The New Avalon Software Web Hosted Diary

Transcription

1 The New Avalon Software Web Hosted Diary Product description, Service Levels and Service Charges Here is an opportunity to make even better use of your Avalon Bookings Manager Program and even earn some extra income for your centre. Your Avalon program is like a warehouse of important information. That s OK if you are working in the warehouse but what if you are not perhaps because you, or others who need access to the Avalon program, work from home or at another location. How much better if that information can be made available wherever you or your colleagues happen to be, so it can be used to help increase your income and improve the running of your centre? The Avalon Web Hosted Diary is designed to do just that.

2 Key Benefits of the Avalon Web Hosted Diary By drawing on the information in your Avalon program you can: Make it easy for the public to see when you have available times. No need to call the office or the Booking Secretary to make a booking enquiry. This can all be done easily from a computer, smart-phone, or tablet - at any time of day. Staff and volunteers can quickly check what has been booked and then, view the detail behind each booking such as: numbers attending the event or activity room layout required by the hirer particular requirements for the booking Customer balances and payments can easily be checked, by the finance officer for example, without having to bother the office or the Bookings Secretary for this information. Authorised users can add notes to the booking which can then be seen on the web diary. This makes it much easier to keep all who need to know, fully informed of the booking and the hirer s requirements. You can customise the diary booking table colours and fonts to suit your web style so that it will fit in more naturally with all the other information you show on your web site. With the optional Automated Reception Screen visitors and hirers can be shown what is going on in which room. This can remove the need for people to queue up to the busy person behind the desk to ask: where the party is? etc. The web diary is updated automatically twice per from the bookings and other information entered in your bookings diary so no manual intervention needed. You can also instruct additional updates if needed. Now here s the big thing. More and more of our customers are interested in having their bookings diary displayed on their web site so that prospective hirers can see if the facility they require is available. The advantage of being able to do this out of office hours is that it can lead to additional bookings being made and does not intrude on your personal time. For some of our customers, it is very helpful if those connected with the centre that do not have access to the bookings diary, can see what is happening and who has booked. Until now we have had a basic module which meets these requirements. That said, we recognise its limitations. We have received a number of requests for improvements, many of which are simply beyond the capability of the module.

3 So we are pleased to announce the first release of our new web diary publishing module and it is quite different in concept. A Fully Hosted Service Unlike the current web diary module, which is simply uploaded to your web site, the new Avalon web diary module is a fully hosted service. This offers several key benefits: 1. It eliminates technical difficulties with uploading to your own web site over which we have no control and therefore we cannot offer help. 2. The module will be run on servers hosted in a secure environment with 24x7 support, so there are no worries about the web diary not being available. 3. It can form a proactive part of the marketing and promotion of your hall or centre with the aim of generating additional income. 4. With the Reception Display module you can inform visitors which activities are taking place and in what room or facility no more having to write up on a wipe board or similar. 5. The new module will also become the foundation of the next generation of the Avalon Bookings Program. This means you can choose a smooth migration path to a program which can be run from any modern device and does not leave you chained to your office or home Windows PC.

4 Service Levels and Costs Of course running on hosted secure servers entails a cost for all of this but here too we have some new thinking. We offer three levels of service: 1. Bronze - The Interactive Web Diary And The Administration Login. This allows your customers to search for availability, either on a specific date or date range and even look for the availability for a specific room or resource and then send you an request to start the booking process. In addition the ADMIN login allows you to fully customise the diary you display to your customers. You can select which of the resources you have in Avalon to display and also the order in which to do so. The colours used within the diary, along with the font type and sizes, are fully under your control, together with all of the supporting text that is shown: i.e instead of it saying Fully Booked you can say This timeslot is currently booked but please contact us and we will try to accommodate you.. As well as the customisation of the diary the ADMIN login allows you to create up to six advertisements to be displayed, providing a value added service to your customers and a potential source of income to your centre 2. Silver The Interactive Web Diary with Administration and Reception Screen Logins. This level gives you all of the advantages you have with the Bronze level and in addition you can set a rolling display screen that can be sat in your reception area. This screen shows who and what is going on in each room, thus avoiding members of the public queuing up to ask you for example, Where is the Pilates Class being held. This screen is also customised via the ADMIN login. This will include: Setting the frequency the information it displays is refreshed The format it is displayed: i.e. single or multiple columns. The timescale you want to be displayed i.e. 1 hour in advance through to 24 hrs in advance.

5 3 Gold As Per Silver Level, Plus Login for Staff, Committee and Financial Control. This level is designed to be used by people who need access to the information held within the Avalon software but do not have access to the computer that is running it. You have all of the features of the Bronze and Silver levels together with 3 additional logins:- Staff Committee Financial Each login has a password set via the Admin login, which will also customise what each login sees. Staff - This provides a login which permits checking a specific resource for a specific date or range of dates. The Staff user can see a list of the events in that room. From there they can DRILL DOWN into that event to see the customer details and booking information that you have entered for that booking within your Avalon Bookings Manager program. Staff can also add a note against the booking for your booking secretary to pick up in the morning: e.g. The hirer used extra chairs or did not go till 11:30 so please charge an extra hour Committee This login presents a bar graph of the booking values over a selected date range. The committee member can then DRILL DOWN to see the specific booking information including the Invoice value. Financial Similarly users with a Financial log-in are presented with a bar graph showing the bookings vale for a selected date range. They can then change the bar graph to show the invoiced value for that date range. Financial log-ins can see a list of the bookings, or the Invoices, across the selected date range. The invoices will show the amount paid to date and the outstanding balance due from the hirer. Financial log-ins can DRILL DOWN into the Invoice details to see: Invoice number, value, items on the invoice etc. The payment history associated with that invoice The original deposit, if any, to secure the booking The final payment made or due to clear that balance.

6 For each service level there is a one-off set up fee of Service Level Service Provided Monthly Cost Bronze Silver Gold The interactive web diary and the administration login The interactive web diary and the administration and Reception screen logins as per the Silver plus login for Staff, Committee and Financial Controls Recover Your Running Costs and Earn Income For Your Centre An important feature of the new Avalon Web Hosted Diary is that it is now possible for you to recover the costs of having the service and even generate some extra income for your centre. You can, in turn, offer a hosted advertisement service to local businesses and organisations, or those who use your centre. To do this we give you a quick and simple administration process, which you fully manage and control. For example: If your premises are regularly used for parties or weddings think of the businesses who would like to promote their services to those who are making the booking, at the point they make the booking. Those businesses can have an advertisement, displayed on your main diary page, which can link to their own web sites directly from your hosted site. You then charge for hosting their advertisement or web site links at a monthly fee set by yourselves perhaps 5.00 per month for example. With just a few users signed up your hosting fees are covered and you could even go on to generate a small extra income for your centre, depending on what you charge and how many you sign up. Alternatively, for some organisations and friends of your centre you may prefer to offer this as a value added service to your customers to help promote their events and activities. The choice is entirely yours. For lots more information and the opportunity to view the New Web Diary module in action please call, via the Avalon Software help line , or to Julian@avalonsoftware.co.uk