users guide to agvance crm the records are in the grid, the grid can be customized by right-clicking...

Users Guide to

Agvance CRM

Version 6.0

By Software Solutions Integrated, LLC

2011-2017 Software Solutions Integrated, LLC

PO Box 380 140 E. South First Street Shelbyville, IL 62565

1-800-752-7912 217-774-2105

Fax: 1-877-402-2204 217-774-2204

e-mail: [email protected] website: www.agvance.net

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.agvance.net/

Users Guide to Agvance CRM iii

Contents

Intro to Agvance CRM 1

Overview ....................................................................................................................... 1

Getting Started 3

Customer Business Details and General ...................................................................... 3 Electronic Document Delivery ....................................................................................... 3 Setup Email ................................................................................................................... 4 The Email ...................................................................................................................... 4 Setup – Customer ......................................................................................................... 5

Customer Activity View .................................................................................... 5 Filtering ............................................................................................................ 6 Sorting and Exporting ...................................................................................... 7

Setup – Communication Types ..................................................................................... 7 Setup – Private Entries ................................................................................................. 8

Processes 9

Email Direct ................................................................................................................... 9 Email Staged ............................................................................................................... 10

Processing Staged Emails ............................................................................. 10 Deliver to MFR ............................................................................................................ 11 Communication Journal .............................................................................................. 11 Manual Entry via CRM Control Panel ......................................................................... 11 Manual Entry via Mobile Sales .................................................................................... 12 Automatic Entry via Outlook Add-In ............................................................................ 13

Setup of the Add-In ........................................................................................ 13 Manual Creation of Comm. Journal Entries via Outlook Add-In .................... 15 Customer Gap Analysis Report ..................................................................... 16

Menu Options 19

Setup ........................................................................................................................... 19 Preferences .................................................................................................... 19 Location Preferences ..................................................................................... 20 Email Addresses for Outlook Add-in .............................................................. 21

Control Panel .............................................................................................................. 21 Communication Journal ................................................................................. 22 Customer Activity View .................................................................................. 23 Automated Document Delivery ...................................................................... 23 Document History .......................................................................................... 24 CRM Reports ................................................................................................. 24

Index 27

Users Guide to Agvance CRM 1

Intro to Agvance CRM

Overview The Agvance CRM Module is designed as a business tool used to generate a complete customer profile and to track activity of sales staff and others who communicate with customers. In addition, the CRM module facilitates the electronic delivery of Agvance documents via automatic email, staged email, and delivery to MyFarmRecords.net.

The major components of Agvance CRM are:

Electronic Document Delivery

Customer Activity View

CRM Communication Journal

Customer Gap Analysis Report


Getting Started

Customer Business Details and General Specific details about a customer's total business profile and general information about the customer can be entered in the customer file. This area is free-form, allowing specified users to set up categories and sub-categories and then assign those categories a value to define the size of the customer's business potential. The setting controlling this category and sub-category setup is the Allow CRM Category/SubCategory edits option found by editing a user at Hub / Setup / Users, on the General Restrictions tab. This information can be used for filtering on customer reports.

Electronic Document Delivery One of the major functions of CRM allows for documents to be delivered by Email Direct, Email Staged, or to MFR (MyFarmRecords). The following document types are available for delivery:

Invoice

Statement

Delivery Ticket

Booking

Blend Ticket

Sales Order

Grain Settlement

Grain Purchase Contract

Grain Purchase Offer Contract

Grain Balance Detail Report

Getting Started

4 Users Guide to Agvance CRM

Budget Billing Statement (Energy)

Worker Protection Sheet (WPS)

Field Plan

Setup Email The email created by CRM may be customized in CRM / Setup / Preferences. The Optional Reply To Email Address and Email Body message is defined and is used for each email sent through Agvance CRM. The email from address is set in the Mail Host Email area, found at Hub / Setup / Company Preferences.

The Email The email is automatically formatted by the program and appears with the following characteristics:

From address: [email protected] or the address entered at CRM / Setup / Preferences

Subject: “Company:” + Location Name + “Transaction” + Transaction Number

Body: The information entered in Email Body at CRM / Setup / Preferences is inserted in the email body. The hard-coded message “Attached is the Transaction(s) that were sent.” is also inserted in the body.

Attachment Name:

Invoice Example: Invoice_Customer_ 1BakLa_Date_05-28-2010_Time_104756.pdf

WPS example: wps.txt

mailto:[email protected]

Getting Started


Setup – Customer To set up a customer for the electronic delivery of documents, edit the customer and click the CRM tab. Within the CRM tab, click the Document Auto Delivery tab. Select a Doc Type, Delivery Method (Deliver To), and associated Email Address.


The Customer Activity View area of CRM provides a place to access transaction details from across all Agvance modules and to view them in a grid format for export. Several transaction types are viewable. In addition, balances and master files may be viewed. Some items (transactions) may be displayed for multiple customers simultaneously. Other items (master files/balances) are viewable for only one customer at a time. These items are designated with an asterisk.

Multi-select customer Invoice Summary:

Getting Started


Single Select Customer AR Balance:

Filtering

Each viewable transaction may be filtered to identify a set of criteria and limit the records to be returned.

Getting Started


Sorting and Exporting

Once the records are in the grid, the grid can be customized by right-clicking on any grid header row. Columns may be selected and/or re-ordered and data filtered in the grid. The information in the grid can also be exported to a spreadsheet, a comma-delimited text file, or to a PDF.

This allows powerful custom reports to be created based on customer transactions. In addition, there is no need to navigate from one Agvance module to another to gather information for reporting purposes.

Setup – Communication Types At CRM / Setup / Preferences, the Communication Types available in CRM are managed. The Email, Meeting, and Phone Call types are pre-loaded and cannot be removed. Other communication types may be added or deleted in this area.

Getting Started


Setup – Private Entries Based on user security, CRM journal entries may be set to Private status. Setting an entry to private hides the entry from other CRM users who are not authorized to enter or read private entries. Go to CRM / Setup / Preferences to select the users allowed to view the private entries.


Processes

Email Direct For documents set with a Deliver To of ‘Email Direct,’ an email is automatically generated when clicking OK at the Print Invoice Documents window when the Email This checkbox is selected. The email does not go into an email outbox or a queue, but is instead sent directly from the program to the customer. The email does not go to a staging area.

Clicking the Show Email Addresses link on the Print Invoice Documents window allows adding or editing email addresses prior to sending the documents.

Note: Changes to the email address from this window do not update the customer file.

Processes


NOTE: Physically printing the document is not required in order for the email to be generated through CRM. The Print Invoice checkbox may be unchecked and the email of the document is still sent to the customer.

Email Staged Printing a document setup for Email Staged places a PDF of the document into a queue for later delivery via email to the associated email address.

Marking the Email This checkbox generates the PDF file (except WPS document which comes in .txt format) and places the email message in the outbound queue.

Processing Staged Emails

After clicking OK at the Print Invoice Documents window, the emails are generated. Documents set for Email Staged are sent to the staged email queue, which is managed from CRM / Control Panel on the Automated Document Delivery tab.

At this window, the records to be emailed may be filtered by Document Type. A date range for documents based on the Date

Processes


Created may also be specified. Tag All or UnTag All buttons are available to aid in selecting documents, or manually select the documents to be processed. Clicking Process generates the emails for the selected records.

NOTE: Emails are generated from an email server set up, maintained, and hosted by SSI unless the Mail Host Email is set up at Hub / Setup / Company Preferences on the General tab.

Deliver to MFR For documents with the Deliver To option set to ‘MFR,’ these documents are uploaded to the MyFarmRecords server at the time they are processed. The documents are then associated with the proper customer and are visible to the customer when logged into their online MyFarmRecords accounts.

Communication Journal The CRM Communication Journal is a centralized database of all communication between a customer and the company. The communication journal contains journal entries associated with an Agvance user ID and an Agvance customer ID. A communication journal entry includes the following information: communication type, entry date, subject, user notes, system notes, pending flag, created date, follow-up date, and attachments

There are three ways to populate the Communication Journal:

Manual entry at CRM / Control Panel / Communication Journal

Manual entry from the Mobile Sales Module

Automatic entry from Outlook via a CRM Add-In

Manual Entry via CRM Control Panel On the CRM Control Panel Communication Journal tab, click the Add button to manually enter a communication journal entry.

Processes


Set an Entry Date, a Communication Type, enter a Subject, add User Notes, attach documents, enter a Follow Up Date, and set status to Pending. An Owner may also be assigned, which optionally alerts the Agvance user they are now the owner of a communication journal entry (based on the email address set in the user file). The Save button adds the entry to the web database.

Manual Entry via Mobile Sales CRM communication journal entries may be added in the Mobile Sales module. Click the CRM Journal button to add a new entry or edit or view an existing entry.

Processes


Automatic Entry via Outlook Add-In SSI has written an add-in to Microsoft Outlook, allowing for the automatic creation of CRM Communication Journal entries when an email is sent from Outlook by a computer with the add-in installed. In addition, the add-in facilitates the manual creation of a CRM Communication Journal entry from any email in the users Inbox or other Outlook folder.

This functionality allows companies to have employees who contribute to the CRM Communication Journal without having an Agvance license or having an Agvance module installed. NOTE: Even though the employee does not require an Agvance license, they must be setup as a user in Agvance to enable this function.

Setup of the Add-In

Setup of the add-in for automatic creation of communication journal entries requires the following steps:

1. Setup of user email address in CRM module

2. Setup of customer email address in CRM module

3. Installation & setup of Outlook Add-In

Step 1 - Set up user email address in CRM

Each Outlook Add-In user must have a user account established in Agvance. In the user profile, an email address is established.

Next, at CRM / Setup / Email Addresses for Outlook Add-ins, click the Add Users button. Select an Agvance user from the

Processes


list and the grid is populated with the user name and email address.

Step 2 – Set up customer email address in CRM

Each customer the company would like to automatically create CRM communication journal entries for via the Outlook Add-In must be added at CRM / Setup / CRM Journal Email Addresses grid.

Step 3 – Installation / Setup of Outlook Add-In

The CRM Outlook Add-In must be installed on the machine where Microsoft Outlook is installed. The files may be saved anywhere on the user’s computer. The user should run the "Setup.exe” program to install the add-in. Outlook must be closed while running the install.

After installation, the user should see an Agvance CRM menu item on the Outlook menu bar. Click on the menu item to configure the add-in. At this window, enter the company ID (SSI serial number) and the email address matching the user email address entered at CRM / Setup / CRM Journal Email Addresses (see Step 1).

Validation Flow Chart

When an email from a properly configured Outlook client is sent, the CRM web service is contacted and a validation occurs to decide if the email should create any CRM communication

Processes


journal entries. The validation flow can be seen on the following page:

Manual Creation of Comm. Journal Entries via Outlook Add-In

The Outlook Add-In provides another level of functionality that allows CRM communication journal entries to be manually created from any email in their Outlook folders.

If the add-in is installed, right-click on an email and select the Create Communications Journal Entry menu option. This allows the communication journal entry to easily be created for any email.

CRM can automatically attempt to associate the email with an Agvance customer by email address, or the customer ID can manually be selected for the communication journal entry.

Processes


This is helpful for cases when an email is received from a customer and a communication entry should be entered for the email. It is also useful when another employee sends an email about a customer, and this information should become a communication journal entry.

Customer Gap Analysis Report

This report is designed to deliver a detailed portrait of a customer’s activity with the company across all lines of business. Agvance Accounting Invoices and Agvance Grain activity are used to formulate the report values. The report is available in detailed or summarized styles. The detailed style shows invoice totals ($ and quantities), as well as totals by inventory department or inventory category. The detailed report also displays grain totals ($ and quantities) and breaks them down by commodity. This report helps evaluate customer activity and identify potential gaps or opportunities within the customer base.

Processes


Exporting the report

Because this report is able to span many columns and may be used as a starting point for further business analysis, it is recommended the report be exported from the CRM grid into an Excel spreadsheet (or similar program). To export, right-click on the grid header row and select "Export."


Menu Options

Setup

Preferences

Optional Reply To Email Address (Email Direct / Email Staged) –if an email address is entered in this area, customer replies to the email are delivered to this address.

Email Body (Email Direct / Email Staged) – when documents are sent from the various modules, the text entered is the body of the email and the document is sent as an email attachment.

Email Attachments (PDF) – for Invoices, Statements, Blend Tickets, or Delivery Tickets that have additional terms or information to be sent with each email, the PDF of those additional terms are saved here. As the emails are sent, these PDF’s are included as an attachment for the specified document.

Users who can view Private Entries – double-click on User ID to select the users allowed to view entries marked as Private.

Menu Options


Communication Types – displays the communication types available to select when entering Communication Journal entries. Entries may optionally be filtered by Communication Type.

Add Communication Type – enter the new type to be added. It is then available to be selected on Communication Journal entries.

Disable CRM capabilities – this option allows CRM capabilities to be disabled which is helpful for archived datasets. With this option selected, reprinting transactions from an archived dataset does not trigger an email to be sent to the customer.

Location Preferences

Select the location to set the following options.

Statement Reports – if the company heading should print on the emailed Statements, select the Print Company Heading option. If the heading is to be centered on the page, select the Center option.

Invoices – if the company heading should print on the emailed Invoices, select the Print Company Heading option. If the heading should be centered on the page, select the Center option.

Menu Options


Email Addresses for Outlook Add-in

Add Customers – click to add customer email addresses. The Select Customers screen appears and one or more customers may be selected. Once selected, enter the Email Address for CRM to use.

Add Users – click to select users. Once the user is selected, enter the Email Address to be used for CRM transactions.

Control Panel Select customers to view communication information. A single

customer or multiple customers may be selected. After viewing the

selected customers, the Select Customers button allows other

customers to be selected for viewing.

Menu Options


Communication Journal

User Entries – defaults to ‘All Entries.’ The other option of ‘My Entries’ filters for only the communication journal entries for the user logged in.

Comm. Type – optionally filter the communication journal entries to display by the communication type.

Owner – allows filtering based on the current Owner set on the communication entry. Defaults to All, but the list may optionally be filtered by any Agvance user.

Follow Up Date – filters by the Follow Up Date set on the communication entry. Defaults to ‘All,’ but may be changed to any of the following options: Today, Tomorrow, Next 7 Days, Next 30 Days, Next 365 Days, or Before Today.

Date Created – optionally enter a Start and End Date to display entries created between the specified dates.

Apply – this button applies the selected criteria and populates the journal.

Menu Options



The list of available transactions displays on this tab. Select the type of

transaction from the list on the left and complete the filtering

information to display the activity. The filtering options vary

depending on the transaction type selected. Once the filtering options

are set, click the Apply button to display the transactions.

Automated Document Delivery

This area displays ‘Email Staged’ documents.

Document Type – defaults to ‘All’ entries, but a specific document type may optionally be selected to display.

Menu Options


Date Created – optionally enter a Start and End date range for the transactions to display.

Apply – this button applies the selected criteria and populates the journal with ‘Email Staged’ documents.

Tag All – quickly selects all items displayed in the grid.

UnTag All – quickly deselects all items displayed in the grid.

Process – generates the emails for the selected items in the grid.

Document History

This area displays a history of the documents processed through the CRM module.

Document Type – select the type of document for the history to display.

Date Range – enter the Start and End dates for the history to display.

CRM Reports

Customer Gap Analysis was designed to give a clear picture of a customer’s activity with the company across all lines of business. The report values come from AR Invoices and Grain activity. The report helps evaluate activity and identify potential gaps and selling opportunities within the customer base.

Menu Options


Once results are shown for this report, exporting the results to Excel may make it easier to view the results.

Invoice Report Criteria

Select Location – select the location to be included in the report.

Select Products – to run the report based on specific products, select the products. A Class button is available to select the products based on product classifications.

Last Year’s Dataset – to include transactions from a prior fiscal year, select the fiscal year dataset.

Group By – choose to group the information by inventory department, or inventory department category.

Date Range – enter a starting and ending date range for the transactions to be included on the report.

Customer Attribute – to select customers based on a customer attribute, select the attribute.

Include Customer Address – if the customer address should be included in the report, select this option.

Business Influence – if Business Influences have been established in the Accounting module, and on the customer files, selecting the business influence here displays information for the selected customer and all associated business influences.

Menu Options


Grain Report Criteria

Select Commodity – optionally select the commodities to include in the report. The default is ‘All’ commodities selected.

Select Deduction – available when the Use Units are ‘Settled,’ optionally select the deductions to include in the report.

Use Units – choose if the units included in the report should be Delivered units or Settled units.

Include – choose from the options: ‘Both Direct Shipped and In Elevator,’ ‘Direct Shipped,’ or ‘In Elevator’ for the transactions to include on the report.

Report Style – select Summarized or Detailed style for the report.

Include Settlement Deduction – mark this option to include the settlement deduction information on the report.

Group by – select to group the report by Settlement Deduction ID or Settlement Deduction Description.

Apply – displays the report information based on the selected criteria.


Index

A

Automated Document Delivery 23 Automatic Entry via Outlook Add-In 13

C

Communication Journal 11, 22 Control Panel 21 CRM Reports 24 Customer Activity View 5, 23 Customer Business Details and General 3 Customer Gap Analysis Report 16

D

Deliver to MFR 11 Document History 24

E

Electronic Document Delivery 3 Email Addresses for Outlook Add-in 21 Email Direct 9 Email Staged 10 Exporting the report 17

F

Filtering 6

G

Getting Started 3

I

Intro to Agvance CRM 1

L

Location Preferences 20

M

Manual Creation of Comm. Journal Entries via Outlook Add-In 15

Manual Entry via CRM Control Panel 11 Manual Entry via Mobile Sales 12 Menu Options 19

O

Overview 1

P

Preferences 19 Processes 9 Processing Staged Emails 10

S

Setup 19 Setup – Communication Types 7 Setup – Customer 5 Setup – Private Entries 8 Setup Email 4 Setup of the Add-In 13 Sorting and Exporting 7 Step 1 - Set up user email address in CRM 13 Step 2 – Set up customer email address in CRM

14 Step 3 – Installation / Setup of Outlook Add-In 14

T

The Email 4

V

Validation Flow Chart 14