Departures Letter / Export File

Transcription

1 Departures Letter / Export File Departing customers can be tracked and sent a thank you from within Campground Manager. Alternatively customer information can be gathered and exported to a file, for processing, by a third party service provider. Typically the export file is used by a survey information gathering service to provide guest satisfaction information. It is normally wise to do this if your batches are greater than a few hundred records. The information below will address the steps required to process each method. Export File Method This method gathers and exports all departure transactions (checked out customers) since the last time the process was run. Initially you should set the starting period by opening the Report Setup screen in the Setup menu. The Report Setup screen tracks the last time the Departures export file was processed. The first time you process departures you may wish to enter a starting date in this field to reduce the number of transactions selected. After the first process this field will be maintained automatically. If you wish to resend any period you may change the starting date on this screen to reselect any particular date range. 1

2 Customers that have a valid address and a checkout date between the Last Departure Date and the Current User Date will be displayed in the list. 2

3 Click on the Create Departure File button and take note of the location of your export file. Normally the file will be created in the same directory as your camp data file inside a folder called Departures. The file will have the current date appended to the name Dep. The file can be sent to your guest survey service provider simply attaching this file to an and sending it using your software such as Microsoft Outlook. Option 2; Departing Customer Departure s can be sent to your customers after checkout. To do this you must first create a Departure template letter to use with the . Select the Custom Letters option under the CM menu. 3

4 Look for the document named DEPARTURE LETTER and click view. If you do not have this in your list you must create one by clicking New and using this exact name. 4

5 In the heading field enter a message. This will be the subject line of your . Enter the body of the letter in the large section. This will be used for all Departure s you send. Save and close the windows once complete. Click the setup menu under the CM menu and select Setup. You must enter into Campground Manager the same information that your program uses. Go to the Setup menu option to open the server detail setup window 5

6 The information needed in the screen above can be found in your software program. It is usually kept in the Account Properties. Here is an example below from MS Outlook. 6

7 We need the Outgoing SMTP server address. The SMTP User name is normally the your address and the SMTP password is you password. The setup is now complete. Go to your CM menu and select Departed Customers to build the list of customers that have checked out. You should refer to the section near the top of this document that discusses the Report Setup window. This window stores the last date in which departures were processed. Entering a date in this field before building the departures list will reduce the number of departures selected. Once processed the current date will be stored in this location and will act as a starting point for the next departures list. 7

8 Once the list has been built, enter your clerk ID into the clerk field. Only customers with a value in the address field will be displayed in the list. Sort and remove any customers you do not wish to . Click the List button. Each customer will be sent the Departures Letter via . If you have security settings on your computer you may see the following message for each customer you are ing: 8

9 Click the Open button. This is just a security warning. It will not harm your computer the file has been generated by Campground Manager to process each . Check with your systems administrator if you would like to turn off this warning permanently. Note: It is not wise to send more than s at one time. Some Internet Service Providers may view this as spam and block your account. To avoid this use an internet service for large blasts as described in the first section Export File Method. Otherwise, try to keep your batches below a couple hundred names at one time. 9