New Features Guide SMS + Templates

Transcription

1 New Features Guide SMS + Templates

2 Fergus SMS & Templates Guide Version 1.2 Published 27/03/15

3 click a section to jump straight there 1. INTRODUCTION 5 2. OVERVIEW 6 3. CHANGES TO FERGUS 7 4. SMS TEMPLATES 16

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5 Fergus 1 Introduction 1 INTRODUCTION Welcome! This is a Fergus New Features Guide. Fergus now integrates an easy system to contact customers with SMS messages right from within the Fergus app. A related new feature is the ability to create custom templates for standard use across Fergus when communicating with customers. This guide will help you understand these features and how to manage SMS and templates in your existing workflow. Thanks for choosing Fergus, your trade management partner. ÍÍ How This Guide Works We recommend that you work through this guide from start to finish, to make sure you don t miss any essential elements. You can print this guide, we recommend double-sided colour printing to produce the best result. When you see a blue link like this or like this, you can click on it to go somewhere else. Underlined links referencing other sections of the guide will take you to that section. You can click on the section contents to jump straight to that part of the guide. Any time you see an image with pointer bubbles, click them to jump straight to that part of the guide. Click Help at the top right of the Fergus Menu Bar if you need assistance. From this menu you can lodge a support ticket with our team, watch help videos, or go to our training site. If you need to call us, we re here during business hours on (+64)

6 Credits Overview 2 Fergus 2 OVERVIEW SMS is a messaging service for mobile phones. You may also know it as 'texting'. Fergus now integrates an easy and powerful SMS feature to keep customers informed and up to date with jobs. Use SMS as a mode of communication when updating customers on quoting, scheduling, job progress, invoicing, and whenever else it's important to send short messages updating job information. All texts sent and received through the Fergus SMS feature are logged in the system for easy future reference, ensuring you have records of all job communications in case of queries or misunderstandings. templates are an update to another common form of customer contact, meaning you can now set and edit custom templates for all texts and s. This will result in faster and more reliable communications between you and your customers. 6

7 Fergus 3 Changes To Fergus 3 CHANGES TO FERGUS SECTION CONTENTS 3.1 Settings Menu ÍÍ 3.1 Settings Menu A new configuration area has been added to the Fergus Settings menu. Settings Change default options Click the Settings button in the menu bar to open the Settings menu. Select from the configuration options on the left: A new feature 'SMS' has been added to the sub-section 'Add-Ons'. Click 'SMS' to bring up the SMS configuration page. 7

8 SMS 4 Fergus 4 SMS SECTION CONTENTS 4.1 Pricing 4.2 SMS Settings 4.3 SMS Templates 4.4 SMS Logs 4.5 Sending SMS 4.6 SMS Replies Enable SMS through the Settings button in the Fergus menu bar. Choose SMS in the menu on the left to view the SMS configuration page. Activate the SMS feature by clicking the green 'Enable SMS' button. You can then update your SMS settings, edit templates, and view logs. ÍÍ 4.1 Pricing SMS is priced in fixed blocks of texts which expire after a period of time. Your first 20 texts are free. You can choose to let blocks auto-renew and charge you automatically when you run out of texts, or manually purchase additional blocks as necessary. Block Size Price Valid For 100 texts + free replies $15 60 Days 8

9 Fergus 4 SMS ÍÍ 4.2 SMS Settings Configure your SMS settings to suit your business. (a) Click the first tab to access your SMS settings. (b) View your remaining text count and expiry date. You can also purchase additional blocks of texts from this area if your allocation is exhausted and you have turned off autorenew. (c) Use the 'Disable Auto Renew' button to turn off auto-renew. This feature automatically tops up your text count by purchasing a single additional block of SMS when you have run out. Disabling auto-renew will require you to manually purchase additional blocks. (d) Select a default country code for your area. 9

10 SMS 4 Fergus ÍÍ 4.3 SMS Templates SMS templates allow you to edit standard texts with custom elements. Use our templates or write your own, and Fergus will fill in the important information for every text sent. (a) Click the second tab to access your SMS templates. (b) An alert will appear if you do not have a phone number loaded in your company details. Tagging a company phone number into your texts is dependent on a valid phone number. If this alert appears, click the 'enter a phone number in your contacts' link to bring up your company contact details and enter a phone number: (c) Choose which SMS template you'd like to edit from the template list on the left. You can edit templates for invoice approved, scheduling, and quote approved texts. 10

11 Fergus 4 SMS (d) This is the editable text field showing the content of your SMS. Type here to add text, or drag 'tags' from the area on the right (d) to add relevant job and customer information. (e) This is the 'tag' list. Tags are placeholders for job and customer information. When a tag appears in an SMS template, Fergus will replace the tag with the relevant job and customer information when sending out individual texts. Click-and-drag tags from this list into the text field on the left (c) to add them to the SMS template. (f) The number of text characters remaining in your text template. Because of the changeable nature of tags, this tally is only an approximation. You should try to keep your text templates as short as possible. (g) Click to toggle between the 'Edit' and 'Preview' modes. The edit mode allows you to add and change text in a template, while the preview mode shows you what a finished text will look like. (h) Click the green 'Save' button to save a template. 11

12 ÍÍ 4.4 SMS Logs Your SMS logs keep track of your text usage to date. You can view three kinds of logs: your current SMS block, your past SMS blocks, and your sent texts. SMS 4 Fergus (a) Click the third tab to access your SMS logs. (b) The 'Current Block' log shows your current SMS block and how many texts remain in it. (c) The 'SMS Blocks Used' log shows your past SMS blocks, the number of texts sent, and the expiry dates of those blocks. (d) The 'SMS Messages Sent' log lists all SMS texts sent to date, including the number they were sent to, the time and date, and the contents of the message. TIP Use this log to go back through your text history and find texts sent to individual customers. You can filter the list using the filter box in the top right corner. 12

13 Fergus 4 SMS ÍÍ 4.5 Sending SMS There are five common uses where SMS can be integrated into your Fergus workflow: invoicing, scheduling, quoting, and directly from customer or employee cards. Invoicing (a) Click the 'Send SMS on invoice approval' checkbox when approving an invoice to send a text to your customer notifying them of the new invoice. See (f) - (i) on how to edit the generated SMS and confirm it. TIP Fergus will use your 'Invoice Approved' SMS template. Scheduling (b) Click the Send SMS button on a scheduled job to send a text to your customer or tradesperson notifying them of the job schedule. See (f) - (i) on how to edit the generated SMS and confirm it. TIP Fergus will use your 'Scheduling' SMS template. Employees need to have a cellphone number on their employee card and need to be assigned to the job for their phone number to appear in the text options. 13

14 SMS 4 Fergus Quoting (c) Click the Send SMS button on an accepted quote to send a text to your customer notifying them of the acceptance of that quote. See (f) - (i) on how to edit the generated SMS and confirm it. TIP Fergus will use your 'Quote Approved' SMS template. Customer Card (d) Click the Send SMS button on a customer card to send a text to your customer. See (f) - (i) on how to edit the generated SMS and confirm it. TIP A cellphone number should be in your customer's contact details to enable SMS on the customer card. 14

15 Fergus 4 SMS Employee Card (e) Click the Send SMS button on an employee card to send a text to your employee. See (f) - (i) on how to edit the generated SMS and confirm it. TIP A cellphone number should be in your employee's contact details to enable SMS on the employee card. Editing and Confirmation Once an SMS has been generated, you can edit the final text before sending it out. (f) A reminder of your remaining text count and expiry date. (g) Click to select a customer cellphone number from the list. This list is pulled from the customer and job cards. If the correct phone number isn't listed, you can enter a new one. 15

16 SMS 4 Fergus (h) View and edit the generated text. Remember to keep an eye on your character count. (i) Click the 'Send SMS' button to send the text. 4.6 SMS Replies Reply texts will be alerted through the Notifications button in your Fergus menu bar. Replies from your customers will also appear in your job card: (a) Click 'Notes & History' on the left to access your customer communication log for an individual job. (b) Click the checkboxes along the top to filter your messages by type. Uncheck all except the 'SMS' box to view only text messages. (c) Texts to and replies from your customer will appear in your logs. (d) Click the Reply button to quickly and easily reply to a text. 16

17 Fergus 5 Templates 5 TEMPLATES templates allow you to customise standard s in the same way as SMS templates. Access your templates through the Settings button in the menu bar. (a) Click ' ' in the Settings menu to access your templates. (b) Choose which template you'd like to edit from the template list on the left. There are several standard options. (c) This is the editable text field showing the subject line of your . Type here to add text, or drag 'tags' from the area on the right (e) to add relevant job and customer information. (d) This is the editable text field showing the content of your . Type here to add text, or drag 'tags' from the area on the right (e) to add relevant job and customer information. (e) This is the 'tag' list. Tags are placeholders for job and customer information. When a tag appears in an template, Fergus will replace the tag with the relevant job and customer information when sending out individual s. Click-and-drag tags from this list into the text fields (c) and (d) on the left to add them to the template. (f) Click to toggle between the 'Edit' and 'Preview' modes. The edit mode allows you to add and change text in a template, while the preview mode shows you what a finished will look like. (g) Click the green 'Save' button to save a template. 17

18 2015 Fergus Trade Management Software