BatchBook Blog
Archive for the “Our Users are So Smart” Category
The fine folks over at Xioup who have wowed us in the past with their own custom development for BatchBook Web Forms have been brewing a new project for a while that we’re happy to help them announce today.
WebFormGlue is a new service that allows you to connect your web forms with various SaaS products. We’re psyched that they have decided to launch with their initial integration point featuring our very own BatchBook and our other fine friends over at Formstack.
They’ve got all the details and some sample forms you can fill out to give feedback and apply for alpha testing.
We’re excited to see the great things that people are building using our API.
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Tags: api, formstack, web froms, webformglue
We have been loving the Flowtown integration and have been looking for more ways to leverage the information we get back from Flowtown in BatchBook.
We’ve received some ideas from Twitter as well as a very thoughtful blog post from our customer Hugh Macken. They all agreed on one thing: Add Klout!
Klout, for those who don’t know, is a great tool to measure a persons influence on the social web. Influence is measured on many different fronts including followers, friends, total retweets, etc. You receive a Klout score from 1-100 with 100 meaning you basically rule the social web.
Flowtown gives us this score but until today we were not displaying it. Now, if you are using the Flowtown integration, we populate the score into your social media supertag:
Yeah my score is pretty low…thank you Mom for following me though!
We import the score as a number field so using BatchBook reports you can search for folks with a Klout score greater than, less than or equal to. You can create lists targeted based on Klout score which can be very powerful.
We’re also pulling in job title information from Flowtown if the contact does not have a existing title on their contact record. Let us know what else you would like to see out of this integration — we’re listening!
So there you have it, a small addition to BatchBook but something we think you will find very useful. And you’re welcome, @tsondermann.
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Tags: batchbook, flowtown, marketing, social crm, Social Media
I recently did some customization of the BatchBlue fan page on Facebook. We thought it would be fun to have a little give-away for our friends on Facebook, so I added one of our very own BatchBook Custom Forms to our page. Now, when friends sign up on our Facebook page, their information is magically transported to our BatchBook account so we’ll have all the important information we need to notify the winners.
One of our super smart customers, Alex Webster, outlined the steps for adding a BatchBook form to your Facebook page in our forums and I thought I would share some steps and screenshots here for you.
Step 1:
The first thing you will need to do is set up your form in your BatchBook account. We have a handy FAQ which explains the process. Create the form and save it in your account. I would suggest that you set the return URL to the URL for your Facebook Wall. Then, you’ll need to take a little trip down memory lane to visit Adam Darowski’s post on customizing BatchBook forms. Grab the source code from your form and pay particular attention to step 2 so your form will work with your BatchBook account. Save the code in a text file. If you would like to add your own custom css you can add it at the top of this file between some style tags or use inline styles for the elements you would like to customize. If you don’t use your own styles, then the default Facebook styles will be used for your form. If you need help customizing the css in your FBML tab, here is a great tutorial.
Step 2:
Head on over to your Facebook fan page. Click on the edit button below your profile picture. You will need to add the FBML application from this page. If you don’t see it listed at the bottom of the page under “More Applications”, then click on “Browse More” and do a quick search for it. Adding this application to your Facebook page will allow you to create a custom tab on your Facebook page.
Step 3:
Click edit to customize the tab.
You will need to give the tab a name and then you will paste the form code from your text file into the large box of the FBML application. Click “Save Changes”.
Step 4:
FBML can be saved as a box or a tab. We will be setting this up as a tab, so you will need to make the following edits. Find the name of the FBML tab that we just created and click on Application settings.
You will need to change the settings to look like what we have in this image. The wording is a little confusing, but make sure that you change it to “Box: Available” and “Tab: Added”. That will make your form appear on it’s own tab.
Step 5:
You can set the form tab to be the default landing page for new visitors to your Facebook fan page. You can do this by clicking on the “Edit” link under “Wall Settings” and selecting your form page from the drop down menu.
Ta Da!
You now have a new Custom Form on your Facebook Fan Page. Who’s cooler than you? Please share your Fan Pages with us, we’d love to see them!
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Tags: facebook, forms, Social Media
One of my favorite new tasks here at BatchBlue is to take over the writing of the Our Users Are So Smart series of blog posts. My predecessor in this role started this series back in June of 2008 to highlight some of the great ideas and use cases that we receive from our users.
At BatchBlue we recognize (and love) that each person who chooses our software uses it in a unique way, often in scenarios we didn’t anticipate. It’s a testament to their innovation that they take the flexibility and features that are a part of BatchBook to carefully craft a workflow and environment that fits their needs.
They have also contributed some great feature requests, many of which we have implemented in to BatchBook. Here are some of my favorites
In August of 2008, Adam wrote about the addition of our Auto-BCC to BatchBox option. It seems our Forum User Dean was enjoying the convenience of our BatchBox email forwarding but suggested that it would also be great if email links from within BatchBook would automatically add the BatchBox forwarding address to your BCC field. Consider it done!
One of the handiest features of using BatchBook in a team environment is the ability to add comments to contacts and communications. What a great way to keep conversations happening. You can thank user Paul, also from our forums, for suggesting this one.
Often times, the best suggestions aren’t for huge features or changes but rather for the little things that just make your work easier. Such is the case with user Alex who really wanted to be able to easily convert an individual to a company. Just one email from him was enough to get this on our radar and implemented soon after.
A lot of our favorite suggestions have come from our User Forums so I want to take a second to remind you that we’ve just recently upgraded our systems to make them even easier to use. Feel free to jump in with your questions, comments and other feedback. We’ve got a whole section just for Feature Requests just waiting for your great ideas on how we can make BatchBook work even better for you.
And while our old forums have been retired, they are still a great resource because of all of the user feedback we’ve received there.
We hope you’ll join us in our new discussion area, or send us an email to support@batchblue.com with your ideas – we’re waiting to see how smart you are.
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Tags: batchbook, feedback, user forums
Here at BatchBlue we like to think of SuperTags as working similarly to the tags you are all probably familiar with, but with the extra benefit of having some really nifty super powers – namely the ability to handle any type of custom data you can throw at them.
When I started using BatchBook back in October 2007, I knew the killer feature for me was going to be SuperTags. Over the years I’ve used them to handle all sorts of data related to my contacts and clients, everything from important dates to their software licensing information.
I’ve been learning that not only are BatchBook SuperTags great at capturing client information, they can also be a great fit for storing information about me and the stuff that I need to keep track of.
Recently I had some trouble with the monitor for my computer. It’s been repaired under warranty before and I knew it was still covered so I began to gather the information I needed to call in for service:
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A visit to the manufacturer web site for the phone number.
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A search on the vendor site for a copy of the original invoice to verify warranty terms.
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A quick crawl around the desk for the serial number.
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A search in my email for the details of the last service call.
While I was running through this silly series of steps, many of which I had already done once in the past, it occurred to me that all of this info could be stored quite easily in BatchBook.
So I created a shiny new “warranty” SuperTag with custom fields for the product name, model number, serial number, place of purchase, date of purchase, and warranty expiration date.
Now when I get a new product, I can tag a company record with my new Warranty SuperTag and fill in all the juicy details. I can even print or scan a copy of the original invoice to a PDF file and uploaded it to the record so I will always have it easily available.
If I ever do need to call or arrange for service, I have all the details I need with just a quick search. I can also use the communications feature to log the call and capture details like ticket numbers and mailing instructions. Logging each call and each step of the return or repair process documents the experience should I have any trouble or if I ever need to revisit it in the future.
Taking advantage of the features built in to BatchBook has helped me tremendously in not only keeping track of the people that are important to me but a lot of other information as well. Some creative thinking about SuperTags has proven to open up a whole new world of possibilities.
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Tags: batchbook
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