employees, for example for a Corporate client if that were necessary. *Note, the count button still counts only the number of Profile Records.
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RUNNING A 2-PART QUERY Currently in ClientBase there is no way to run a sub-query, that is, a query that further narrows down the results of a previous query. This is something I personally hope to see in the future though we’ve always been able to use Global Modify as a satisfactory work around. Create a temporary marketing code to use to represent the results of the first query. Run part 1 of the query. Globally modify this list, checking the temporary marketing code. Run part 2 of the query, utilizing the marketing code.
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BREAKING UP AN EMAIL BLAST Email providers often have strict limits on how many emails you’re allowed to send over a particular period of time. It differs from provider to provider, but some go as low as 250 emails per hour. That may seem like it would be okay, but ClientBase could send a few thousand in an hour if left alone, and end up causing issues between you and your email provider. The Global Modify Utility can make breaking apart an email list a snap. • • • • •
Setup a Marketing Category For the Blast Determine how many codes are needed (do the math) Create the codes Globally modify the list using the Range option. Send blast 1…
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