Field Selection for Web Forms

In a previous post, we encouraged you to increase your  inbound marketing effort with PlaybookIQ Web Forms.   We’re excited to announce the first of a series of improvements to our PlaybookIQ Web Forms, field choice.

Now when you set up your web forms in PlaybookIQ, you can check the fields you want to include.  Only those fields will be populated on the form.  Data collected from those fields will be automatically uploaded to your PlaybookIQ Account.  We also added two new fields, Company and Title.

Your existing PlaybookIQ Web Forms can be edited to change the standard fields to be included or to add the new fields.

For more information on our Web Forms, visit our Help Center, or view a Sample Web Form.

User friendly CRM for all!

In working to revamp the Import feature of PlaybookIQ, its becoming increasingly clear there is still a gap between the developer and the ordinary computer user.  For the technical partner, its easy to throw terms such as CSV, parsing, and “plain text” around (even in a single sentence!).  As the non-technical partner, it feels like a research project trying to keep up.

So in comes the user friendly application.  But what is user friendly to one is not to the next.  So how do we serve both?  How do you avoid insulting the more technical users while not leaving the not-so-technical behind?

We’ve decided with our import feature, which has admittedly caused the most user errors in our system, to begin the process with a basic “1-2-3″ step process without much upfront instruction.  Import should really be a simple function, and for the user who is familiar with imports and CSV files, this approach should work well.  However, alongside the easy 1-2-3 process, we’re linking to more in-depth instructions and information for those who are unfamiliar with imports and CSV files and need additional help.  We’re providing this further information in easy-to-understand verbage and concepts, in an attempt to not only help our users use our system, but also to educate them.  Oftentimes, this is by providing links to the help section of the current systems they are importing from, systems that have already discovered the best way to explain converting data from their system to a CSV file.

Our goal is to make importing contacts easier than ever.  However, even for the technical savvy, errors with CSV files that cause an import to bomb out.  A missing comma, missing quote, too many quotes – can cause the whole file to fail.  In this case, we’ve decided that more eyes are better, and after our users have examined their file and tried again, we’ll invite the user to send the file to us and try to help resolve the problem.

Our more user-friendly Import feature will launch this week.

PlaybookIQ increases custom contact fields

PlaybookIQ now offers 20 custom contact fields for each PlaybookIQ account.  Custom contact fields allow users to capture contact information specific to their business or industry.

Setting up custom fields is easy in PlaybookIQ.  Under the Admin link in each account is a Custom Fields option.  Simply click “edit”, input the desired fields, and save.  Now each time a contact is added or edited, the custom fields appear for data input.

Custom fields can be easily searched and segmented like any other contact field.  This allows for specific industry target marketing or followup.  Custom fields can also be used when importing contact data, to ensure none of the data associated with your contacts at import.

Enhancement: Live Search

Besides the detailed search options on the search tab, PlaybookIQ also offers a quick search on the contacts tab. As you type in the search box, your contacts are filtered to all contacts with first name, last name, or company name starting with your search phrase.

Type sm … and as you type…

… smi …

This search box is also a quick way to find everyone in a given company.

We’ve made it faster

With recently improved indexing strategies, this search box is the quickest way to find someone when you know their first name, last name, or company. If you receive a phone call while at your desk, you can quickly find their PlaybookIQ CRM record, open it, and be ready to read through their comments and history all within a few seconds.

Give is a try at http://playbookiq.com. We think you’ll enjoy how quickly you can find and open a contact.

New Feature: Import Contacts from CSV Files

What is CSV?

Comma-separated values (CSV) file format is the most common and easily understood way to manage generic data. A CSV file is simply a straight text file in which each row of text is a contact (in our case). Data in each row is separated by commas and optionally enclosed in quotes. A simple CSV file looks something like this:

“first name”, “last name”, “company”
“John”, “Jackson”, “ABC Inc.”
“Mary”, “Smith”, “Widgets LLC.”

Microsoft Outlook, ACT, Excel and just about every other software application can export its data in CSV format. More detail about CSV can be found “here“.

How does PlaybookIQ support CSV?

Because CSV is so common and flexible, PlaybookIQ supports import of contacts from generic CSV files so you can quickly move contacts from another application to into into PlaybookIQ.

Here is what it looks like:

Step 1: Prepare your data for import.

The import feature leads you through the process step-by-step. The first step is simply to review your data file to ensure it is a valid CSV file. Step 1 describes what a valid file is so that you can visually review your file before proceeding.

Step 2: Select your import file.

PlaybookIQ imports files from your local computer. In Step 2, you simply tell PlaybookIQ which local file you want to use.

Step 3: Upload file for parsing and inspection of field names

In this step, PlaybookIQ reads your file and attempts to match data to PlaybookIQ fields. The process of matching your data to contact fields is called ‘mapping’.

Step 4: Map fields

For fields that PlaybookIQ could not automatically map, you are prompted to determine the mapping. For data that you wish to exclude from the import, you simply leave the mapping field blank.

Done!

From here, you can now perform the standard bulk-tasks to the newly imported contacts:

add a tag, assign to a playbook, add a task

We are excited about this new, flexible import feature.

New Feature: SSL for All

SSL for all! All PlaybookIQ accounts, including free trials, now

get the protection of secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption. SSL is the Internet standard for secure, encrypted transmission of your data.

All major web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera automatically recognize and authenticate SSL certificates so, as a PlaybookIQ user you do not need to do anything to be protected. When you log in, you will see a lock in the corner of the web browser that indicates the connection is using SSL.

 

New Feature: Copy Playbooks

In PlaybookIQ, playbooks contain your sales team’s best practices. Each playbook is a series of repeatable and measurable steps that can be easily applied to a contact. Each step is assigned a timeline and responsible user. In this way, PlaybookIQ truly combines small business CRM with sales team collaboration and sales best practices.

Sometimes you might want to duplicate the series of steps in a playbook, but assign tasks to different users. Now, we have made it super easy to do so.

Simply:

1. Open the playbook (Playbooks tab, click on a playbook title).

2. Click on the ‘copy’ link.

PlaybookIQ will automatically create a brand new playbook, with all step definitions copied over. You can then go in and modify the new playbook by changing who is assigned each step, removing steps, adding steps, or whatever you wish.

This is just one of many small enhancements coming up soon that will make it faster and easier than ever to get the most out of PlaybookIQ.

Try it out at playbookiq.com.

CRM Message Templates

Consistent image and messages to customers and prospects is an important part of your customer relationship and marketing efforts. PlaybookIQ now supports this aspect with Message Templates.

Use message templates to:

• Be efficient: no need to retype the same email over and over.
• Be consistent: ensure everyone on your team is putting forth a consistent company image.
• Be effective: spend your time writing well authored email responses that can be used over and over.
• Be personal: include the contact’s name in the message template.

Message templates can be applied to any step in a Playbook. When a contact reaches that step, you need only click “Compose email” link and an email with to: subject: and body: will be prepared in your local email client. You can modify it if needed, or simply hit ‘send’ to deliver your email.

Find out more at http://playbookiq.com.

New Feature: CRM Activity Report

As noted in previous posts, we built PlaybookIQ from the start to be an effective CRM tool for small- to mid-sized organizations to collaborate on their efforts, follow a consistent sales process, and gain insight into their results. When launched, PlaybookIQ offered the Pipeline Overview which shows you how many contacts are at each step of each of your playbooks. This is helpful for identifying process bottlenecks. Today, we announce a new view into your organization’s activity.

With the Activity Reports you can see what you, or others in your organization, got done recently. You simply specify the user and a date range to see a summary of all activity. This is helpful to review progress and to remind yourself of what you were working on in a given timeframe. We hope you like it.

To see this report, and other features of PlaybookIQ, sign into your account at http://playbookiq.com/signin. Or, sign up for a new account, it’s free and at no risk.

 

New Feature: Permission Management

PlaybookIQ is built from the ground up as a small business CRM tool for sales team collaboration. To effectively collaborate, all users on your team can perform almost all functions. By default, everyone can create, edit, and delete contacts, tasks, comments, playbooks, and step definitions. Yet, for those times that you want to limit user permissions, we have made it very easy to do so.

In this example, Mary has full control over contacts, tasks, and comments in her CRM system. She cannot create, modify, or delete playbooks or step definitions. Only the account owner can change user permissions. To do so, click on “Admin” in the top-right and then ‘edit’ on a contact. This new permission feature is clean, clear, and concise to use and we think you will like it.