Status

There are four statuses for Bookings, which are represented by Stages, and you can view these by their tab on the Sales Pipeline:

* Open Bookings are displayed as a ‘funnel’ diagram on your main Bookings page. At a high-level, an ‘Open’ Booking is what you’re working on, what you should be concerned with, in order to win it. Once a status is no longer ‘Open’, it will not feature as a statistic on the funnel diagram as there is no further action to be taken.

‘Funnel’ diagram shows Open Bookings.

Tasks

These are reminders or appointments used to help you manage your Booking. They serve the same function as your CRM Tasks, and you can configure whatever Task Types you need for your organisation or workflow.

Timeline

Every Booking has a customizable Timeline found at the bottom.

The history of a Booking can be viewed according to a combination of, or all of the following:

• All email history, set up with the IMAP Email Integration, with the Booking's Contact (equivalent to the History section in the Contact's page)
• Tasks associated with it
• Generated Items, such as invoices that have resulted from a won booking
• Updates - which User made what changes and when

Simply click on any of the icons to activate/deactivate their display on the Timeline. Searching is also possible for quicker access.

Timeline Options (left to right): Search, Email, Tasks, Generated Items, Updates

Clicking on any of the items on the Timeline will reveal more details: what changes were made and when.

You can view who made what changes and when

Ad-hoc Emailer

Just like the Event Ad-Hoc Emailer, sometimes you wish to send an email to your prospect that can be tracked (through the Timeline). You can even optionally use pre-defined Document Templates to save you even more time, as well as include attachments (including those from the DMS).

The emails you send from the Ad-hoc Emailer will come from your logged-in User’s Name and Email address fields. i.e. if you are logged in as a Core User with a Name of “Jones Smith” and Email of jonessmith@examplecompany.com , then these will be the sender name and email address that will appear to the recipient.

To use the Ad-hoc Emailer, on any Booking:

1. Click
2. [Optional] Select the Document Template you wish to use for this email
3. If you’ve already assigned a Contact to the Booking, or filled out the email address in the Personal Details section, the “To” field will auto-populate with the Booking’s email address. If not, the “To” field will be empty for you to specify the recipient.
4. [If no Template is selected] Enter your Email Subject
5. [If no Template is selected] Select any attachments, using Add Attachments
6. Click Send

Once you’ve sent the email, you can refer to the Timeline, with the communications (email icon) checked

See your Ad-hoc Emails in the Bookings Timeline

Create a Quotation

1. Click , this will open a new dialog box with your Interests added
2. Select the Document Template required for the Quotation
3. [Optional] Set an expiry date for this quote to be accepted
4. [Optional] Make any additional changes required to tailor the quote to your Booking
5. Click

Your Quotation will now be saved into the table of quotations for this Booking.

Email a Quotation

When you email a Quotation, it automatically:

• includes the Quotation as a PDF attachment
• uses the Booking’s email from the Personal Details section

1. Click on the Quotation you wish to email, this will open a context menu
2. Select Email , this will open a dialog box
3. [Optional] Select the Document Template for the email
4. [Optional] Edit the To and CC fields for the desired recipients
5. Add the email Subject
6. Edit your email body - you can use the <> button to switch to and fro HTML view
7. When you’re satisfied, click

Your Quotation will then be sent to your specified recipients.

Create a Form Document

1. Click , this will open a new dialog box
2. Select the Document Template required for the Quotation
3. [Optional] Edit the Form Document required to tailor the quote to your Booking
4. Click

Your Form Document will now be saved into the table of quotations for this Booking.

Email a Form Document

When you email a Form Document, it automatically:

• includes the Form Document as a PDF attachment
• uses the Booking’s email from the Personal Details section

1. Click on the Form Document you wish to email, this will open a context menu
2. Select Email , this will open a dialog box
3. [Optional] Select the Document Template for the email
4. [Optional] Edit the To and CC fields for the desired recipients
5. Add the email Subject
6. Edit your email body - you can use the <> button to switch to and fro HTML view
7. When you’re satisfield, click

Your Form Document will then be sent to your specified recipients.

Scenario

Your company, EveryOne Training , is based in the UK. The sales team gets a non-electronic lead from a potential client in the UK, Premist , in regard to a recent press advert regarding your First Aid at Work event on 1 April 2016. They are thinking of sending 3 students to this event. One of your sales reps, Kristin Smith , takes charge of this Booking, and follows EveryOne Training ‘s sales process of taking it from a Lead , to become a Booking , and getting a deal Proposed , before Winning a Booking.

This is just one of the most basic scenarios that the Bookings can help save you time and money from traditional methods.

Prerequisites

For Bookings to function, the following are required on your Administrate database:

• Course Template
• A Scheduled Event of aforementioned Course Template

It is also recommended for the following to be set up (if not already) as appropriate to your needs:

• IMAP Email Integration to keep a history of email exchange (not required for this guide)
• Message Centre for generating leads from email (not required for this guide)
• Your Companies (if applicable)
• Source Types
• Regions
• Discounts
• Items

Referring back to our Scenario, this is what we will be working with:

Please make sure you have an equivalent to the above ready before you continue.

Main Steps

Using the Sales Booking is as simple as:

1. Log the Booking
2. Progress the Booking (according to your own sales process)
3. Lose / Win the Booking

The default Workflow will be used for this example:

Default Workflow in the Bookings

The path taken for the guide will be a straight Lead to Win : Lead > Booking > Proposed > Won

Create the Booking

In this scenario we are not presuming this lead has come in through the Message Centre, in which case the leads can be generated automatically through mail shots, etc.

The purpose of this part is to allow you to make manual entries, and to expose you to what can be automated through Email Integration.

Details required for Booking creation:

1. Add a New Booking
2. Personal Details
3. Interests (what products do you offer, the Booking is interested in)

Add a New Booking

Click and fill in the Booking’s details, adapting them to suit your needs:

(for the purposes of the guide, leave the Account and Contact blank because this is a new enquiry)

Detail	Guide Value	Meaning
Name	Premist - HS001	Name of the Booking. E.g. client’s name and course code
Owner	Kristin Smith	Name of the sales representative, or the Administrate User
Company	EveryOne Training	Your assigned Company
Source	Press Advert	From where did the Booking learn of you? Also see Sources
Account		If the Booking is an existing client, enter their Account name, if not leave it blank
Region	United Kingdom	The Region the Booking is in
Currency	GBP	The currency the Booking is in
Closing Date		When you’re expecting to complete the workflow
Discount	No Discount	Any predetermined Discounts can be applied here
Contact		If the Booking is for an existing Contact, enter their Contact name, if not leave it blank
WebLink Portal		This value is set automatically when orders originally come from a WebLink portal. You can also set this value manually on Bookings that you create, if you wish to make the order available in  The Booker / Learner will need a secure order link to review and pay for the order, which is available as an "Order Retrieval URL" merge field in the Document / Communication Templates.

Log the details of the Booking

Let’s save this at this point by clicking .

Save the Booking

Once you’ve logged the initial details of the Booking, there are two paths you can take. This depends if the Booking is:

• An Existing Client - in which case go straight to Interests
• A New Potential Client - in which case the personal details need to logged so that they can become CRM information later

For the purposes of this guide, this is a new prospect and we don’t have their Account or Contacts in the CRM yet. So let’s log their Personal Details.

Personal Details

The details logged here will automatically create the appropriate Account and Contact information in your CRM. Where in your workflow this happens, is defined by you. If this information already exists then you can use the Account and Contact information in the Details section and this section will auto-populate.

All the information here is in relation to the organisation or person who made the enquiry.

Detail	Guide Value	Meaning
Account Name	Premist	The name of the prospect’s organisation
First Name	Jill	The first name of the prospect
Last Name	Reid	The last name of the prospect
Job Title	H&S Manager	The job title of the prospect
Email	jr@premist.com	The email address of the prospect
Telephone	0123 456 7890	The telephone of the prospect

Personal Details that translate into Account and Contact information

Let’s save this at this point by clicking .

Now we have our potential client’s details logged, let’s log their Interests.

Interests

Add the services and products your Booking is interested in

These are the services and products the Booking is interested in, which help define the value of the Booking. The following Interests can be selected:

• Course
• Event (Public)
• Learning Path
• Item – excluding Mapped Items which cannot be sold independently
• Private Event
• Training Tokens – please also refer to How do I sell my Training Tokens, using the Bookings system?

(FAQ: What’s the difference between Course and Event Interests?)

From the scenario, Premist are interested in sending 3 students to the HS001 Event on 1 April 2016 . Click on , then Event and add the details as follows:

Course	Start entering the course code (e.g. HS001 ) and your available options will be displayed
Event	Select the appropriate scheduled event of the aforementioned course, Event must be scheduled to start in the future or it will not be available
Price	This is taken from the Course Pricing
Price (Override)	You can override the price of the Booking so you’re not restricted by predefined Course Prices
Quantity	The number of students the Booking is worth: 3
Reserve Places	Choose whether or not these places should be ‘reserved’ against this event, and show as such on the students tab on the events screen (Remember to 'Uncheck' reserved place if you are going to mark the booking as Won which will create a Registration and Invoice)
Tax	Select the appropriate tax: UK 20%

Add HS001 First Aid at Work as an Interest

Once you’re satisfied with your entry, click .

This Event should now appear as an Interest. The Booking will update to show the (gross) value in the header details once saved, in this case £1,797. If ‘Reserve Places’ was chosen when adding the interest, this will be noted on the interest row as ‘(Reserved).’ Remember to 'Uncheck' reserved place if you are going to mark the booking as Won which will create a Registration and Invoice.

Booking’s header details update once saved

The header information for each Booking are:

Account / Contact	Booking Details (can from the CRM or will be added to the CRM)
Value	How much the Booking is worth
Probability	The likelihood of the Booking being won from the current Step, based on past performance.
Exp: Proj Close	This is the current date minus the expected closing date (only if specified)
Age	How long the Booking has been open for
Owner	Owner of the Account, or Booking. Usually a sales rep or account manager
Region	In which Region the Booking is based
Last Updated	Date the Booking last had any changes saved

We now need to add the students’ details. Again, these will become Contacts if they’re not on your CRM already, so you won’t have to enter this information again.

Click on the Interest you just made to open the options and select Students .

Click on the Interest to reveal options to edit, enter student information, or delete

Note

If the quantity of interested students is 1, then it is presumed that the Booking’s Contact will be the sole student for the Event. If the quantity of interested students is 2 or more, then you will be able to specify each individual student’s information, regardless of whether.

As we have specified 3 interested students, we have 3 rows to enter student information. Once completed, click .

Add Student information to your Interests

Click for the Booking.

You can also set up Tasks, just as you would for Event Workflows.

Progress the Booking

The Booking can be progressed at any time, and should be progressed according to your own workflow.

For the guide, the Booking is still in the Lead Step. Let’s say the preliminary account and contact details are all you need to get the Booking away from being simply a lead. The next possible Steps are Booking , Lost , and Archived . Lost and Archived are self-explanatory, so the only positive direction following Lead is Booking . Click on Progress , select Booking . Alternatively, click on the box, Booking , then .

You will now see the current Step is Booking , highlighted by the green box.

The current Step is Booking

The grey Steps represent those which the Booking can’t progress to from the current Step. So in this case, the current Step is Booking and the possible Steps it can make a Transition to Proposed , Lost or Archived .

For the purposes of this guide, let’s say that all is going well with this Booking and it’s time to log their interests, which in this hypothetical workflow is done in the Proposal step. Let’s progress this Booking again in a positive direction, moving it to Proposed and then it.

Remember, this is just an example and in reality you would progress the Booking how and when you see fit according to your own workflow for sales, applications or bookings.

Eventually, your Booking will progress to a Stage where it is Lost , Archived , or Won .

Winning a Booking

A Booking being won has mean it has successfully cleared all your sales/application processes and has been translated into a sale, successful application or booking. Traditionally, this would mean having to create the customer details in the CRM, create Registrations for students they were interested in sending to the Event and creating Invoices. With Administrate’s Bookings System this is all done for you.

From the guide’s scenario, the following information will be automatically created by winning the Booking. You will be notified that an Invoice will be created when you do this.

Invoice Creation Warning

• Account: Premist
• Contacts for Premist: Jill Reid (main contact), Ellen Dennis, Scott Larson, Alejandro Fox
• Event Registration
• Invoice for the Event

Automatic generation of Registration and Invoice (please note: via the Bookings workflow, it is not possible to create an Invoice without a Registration being created too).

This highlights the amount of time saved by streamlining an entire process into one compared to manually entering all the information in separate screens and systems.

Congratulations, you have now completed Getting Started with Bookings.

What’s the difference between Course and Event Interests?

A: As you may (or may not) know, the difference (in Administrate) between a Course and an Event is that a Course is just a template, not scheduled for any specific time nor location and cannot be invoiced for. An Event is a specific instance of a Course template with a time and location, and it can be invoiced for. Hence, logging a Course as an Interest means the Booking is interested in the Course itself, but may not want to commit to any particular Event yet, or perhaps you have yet to schedule an Event. This way you can log the Interest without either side committing to details, such as time and place. Courses logged as Interests may be converted to Events at an appropriate time so that registrations can be set up and the client be invoiced.

Can I create / edit my own workflow?

A: Yes, you can! In the Control Panel (Super User access only) you can edit the Bookings Layout and Bookings Workflow.

How do I sell my Training Tokens, using the Bookings System?

You can add Training Tokens just as you would any other Interest in the Bookings (e.g., such as Events or Items). In the Interest section of the Bookings:

1. Click → Training Tokens
2. Select the Training Token Type
3. Enter the quantity of Tokens to be added to the Booking’s Account
4. Enter the total price for these Tokens
5. [Optional] Select the Tax
6. Click

Tokens in the interest section will be issued when the “Create Token Issue” trigger is configured as a Transition in your Bookings Workflow. Tokens will also be issued automatically if the trigger is configured to generate an invoice. You can check issued tokens in the Training Tokens tab of the Account screen. Here, you’d also be able to manage your Training Tokens, so you can also credit / deduct Training Tokens using this screen, or create a new allocation.