BatchBook Blog
Archive for the “Using BatchBook” Category
The latest cool little feature we snuck into BatchBook has been a pet project of mine for a while. So much so that I get to be the one to announce it!
Have you ever been working in BatchBook and thought “Oh, I’d love to send someone this person’s contact information”? Recently, I had an editor friend looking for a freelance writer for a project. I clicked on my “writer” tag in BatchBook, took a quick look at the resultant list and found someone I thought would be perfect for the job. But I had no way to send that person’s information from BatchBook, so I had to cut and paste everything into a separate email. Kind of a bummer since all the info my friend needed (name, email and street address, phone number) was right there on the contact detail page.
Thanks to some back-end wizardry, you can now send a person’s contact information directly from BatchBook just by clicking on this last little icon on the Contact detail toolbar:
<== hello!
Once you click, just add the recipient’s email address to the drop-down bar and the vcard information is zipped off to your friend. This is also great for those times when you want to make a virtual introduction between two folks. With this new feature, you’re off and networking in no time. It’s just a quick little thing that adds up to a bit of a time-saver, which is always nice.
A big thanks to the BatchBlue tech team for making my BatchBook dream a reality! Now, who in my network needs an introduction to whom…?
Tweet This Post
Tags: batchbook, contact management, usability
We like to think that we make BatchBook flexible enough to meet just about any team or group’s workflow. Sometimes though the flexibility and open nature can leave people wondering how to best take advantage of the features and functions that we provide. One common question we get in the Customer Experience group is people wanting to know how they should be using Notes, Communications and Comments.
While there are no hard or fast rules on how they should be used as each person sets up their account differently, I wanted to share with you how I see them being used in most instances.
I see the Notes area as being the place for the information you need to just keep in mind at a glance when looking at a contact record. I’m getting ready to call them but I need to be reminded how to pronounce their name, or I need to be sure not to call on a Tuesday morning, etc. If nothing else, I know I need to look at the notes before taking any action with this contact.
Comments are more of a collaborative or running commentary about the contact that is visible to your whole team. Some folks will include general info, a link to a relevant article about the company, items that are useful to you and your team in relation to that contact. For example, if a colleague were to see that a vendor you managed added a new product line they could add that in the comments so that when you logged in you would see that information and act accordingly.
The actual email that you send to the vendor, or the logging of the phone call between you and them is the communication. It is designed to track the direct interaction between you and them. One of the nice things about communications is that they can be tagged for easy tracking. Your response to the vendor based upon your colleague’s comment is best served as a communication.
If you then want to let the rest of the team know that you got a 20% discount because you are an awesome buyer / negotiator, you could let them know by adding your own comments.
Each group has their own workflow so it’s hard to say that this will work for you, or be the best method in your environment, but hopefully this helps get you thinking about how to best use Notes, Comments and Communications in your account.
Tweet This Post
Tags: comments, communications, notes
Recently I wrote about how I thought our Tags were being neglected when compared to their SuperTag siblings. That got me to thinking about another very powerful and useful feature in BatchBook that I don’t think gets the attention it deserves.
Our lists and reports are great for collecting and preparing your data for exporting and printing. You can choose fields you want to appear and customize them in many ways. They are really powerful and are even auto-updating so that they will always reflect the most current information in your account.
But before a list is a list – it’s just a search. You enter in your criteria and pull up your results. At this point you are given a choice – save your search or create list.
Most folks seem to opt for the list at this stage, and really who can blame them. They are fancy and useful and all and I like my lists – but I love my saved searches. You see, saved searches offer some benefits that lists and reports just can’t match.
Easy Access: Your saved searches show up just under your advanced search bar which is accessible from any page. This makes them really convenient to get access to.
List templates: Do you have a common list that you use a lot that you are always needing to recreate or duplicate? Create the base search and save it . You can then make any minor tweaks you need to and turn it in to a new list any time you need it.
Use Batch Actions: We love our batch actions, the ability to perform functions like tagging, merging, and SuperTag data updating on multiple records at one time. Batch actions aren’t available on lists – but they are available for the results of your saved searches.
For me my lists tend to be one offs, things I pull together for a single use. A mailing for a specific event or a call list. I use them and then they get deleted. For the information that I look at on a day to day basis, saved searches provide me with even more benefits – and if I need a list or a report with the extra functionality that they bring, I can always create them from my search.
How do you use Saved Searches?
Tweet This Post
Tags: lists, reports, saved searches
Getting started with BatchBook typically involves getting the data you’ve collected in various other systems or spreadsheets in to the system so you can begin to do all of the wonderful things that being organized brings. Your data comes from many different places so we do our best to make the process as easy as we can.
Whether it is our custom import template, our screencasts, FAQs, or even our experts who can help you with even the tiniest of details, we know that you can’t use BatchBook until this very important first step is done.
So our Customer Experience team got together and put together this list of our Top 5 Tips on how to make sure your import process is a success.
1) Use our import template. Having your data formatted properly is the most important step in the process. Each data type must be clearly labeled and all of your rows and columns must match up to make sure that BatchBook knows where to put your data. Don’t worry though – we really do make it easy if you let us.
Each account comes with its very own Import Template that is customized to hold all of your SuperTag Fields and custom data, it’s also in the proper .csv format that we need. It may seem easier to try to modify the file you exported from your old system, but trust us – failing to use the import template is the most common reason we see people asking for support to resolve import failures.
2) Import your companies and your individuals separately. While this isn’t required, it helps make sure that the data you are uploading gets applied to the proper records. We love how BatchBook lets you enter in company data and have it automatically appear at the employee or personnel level and with a little bit of planning you can do the same thing in your import.
To make sure that your company specific address and contact information is complete and tied to your company record you’ll want to have it appear as a unique line in your data file – without a person’s name. Keep any information that applies to the company itself like website, main address, and common phone numbers. This will create company records in your BatchBook account with all of the company data all ready and waiting to be pushed down to your other contacts.
After this step, you can then import your file of individuals. You’ll want to be sure that the company name is an exact match to what you have already entered and we’ll take care of matching them up automatically. You’ll also want to remove any information from those individual’s records that are duplicates of what you’ve already entered in for their company. Leave only information that is unique to that user like their personal email address, phone w/ extension, personal cell phone etc.
3) Do a small test import first. We try to make the process as simple as possible and you’ve done a lot of work to get everything lined up and in the right place. Before you go ahead and upload that whole file, grab a couple of company records and related individuals and start with just those folks. See how the import works, make sure that the data is in the right place. Did your SuperTags format properly? Did your Tags import correctly? It’s a lot easier to delete or change a few records, modify your data and try again than it is to have to undo a full import or correct thousands of records. Keep importing a few at a time until you know it is perfect – then let it loose.
4) Break up large imports in to smaller files. We recommend not uploading or importing more than 5000 records at a time. This keeps the file sizes manageable to avoid any issues with time-outs and keeps the actual import times to workable levels. It also lets you correct any issues with specific record import errors in smaller batches.
5) Watch your SuperTags. The import template will clearly identify which fields and columns should contain your SuperTag data but you’ll need to be sure that the data you put in there matches not only the field type you’ve created but also if you have entered in specific options or choices, that your import data matches that information exactly. Yes and Y are different. No and none are different. If your test imports are failing, this is the first place I would check.
Armed with this info you should be able to get started with nice clean organized data in your BatchBook account.
As always, check out the support area of our site for more information or send us an email to support@batchblue.com if you need any help or have specific questions on how best to make this work for you.
Tweet This Post
Tags: imports, tips and tricks
At BatchBook, we realize that when you need access to your customer information anything we can do to make it easier for you can make a big difference. As we’ve added more functionality to the product over the last couple of years, we’ve also worked hard to refine the interface and to make sure that features don’t get in the way of the important stuff – getting you access to the information that you need as quickly as possible.
Since I’ve started on the Customer Experience team I’ve discovered that one of my favorite features seems to be little known or utilized, so I thought I would share with you the joy and wonder that comes with…BatchBook Hot-keys.
Hot-keys are a quick way to navigate around BatchBook using only your keyboard. If you know where you want to go and want to get there with no fuss – press on any of the following keys from any BatchBook page and you’ll be moved there without needing to reach for your mouse.
h – Home
c – Contacts
m – Communications
e – Calendar
d – Deals
l – Lists
t – Todo List
s – Sync
Another time-saving favorite of mine that many know is that your tab key works wonderfully to advance your cursor through the data entry fields. Lesser known it seems is that shift-tab moves you backwards through those same fields.
Keyboard navigation is a wonderful way to streamline your work process and work more efficiently – and BatchBook has your back.
How do you streamline your BatchBook work flow?
Tweet This Post
Tags: batchbook, shortcuts
Older Entries
Newer Entries
