Contact Management. All Records This query returns all records in the project with the contact ID, flag status, first name, and last name.

Transcription

1 Contact Management The Contact Management feature in VanillaSoft is a powerful tool for working with your data. Custom queries can be built to find contacts based on any combination of data fields within VanillaSoft. Contacts can then be viewed, flagged or unflagged, updated, exported or deleted. Contact management can be used to select which contacts will be called, to assign calling priority, to assign contacts to teams, and much more. Common Queries VanillaSoft comes with five pre-built queries. They are: All Records This query returns all records in the project with the contact ID, flag status, first name, and last name. All Open Records This query returns all records in the project that have not been marked as closed along with the contact ID, flag status, first name, last name. Records Attempted Fewer than 5 times This query returns all records in the project for which there are four calls or less in the contact history along with the contact ID, flag status, first name, last name and number of attempted contacts. All Records Not Called in the Last Week This query returns all records in the project that have not been called in the last seven days along with the contact ID, flag status and last call date. All Records Called in the Last Week This query returns all records that have been called in the last seven days along with the contact ID, flag status and last call date. Custom Queries Custom queries can be built quickly and easily using Contact Management. To start a query, click on BUILD A NEW QUERY. This will bring up the following window:

2 Query Fields This allows you to select which VanillaSoft fields you want to include in the query. For a description of all of the fields available for queries, see Table A at the end of this guide. To select multiple fields, hold down the CTRL key. When all fields have been selected, click on the green plus sign to add them to the query. Field Filters Once the fields in a query have been selected, filters can then be used to return exactly the contacts that are desired. There are 13 available filters in VanillaSoft. 1) Equal to This filter can be used to search for exact matches in a field. For example, if you wish to find all of the contacts from a particular state, say CA, a query can be built as follows: State equal to CA. This will query out all of the contacts that have CA in the State field. Equal to can only be used with one term, i.e. querying for State equal to CA FL will not return both California and Florida. This will search for an exact match. This filter can be used with dates for the following fields: Last Call Date, Add Date and Call Back Date. For example, the query Last Call Date equal to 01/01/2006 will return all contacts that were last called on January 1 st, 2006.

3 2) Equal to or less than This filter will bring back contacts where the field information is equal to or less than the entered value. In the case of letters, A has the lowest value and Z the highest. For example, the query: State equal to or less than C will return all contacts where the state in the State field starts with C, D, E, etc but will not return states beginning with A or B (i.e. AL). When this query is used with numbers, it will look for fields where the number is equal to or less than the number used in the query. For example, the query Result Count to Date equal to or less than 4 will return all contacts that have been dialed 4 times or less, but will not return contacts dialed 5 times or more. This query can be used with dates on the following fields: Last Call Date, Added Date, and Call Back Date. For example, the query Call Back Date equal to or less then 04/10/2006 will return all contacts with callbacks/appointments scheduled for April 10 th, 2006.

4 3) Equal to or Greater Than This filter can be used in a similar fashion to 2), with the one obvious difference. 4) Less Than This filter behaves similarly to 2) except that only results less than the query value will be returned. 5) Greater Than This filter behaves similarly to 3) except that only results greater than the query value will be returned. 6) Not Equal To This filter will eliminate all contacts where the field content is equal to the query value. 7) Blank This filter will bring back all contacts where the chosen field contains no information. 8) Not Blank This filter will bring back all contacts where the chosen field contains information. 9) Begins with This filter will bring back all contacts where the information in the chosen field begins with the query value. For example, the query State Begins with C will bring back all contacts where the state name begins with C, such as CA, CO and CN. 10) Contains This filter will bring back all contacts where the chosen field contains the query value. For example, the query Lead Status Contains sale could return contacts where the Lead Status is Sale pending, Verbal Sale or even Whosale. 11) Between This filter will bring back all contacts where the information in the chosen field lies between the chosen query values. A comma must separate the chosen values.

5 In the case of letters, for example, the query State Between B,D will bring back all contacts where the information in the State field begins with C. In the case of dates, the Query Last Call Date Between 01/01/2006,04/10/2006 will bring back all contacts where the last call date is between January 1, 2006 and April 10, ) In This filter operates similarly to the Equal filter, but allows several values to be searched for at the same time. For example, the query State In CA,FL will return all contacts where the state information is equal to CA or FL. When using this filter, the values must be separated by a comma with no additional spaces added. 13) Not In This filters operates similarly to the Not Equal to filter, but allows several values to be excluded at the same time. PerformTask

6 Once a query has been built, there are several actions that you can carry out on the contacts: 1) Show Results This will display each of the selected contacts along with the information for the fields in the query. By clicking on the Contact ID of the contact the Edit Contact window will be brought up for that contact. Once the contacts are displayed, clicking on the Perform Task hyperlink at the top of the page will bring up the list of actions that can be carried out. 2) Flag Contacts This will flag all of the contacts brought up by the query so that they will be routed to callers. Contacts that have been closed (based on the last result code) will not be reflagged. Any contacts that have a scheduled callback/appointment will not be routed until the scheduled time. 3) Unflag Contacts This will unflag all of the contacts so that they will no longer be routed to callers. This will not affect any contacts with scheduled callbacks/appointments. 4) Update Contacts This will bring up the Update Contact window, which allows fields within the query to be updated in batch. For example, to establish a calling priority a query can be built that includes the field Call Priority. Under update contact, the Call Priority field can be chosen and the value 1 placed in the field. When the contact update is completed, all of the contacts will now have a call priority of 1. Certain fields can not be updated in batch. These fields will be grayed out and can not be selected in the Update Contact window. 5) Export Results This will export the contacts and all of the query fields to an Excel csv file. 6) Delete Contacts This will delete the contacts from VanillaSoft. It is important to double-check before deleting contacts, as the deletion is permanent and all contact history will be lost.

7 7) Edit this Query This will bring the query up along with the query field box so that the query can be modified. 8) Duplicate this Query This will create a copy of the current query. 9) Remove this query This will delete the query from VanillaSoft. 10) Blast Tag This will allow you to apply a blast tag to the leads to indicate a marketing event. 11) Mail-merge This will allow you to generate mail-merged documents for the leads based on a template in the Document Library. The three important steps in Contact Management have now been covered: choosing query fields, choosing field filters, and choosing an action for the query. Queries can be built to bring out contacts from the database based on almost any possible combination of information. The only limit is your imagination. Blast Tagging in VanillaSoft VanillaSoft includes a feature calling Blast Tagging that allows you to mark leads as part of a marketing campaign. Take as an example a group of leads to which you would first like to carry out an campaign before following up by phone. Within Contact Management you can build a query that brings up all of the leads that you would like to blast (see the user guide Using Contact Management in VanillaSoft), making sure to include the address field in the query. This data can then be exported to Excel and used for your blast. At the same time, you can choose the <Blast Tag> option in the <Perform Task> link to define a blast tag. You will give a name and a description to the blast tag, which will then be used to tag each of the leads.

8 Blast tagging allows you to bring up leads by marketing campaign and allows callers to see whether a lead was part of a particular marketing campaign. You can query leads by Last Blast Tag or by Blast Tag, and you can use the Last Blast Tag when running reports. Please note that when querying by Blast Tag the system will bring up leads that are tagged with the Blast Tag in question but will always display the most recent Blast Tag for that lead. Mass Mail-Merges It is possible to generate mail-merged documents for a group of leads in one batch, for example in order to carry out a mass mailing. First, build and run the query that brings up all of the desired leads. Under <Perform Task>, choose <Mail-Merge Contacts> and the following screen will appear. From this screen you can select the mail-merge template that you would like to use. You will be able to choose any templates that have been added to the Documents section (see the guide Using the Document Library in VanillaSoft).

9 The next screen will give you the option of assigning a Blast Tag to the group of leads before generating the mail-merge documents. You can then generate the documents by clicking on the Start Mail-Merge button. The mail-merge documents will be generated as one PDF file, which can be opened by clicking on the link. Depending on the number of contacts and the size of the document it may take some time for it to complete. This file should then be saved to a local drive, as VanillaSoft does not keep a copy of the file.

10 TABLE A: VANILLASOFT QUERY FIELDS Field Name Description ContactID Each contact is assigned a unique contact ID by VanillaSoft upon import. Prefix Prefix (i.e. Mr., Ms., Mrs, Dr.) Lead Source This field contains the address of the source of the lead. Closed by DNC This field can be true or false. True means that VanillaSoft s DNC checking found the contact on the DNC list. Closed by DNC Date This is the date on which the contact was closed. This field will be blank if the contact is not closed by DNC. Last Call Date This is date on which the contact was last called. Dates should be entered in the following format: month/day/year, i.e. 04/18/2006 for April 18, Last Call Duration The duration, in seconds, of the most recent call. Last Call Time The time of the last call. Last User Name The user name of the last person to call the contact. Last Result Code The result code of the last call to the contact. Last Result Group The result group of the result code of the last call to the contact. Last of Comment The comment entered during the last call to the contact. Result Count to Date The total number of calls made to the contact to date. Scheduled Call User The name of the user to whom a callback or appointment has been assigned. Current User The name of the last person to call the contact. First Name First name of the contact. Middle Name Middle name of the contact. Last Name Last name of the contact. Suffix Suffix Title Title (i.e. President, CEO, etc) Company Company name Address 1 Address 1 Address 2 Address 2 City City State State/Province Zip Code Zip/Postal Code address of the contact Call Priority Call priority of the contact. Call priorities range from 1 to 99. A blank call priority is the highest, followed by 1 and so on. Therefore, in order for contacts with a call priority of 1 to be routed first, all other contacts must have a call priority of 2 or more. Added Date The date that the contact was added to the project. Flagged If the contact is flagged to be called, the value of this field is

11 Call Back Date Call Back Time Contact Owner ClosedFlag Team Lead Status Lead Source Other Info Fields Phone Labels Scripts Last Blast Name Blast Name Last Blast Description Blast Description Last Blast UserName Blast UserName <True>. If the contact is not flagged, the value is <False> The date of a scheduled callback or appointment. The time of a scheduled callback or appointment. Contacts can be assigned a contact owner. Contact owners must be an active user within VanillaSoft. When a contact is closed, this field has a value of <True>. When the contact is not closed, the value is <False>. When a contact is closed it can not be flagged until the closed flag has been removed. The team to which a contact is assigned. The lead status of the contact. If no lead status is assigned, this field will be blank. The source of the lead. Each Other Info field will be listed and can be used for querying purposes. Each phone label will be listed. Each script name will be listed and can be used for querying purposes. Queries can be carried out on the information gathered for a script. The most recent blast name associated to a lead Will work on all blast names associated to a lead, although the query will always display the most recent blast tag for a lead. The most recent blast description associated to a lead Will work on all blast descriptions associated to a lead, although the query will always display the most recent blast description for a lead. Name of the user who created the last blast tag. Name of the user who created any blast tags associated with a lead. Queries can be done on any blast usernames, but the query will always display the most recent blast username in the results.