Introduction

Thank you for choosing VendAbility 7.0 as your organiser and sales automation tool. This powerful software records customer, opportunity and activity details to facilitate sales reporting and time management. The system is a collaborative tool, that is to say, many people can use the system and share the information. The design of the system allows for both hierarchical and flat reporting structures, or a combination of those structures, while maintaining a consistent, simple, user interface.

The system has been designed by Sales Professionals who understand the need for a simple, user friendly system that can be quickly mastered. Familiar organiser style Address Book and Diary pages facilitate rapid understanding of displayed information. Opportunity record cards visibly resemble hard copy record systems to aid learning and speed the learning cycle. With VendAbility 7.0 users will have the system working for them in no time at all.

For ease of use, the VendAbility software is navigated through clear command buttons which tell the user what action they are requesting. To activate comands, users need only click on a button. If the system needs more information, it will display dialogue boxes (small forms) asking for the information it needs. Many tasks are automated and the system makes extensive use of pick-lists (drop down boxes that allow the user to select an option rather than typing it) to speed operation, reduce errors and prompt users with possible answers.

In contrast to the simplicity of use, VendAbility 7.0 provides an extremely powerful database engine with blazingly fast data processing and searching. The system uses RushmoreTM Optimisation Technology to maximise speed of response to complex queries and filters.

VendAbility 7.0 is built using advanced Microsoft® Database Technology and is designed to work with other Microsoft® products. This integration has a two fold benefit - users can leverage their existing knowledge of products such as Microsoft® Word and Microsoft® Excel and system resource usage is minimised by not incorporating duplicate spreadsheet, word processor, presentation and mail facilities.

It is easy to get started with VendAbility 7.0. If you have purchased the software installed, all you will need to do is logon. If you are installing the software yourself you must configure it first.

 

Installing VendAbility 7.0

If you purchased your software installed you can skip this chapter.

 

Loading the Software

VendAbility 7.0 is supplied on Compact Disc with an autorun feature. When you install the disc in your CD-ROM drive, the setup program should run automatically. Follow the on- screen instructions. If the setup program fails to start automatically select Run... from your Windows Start Menu and type D:\setup.exe (where D is the drive letter associated with your CD-ROM) then click OK. The setup program will guide you through the process of loading the software on your computer. We highly recommend that you maintain the default directories for loading the software.

Setup

When the setup program has completed (you may be asked to re-start your computer) go to Windows Explorer and locate the folder where you installed the program. Open the folder in Windows Explorer and Right-Click on the file marked Vend70.EXE, drag this file and drop it on your desktop and select Create Shortcut from the dialogue box displayed. You will then have an icon on your desktop that you can click on to start the VendAbility 7.0 program. Exit Windows Explorer and click the new icon on your desktop to start VendAbility 7.0.

You will be presented with the Main Menu Screen and the bottom quarter should be white space. On the right side you will see a column of command buttons. Click the button marked Logon. A logon dialogue box will appear. When you purchased the software you would be supplied with a userid and password. Enter Your UserID and Password in the boxes provided. Both User ID and Password are case sensitive so you must enter them exactly as they were given to you. Next click the OK button on the dialogue box and you should have access to the system. An information message window will appear stating your UserID, when you logged on and the fact access is granted. Click OK to close the message box.

VendAbility will fill the blank space on the main menu screen with your details. On first installation it will create the data tables necessary to hold your information and then execute a check on overdue Orders, Calls and Events. Needless to say, on first starting, there will be no overdue’s and the Overdue Summary Report will be blank.

Close the Overdues report with the Close Command Button at the top right of the Overdue Report window.

 

Initial Set-Up

You can now do the initial set-up. On the command panel you will see banks of coloured buttons, four of the buttons should be light blue and marked Industries, Products, Limiting Factors and Competitors. These buttons access the data tables that you must set up before using your system.

Industry Sectors

By default, VendAbility will provide a list of Industry types comparable to the top level industries categorised by the Standard Industry Codes (SIC) system. You can leave the industry listing as is or you can add to it, or reduce it to meet the individual needs of your business. The codes are used on a contact record for industry segmentation purposes. In many cases, the listed codes will suffice to get started. If you want to change the default listing, click on the Industries command button. You can see the list of sectors by clicking the down arrow on the list box, this will present a list of all the Industry Sectors. Select a sector by clicking on it and it will appear in the list box window. If you want to delete this sector, click the delete command button in the Industry Sectors window. To add a sector, type the sector name in the Add New Industry Sector box and then click the add command button. When you are finished updating the Industry list, click the Exit command button.

Products

ow select the next command button in the main menu category - Products. The products window has a Data Grid on it. This grid is a little like a spreadsheet grid displaying selected data from the products table. When you start, the grid will be empty. This is where you define your company products to VendAbility. Click on the Add command button to add a product. The system will code it for you DO NOT AMEND this code, it is a unique code allocated by the computer. When you add a product, the system gives it a default price of £1.00, a cost of £0 and a VAT rate of 17.5%. Select the cell in the column marked Product Description and put a brief description of one of your products. Now give it apart code in the Part Code Column, next change the Selling Price in the Price Sell column followed by the cost of the item in the Price (Cost) column. Finally adjust the VAT rate if it is not a standard 17.5% item. Click Add again to append another product, do this for all your products and then click on the Exit button.

If you select a product line (click on any cell in the line) and then click the Delete command button, the left most column, just before the Code column, will turn black. This marks the record for deletion but does not remove it until you exit the Products Window. If you exit the products window and then return to Products, the records marked for deletion will have been removed. This is a safety feature in VendAbility. If you change your mind about deleting a record, or you hit the delete command button by mistake, just click the black rectangle at the left most side of the record line you do not want to delete. The black rectangle will disappear and the record will not be deleted.

Limiting Factors

In a sales situation, there may be one or more reasons why the customer is reluctant to purchase your product, or service, offering. In VendAbility we refer to these reasons as Limiting Factors. The limiting factor table is created with a number of default reasons such as Price, Service, Delivery, Loyalty to Competitor etc... You may wish to accept the defaults or you may wish to add or detract from the list. You can do this by clicking on the Limiting Factors command button on the main menu.

Adding, Editing and Deleting work in the same way as for Industry Sectors above. VendAbility tries to maintain as many similar screen styles as possible to reduce the learning curve for users.

When you have completed any changes to your Limiting Factors table you can then set up the last of the tables VendAbility needs before the system can become operational.

Competitors

In VendAbility we want to track competition activity and it is therefore necessary to build a table of competitors to save users from inputting different spellings of competitor names and to speed/ease data input by users. The system comes with a default of NONE representing no competition on the sale. Unfortunately, it is rare for sales people to have the opportunity to conclude a transaction free from competition so you must build a list of all your known competitors. Once again this form mimics the Industry sector and Limiting Factor formats to ensure it is easy to learn and use.

That’s it, you are ready to use the system.

Note: Only one person in a team needs to set up the base tables. They can then synchronise with other users to update every team members system with the base table data.

 

System Logon

Before you can use VendAbility you must logon to the system. If you have installed the system yourself, you will already have done this, if you purchased the system installed, you must first Logon using the UserID and Password provided by your system vendor.

When you start VendAbility, you get a main menu screen. On the right hand side, you will see a command panel, that is a row of command buttons. Most of the buttons are disabled until you have logged on.

Click the top button, marked Logon and a window will appear. You will see two boxes, one titled UserID and the other titled Password. Type in your UserId and Password in the appropriate box, remember that in VendAbility 7.0 these fields are Case Sensitive, that means you need to type Upper and lower case letters exactly as you received them. If your UserID is ‘brydena’ and you type ‘BRYDENA’ or ‘Brydena’ the system will not grant you access, you must type upper and lower case as you were given them. This is also true for your password. When you type your password, you will not see the letters that you type, instead you will see a * for each letter you type. This is a security feature to prevent any onlookers from determining your password. VendAbility uses an encryption technique for holding password details on file, so anyone reading the user table will not be able to see your password.

When you have entered your UserID and Password, click on the Logon button. If you entered the details correctly you will receive a message stating that system access is granted. You can now use the program.

Click OK on the message box and the system will Index your data files and search for any overdue Orders, Contacts or Events. It wil then present an Overdues summary report. If you have not used the system, or you do not have any overdues then just click the Close command button in the Overdue Window. If you do have any overdues, double clicking the item in the list will take you to the appropriate record.

When you close the Overdue Window, you will be in the VendAbility 7.0 main menu. Here you can see the status of your logon. Who the current user is, the Software Version being used, the serial number of the software and the status of the software - this should state registered unless you are using a demonstration copy of the VendAbility 7.0 package.

 

Main Menu

Users navigate around the system with the Command Buttons situated on the right side of the main menu. Your system should be set up and have the base table data input. That is to say, the system will know what products you offer, what Industries you deal with, what limiting factors to successful sales might exist and who your competitors are.

Users are primarily interested in the 3 main buttons: Address Book, Diary, Reports.

 

Address Book

The address book is much more than a normal address book, it is a sophisticated opportunity management system. Click on the button to access your address book. Unless you purchased a system with data mapped into it, when you first open it, the address book will be blank, with the exception of a contact record for the Managing Director of abASE, and you will need to add data.

Edit a Contact

By default, your system is loaded with 1 record and you can edit that record.

Click on the Edit command button at the top of the Address Book form. The fields will be boxed to indicate you are in Edit mode and the Edit command button will have changed to become a View command button.

VendAbility presents data in View mode to prevent accidental data changes. The user must select Edit mode to make changes to the data fields.

Fill in as many details as possible for the first contact you wish to add to the Address Book. You can use the Diary buttons to open your diary and select a date for last contact and contact due. These are important fields for managing your time effectively through VendAbility 7.0. You do not need to fill in any notes unless you think it is necessary. Select the Industry that the contact is engaged in and select the status of the contact from the drop down lists. When you have completed the form, click the View Command button to take you back to View mode.

Congratulations, you have edited a contact record on your system. That was easy, wasn’t it.

Add a Contact

When you click the Add Ctc command button, a new blank record will be added to your system and the Address Book will be set to Edit Mode. You complete the fields, just as you did for Edit a Contact and click the View Mode command button when complete.

It is really easy to add records to VendAbility.

Delete a Contact

You cannot delete contacts from the system. If a contact is no longer in use, set it to status Deceased.

Navigation

As you build your contact records in your address book you will want to navigate through them. There is a navigation bar in the Command Panel which allows you to move:

<< To the First Record

< To the Previous Record

> To the Next Record

>> To the Last Record

Of Course, your system will soon build into a large database of contacts and you may only wish to look at a sub-set of those contacts.

Data Filter

You can tell VendAbility 7.0 to look only at records matching certain criteria, this is done through the filter panel. The filter panel allows you to type in criteria in the Set Filter To box, then select the field you want to filter on from the drop down list and finally select the filter operator from its drop down list.

For example, if you wanted to find all contacts with a company name including the words “& Co” you would type ‘& Co’ in the set filter to box (do not include the inverted commas), then you would select ‘Company’ from the drop down Filter on Field list and then select ‘Includes’ from the drop down Filter Operator list. Finally click the Filter button and instantly your database will be reduced to only those records that include ‘& Co’ in the ‘Company’ field. If you do not want the search to be case sensitive, click the Case button and then the Filter button to make the filter Non-Case Sensitive. The Case button will now read Non-Case to indicate you are in Non-Case status.

If you wish to know how many records match your filter, click the Count Button, VendAbility will count your matching records and the Count Button will display the number of records in the current data set.

Data Filtering is a powerful feature for finding records. If you are looking for a particular customer, type the contact, or the company name into the Filter on box, select the appropriate field from the drop down list and set the filter. VendAbility will instantly take you to the desired matching record.

When you have several matching records in a data set, use the navigation keys to move backward and forward through the records.

Other Address Book Commands

There are 3 other Address Book Command Buttons: My Data, Sort and Print List

The My Data button, limits the view to your own data records when you are sharing data with other users. This button toggles (or switches) to All Users when only your records are in view.

The Sort button sorts data alphabetically by name of the contact and toggles to No Sort.

The Print List button creates a list of the current data-set and sends it to Microsoft® Excel, then saves it on your desktop as an Excel file. This file can then be used for mail-merge or other printed listings.

Contact Power Button Panel

Directly below the filter panel is what we refer to as a contact power button panel. This provides a range of upto 9 other command options. These options allow the user to make use of the power of VendAbility to set up complex relationships with other data sets or software and do complex tasks easily. Depending on the build of your system, you may have Organiser Buttons, Letter Buttons, AutoRoute Buttons or other custom power buttons.

All Systems have at least 4 power buttons.

Attach

The attach option allows users to attach other files, such as Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets, Presentations and Text documents to the record. This is an extremely useful function as it allows the user to quickly find communication documents associated with this contact.

When you click the attach button the Attach window opens and allows you to Add files to the attached list, Delete Files or open Microsoft® Office programs. You can also open a file on the list by double clicking on the file name. VendAbility will find the software that created the attachments and open the file with that software. Clicking on the Exit button allows the user to leave the attach window and return to the Address Book.

Labels

When you want to do a mailing to a list of contacts, you can select the contacts with the filter function and then generate mailing labels.

First click the count button on the Filter Panel to determine how many labels you will print. This might help you decide the labels you will use.

Next click on the Labels button in the Power Command Panel, you will see a menu of standard Avery Labels, if you hold your mouse over any label button it will describe how many labels and the layout of those labels on an A4 page. Check what labels you want to use, load them in your default Windows Printer (alternatively you can use Windows Start|Setting|Printers and then set the printer with your labels in it to the default printer). Now click the correct Label Type and that is it, your printer will churn out a set of mailing labels.

Duplicate

Often you have several contacts for the one organisation and it seems to the developers of VendAbility that your time would be better spend doing other things than typing the same data into your Address Book, so you have the duplicate function to create a duplicate contact record except for the contact name, direct line telephone number and eMail address.

When you click the Duplicate button, VendAbility will append a new contact record to the address book and map the data from the current record into the new record, it will then go to the new record.

Opportunity System (Opport)

The final button is the Opport button, this activates the opportunity record card system for the contact.

This part of VendAbility is the opportunity management section. Every opportunity is associated with a contact and every contact is associated with a sales person, so the system can monitor who sells what to whom. But it goes way beyond that.

Because the system tracks opportunities rather than sales, your business will have a window into your known market. This can be compared to total market potential statistics to give you an insight of how much market awareness and penetration you are achieving.

It is this element of VendAbility that can generate forecasting reports, opportunity analysis, sales analysis, quote:order ratio’s etc.

The developers wanted to keep the system as simple to use as possible and a lot of consideration has gone into developing a record cards system that holds enough information to be useful as an opportunity management tool but not too much that the users spend more time completing records than selling.

When you select the Opportunity system from the address book, the Filter function is automatically invoked to call up only the opportunities for the current contact. The user is now only working with the relevant data sub-set for that contact. If no opportunities exist, a blank record will appear. Click the Edit Command button to set the record card in edit mode.

The user can set a reference code for the opportunity but it is not necessary as VendAbility has already created a unique reference for this opportunity. You can see it displayed in grey at the bottom right of the Opportunity Window.

Each opportunity has a number of products from the products and services you offer and that opportunity totals to a potential sale. The opportunity has a status: Budget, Open, Won, Lost or Cancelled - as far as VendAbility is concerned, there are no other status options.

There is also a Quoted Date, Order Date, Delivery Date and Chance of Success. By default, the system allocates an order date one month from the day the record is first created and a delivery date a further 4 weeks later. These can be amended by the user. The default chance of success is 50% and the standard forecast % is greater than 80%. So any opportunities where the user sets the Chance of Success % to more than 80% will be counted in the sales forecast. By default, the status of an opportunity is Budget and it has not been quoted.

Add Components

The first thing to do is add product components to the opportunity. Click the Add Component Button, situated above the right side of the grid.

You will be presented with the Component Window, select a component from the drop down list, when you tab out of the list the system will automatically fill in the pricing details and part code details from your products table. You can then enter the quantity of that component that the prospect may order. Allocate any discount in % amounts and then click Exit. The component will be added to the opportunity grid and the sale and tax totals calculated at the bottom of the card.

If you want to give a special price, or you are selling 3rd party items that you do not have a price for, then select the Manual Price command button to manually set the pricing for that component.

Continue adding components until all components of the opportunity are complete.

Now click the View Command Button to set the record card in View Mode.

You can very quickly build opportunity record cards in this manner.

Quote

When the customer needs a quotation, you can use the quotebuilder to auto generate the quote. Simply click the Quote command button and VendAbility will open Microsoft® Word, generate a quotation page and a products detail page, save the Word Document and append the quote document to the attached files in your opportunity record.

The quote document stays open in Word for you to print a hard copy for sending to the customer. After closing Word, you can use the Attach command in the Opportunity Power Command Panel to find and re-open the quote.

Profit

If you want to see how much Profit, Gross Profit and Mark-up is associated with the opportunity, just click the Profit command button. A window will open with details of the £ profit on the opportunity, the Gross Profit % and the Mark-up %. This is based on the costs allocated in the products table (often referred to as Standard Costs) or any manual costs input by the user for manual component pricing.

Limiting Factors

The Power Command buttons allow the user to add Limiting Factors (reasons why an opportunity may not convert to a sale) to any opportunity. There are no limits to the number of Limiting Factors that any one opportunity may have.

To add a limiting factor, the user selects the limiting factor from the drop down box at the bottom of the Limiting Factor Window and then clicks Add LF. To Delete a Limiting Factor, click on the factor in the list window and then click Delete.

This feature is a useful management tool when a business is looking for growth. The factory may not have enough production and the business may decide to make a special pricing offer. In this case, VendAbility can be used to determine what opportunities exist in the time frame required by the factory and which of those are price sensitive. This type of selective price management can ensure economy of scale in the manufacturing facility and ensure that the factory recovery offsets any price reduction offer made by sales.

Competition

The Compet’n Power Command Button works in the same way as Limiting Factors button. Opportunity competitors can be added and subtracted to a file associated with the opportunity. This information can then be used to gain information about competitors or target specific competitors with specific products. For example, you may wish to target a given competitor with a given product and make a comparison between the two products, train the sales team on the specific advantages of your product and then visit all the customers who have opportunities involving that product. This is a useful way of getting a focussed sales effort against an identified competitor where you have a product advantage.

Notes

The Notes Power Command button allows the user to keep specific notes about events associated with this particular opportunity. It is a free form Yellow Note Pad that has never ending capacity.

List

The list function provides the user with a list of all the opportunities associated with this contact. The user can click on any opportunity on the list and when the list is closed, with the Exit command button, the user is taken to that opportunity record card. This window demonstrates the total opportunity for any given contact.

Sales

Finally you have the Sales power command button, this provides a means of differentiating between opportunities that have been won, and are therefore Sales rather than potential orders, and potential orders. Clicking on this button will replace the opportunity cards with sales cards i.e. any opportunity that has a status of Won.

With a click of the sales button, you can see what opportunities have been converted to orders and get a quick insight into this customers propensity to purchase. The Sales command button changes to Opport’s, allowing the user to convert back to opportunities just as quickly as they did to sales.

Exit Opportunities

When the user is finished with the opportunity details for this contact, click on the Exit command button in the top right hand corner and they will be returned to the contact details in the Address Book.

eMail (VendMail)

VendAbility 7.0 has a powerful eMail facility. When you locate a customers record, you do not really want to re-key their eMail address so VendAbility allows the user to click on the eMail button in a contact record (located next to their eMail address) and a new window will open up allowing you to write an eMail. When you send the eMail, VendAbility will open your MAPI compliant eMail system and send the message. There is an enormous advantage in operating this way, all your eMails are in the one program, so you do not have to worry about which system was used for which message and you only need to set up one eMail system to your eMail accounts.

Any eMails created in VendAbility are automatically appended to the notes window of your contact, giving you full visibility of all eMail correspondence.

Website

If you have a users website address, in your contact record, you can access their site by clicking on the Website button. This facility works with Microsoft® Internet Explorer, opening the web browser and navigating to the contacts web site.

Diary Link

Link to your VendAbility Diary to set the Last Contact and contact Due Dates, just click on the Diary button against the appropriate field and your diary will open at the specified date. This is extremely useful when setting appointments as you have visibility of other appointments at your chosen time and your activity on days close to your desired date. VendAbility auto insets a FLEXI appointment on the date a contact has a Contact Due. This feature provides auto call planning for sales activity and ensures regular contact with a salesperson’s customer base.

 

Diary

The VendAbility Diary is a high-end activity management program integrated with the VendAbility Address Book. The diary does not expire at the end of a year and can therefore be used indefinitely. It has the appearance of a week-to-view organiser diary with a 3 Month view calendar to the right. Both Diary and Calendar are related with two-way links, so selecting a date on the calendar (by clicking on a day) will move the diary to that day. Similarly, clicking on the diary day will move the highlighted calendar day correspondingly.

Like most screens in VendAbilitty, the command panel runs along the top of the window, where users can navigate back and forward through the weeks of their diary using the Prev Week and Next Week buttons.

Clean-Up

Users can use the Clean-Up button to delete old tasks from their diary. This can be useful if you find you are building a database of trivia that you would like cleaned-up. Some users prefer to maintain all historical data for reference purposes and VendAbility is capable of maintaining historical data. The clean-up option allows two functions: Delete Records greater than 30 days old (this will permanently remove them from the system) and Set All Old Records to Complete. The second function is useful for the diary events that have been undertaken but the user has forgotten to go back and mark the event as complete. The event will appear in the Overdue’s Report on starting VendAbility and a quick and easy way of updating all past events as ‘complete’ is to use the clean-up function. It should be noted, however, that good time management practice will ensure that each event is individually marked as complete by the user.

Set-Date

The Set-Date function allows a user to select a date outside of the 3 month calendar window. By clicking on the Set-Date command button, the user is presented with a date field to enter. Input the date you would like to move to, click Exit and the diary will move directly to the chosen date. Remember that VendAbility uses full century years in it’s dates so do enter “14/09/2001” and not “14/09/01”. The later would be understood by VendAbility to be 14th September year 1 and not the correct 14th September Year 2001.

Today

If you have jumped to a date outwith the 3 Month Calendar View and want to get back to the current week (or even if you are not sure what day it is and you want to make sure) just click the Today button and the Diary will open at today’s date and the date will be highlighted in the calendar panel.

Print Week

Users can generate a hard copy of the activity they have in their diary for the week the Diary is open at. Sales people could print the following 2 weeks worth of activity and spend part of the current week making appointments for the coming weeks. The facility can be used in many ways to facilitate better time management and always ensures that a duplicate copy of the salespersons diary is available at the click of a button.

Add Events

Of course, it is nice to have VendAbility auto populate ‘calls due’ into a users diary but they will also want to input other events. The Add Events function allows this.

An event window will open when the Add Event command button is clicked. This form allows the user to set the date of the event, the start and end times (in 15 minute increments) the Event as it will appear in the Diary and then details of the event which can be later viewed by double clicking on the event listing in the diary.

VendAbility will not allow events to be entered when another event exists at that time and the user will have to select a non- conflicting appointment. The system will allow an event that ‘starts before an event and finishes after that event’ to be entered. This allows for someone attending Meeting ‘A’ but “jumping out” to Meeting ‘B’ that was arranged prior to Meeting ‘A’.

Events will be sorted on chronological order in your diary, irrespective of when you add the event.

Editing Events

Events can be edited by clicking once on the event in the diary, to select it, and then clicking twice to open it. The Diary Events window will open and the event can be edited. When an event has been completed, it should be set to complete by using the Complete Toggle button on the Event command panel. This button toggles between Completed and Not Completed. If the event is in the past and it has not been set to Completed then the event will appear in the VendAbility overdue report at start-up.

Auto Events

Only manually set events have an events window, if the event has been auto-set by VendAbility, it will not have a time against it, instead it will say FLEXI. These events can also be opened by first clicking once to select the event and then double clicking to open the Address Book at the corresponding contact. This address book mode is a limited function mode but does allow the user to view all details about the Contact. Advanced features, such as CallerID are not supported in this Address Book mode.

To change the date of an Auto Event, you select the event, double click to open the Address Book, then select the Diary function from the Address Book page corresponding to contact due and select a new date. The system will update your diary. Return to the contact record in the Address book and note the new Contact Due date, exit the Address Book and you will be back in your main diary pages with the changes made. In 3 mouse clicks, you have changed the Auto Event... simple.

Exit (Diary)

The Exit button on the Command panel will close the users diary and return the user to the main menu.

 

Reports

Reports navigation has been simplified in VendAbility 7.0. All reports are available from a drop down list and the user has various output options.

The command panel allows users to Run the report to a standard output form or export the report.

Reports can be run between defined dates and the user has the option of inputting a Start and End date for each report.

If the user wishes to Export the report, they have options available from a drop- down list.

Run Report

First, let us assume the user wishes to Run a report and view the results on the screen. First the user must select the report they wish from the drop-down list of Report Options. In the standard release of VendAbility, the list is quite extensive and covers most reports necessary for effective sales management. Custom Reports can be built as an optional extra, talk to your VendAbility Vendor if you need a custom report.

In this example we are selecting a Quote Bank report from the list of standard reports. This will give us any quotes we have raised where the order is expected to be placed between the start and end dates.

The report period defaults to the current month and we will leave it as the default. When we click the Run Report button in the command panel, a report window appears showing that we have only 1 opportunity in the quotebank for that period. The totals are calculated for all opportunities matching the criteria and displayed at the bottom of the report view.

The information is displayed in a window with it’s own command panel. This command panel allows the user to click on an item in the report and then jump to the Contact Record in the Address book by clicking the Cust Detail button.

Report Summary

If the user clicks on the Summary command button, they will get a summary of the report they requested. This summary will give weighted statistics based on the probability of success entered by the user on the opportunity record.

This is particularly useful for judging estimated orders in a future period when the system is being operated by a large number of users.

The summary report has a header which explains which report it is summarising gives Total Sale, Total Cost and Total Profit numbers followed by their weighted equivalent. At the bottom, the total number of opportunities included in the summary is displayed.

Export Report

If a user wished to export a report, they must first select the type of export they would like. The three standard VendAbility export types are CSV (comma separated values), Colon Delimited and MS-Excel 8.0. Your system may have additional custom export types if they were purchased as optional extras. The user selects the export type from the drop-down list in the main reports window. Select a report and set the dates as in the Run Report function detailed above. Then click on the Export command button to send the report to the requested format. If the user selects MS-Excel, their Excel program will open, the details will be populated into a worksheet and saved, Excel will close and a User Information box will advise the name and location of the file.

The CSV and Colon Delimited files will generate automatically and a User Information box will advise the name and location of the file. Each file is given a unique name but this can be changed by the user using Windows Explorer.

 

Managing Your Data

So far, we have seen how to create data records, navigate through our data and run reports from the data. Now we must discover how to manage the data effectively. Managing the data includes sharing data with others, synchronising the data, archiving and backing-up.

 

Synchronise

If you are working in a Multiple User environment then synchronising the data is one of the most important elements of managing VendAbility. You will be part of a team and will want to share information with other members of the team. This may be a hierarchical team or a flat structure, VendAbility works with either. When you have decided who is in which team, you must open your default mail program (probably Outlook) and create a Distribution List in your address book. This is easy to do and is covered in your Mail program documentation. Call the distribution list ‘VendAbility Team’ and include all the members of your team in the list. When you synchronise, VendAbility sends data to all members of the distribution group VendAbility Team.

From the main menu click Synchronise and the Sync system window will open. The Command options are Generate and Import.

Generate

If you are generating a data file to send to other members of your team you will click the Generate command button. First select the type of Sync you want to generate. The default is update, which creates a data file of any changes since you last synchronised out. The other option is a full data sync which generates a complete data file with all your information. Select the type you would like and click Generate. VendAbility will analyse your system and then create the files necessary to send to your Team. The files will be compressed with a ZIP utility into a single file called V7update.Zip and then VendAbility will open your eMail package, create an email, attach the file it just generated and send the eMail to your outbox. The eMail will be addressed to all the members of your Team. If your eMail system is permanently connected, the eMail will automatically be sent but if you operate on a dial-up, the email will not be sent until you attach to your mail server and send mail from your outbox.

This is a quick, painless and efficient means of transmitting data from one user to another. If you set-up your mail system to auto-dial and send during cheap-rate phone timings you will also save money.

Import

If you are receiving data you will use the Import button. You will have received a file attachment called V7update.zip from one of your team members. You must first drag-and- drop the attachment on your Windows Desktop or use the Save Attachments function of your eMail system to save the file to the folder C:\Windows\Desktop (make sure you do not change the name of the file or put it in the wrong place., VendAbility can only import the data if it is in the exact format of the attachment and is residing in the C:\Windows\Desktop folder.

When you can see the file on your desktop, go to VendAbility and the Synchronise option, click on Import and the system will do the rest. The file will be opened, expanded using a ZIP decompression utility, the files will be imported into your VendAbility data system and then VendAbility will clean up your computer by deleting any files used in the process. The file you placed on the desktop will be gone and all the data will be in your system. If you received several update files from several users, repeat the process for each one.

Synchronisation is generally fast but users should remember that the program is doing many checks to ensure you have only the latest data on your system. It is a complex routine to import data and it can take a few minutes. Please be patient, the system will import approx 5,000 records per minute on a P300 computer with 64Mb RAM.

That is all there is to importing data from your team members.

Backup

The VendAbility Backup Utility works very similar to the Synchronise facility except it does not mail the file to anyone. It creates a compressed backup file on your desktop which can be stored on your hard drive, another hard drive, floppy disk or Compact Disc. We recommend that you make regular backups of your data.

When you need to restore your backup files, place them on your desktop (see the Import function of synchronise) and click the Restore command button.

Archive

The archive function can be used to take old data out of the system and hold it in an archive file on Disk or Compact Disk. If you have been using the system for several years, you may only wish to keep the last 5 years live and archive all data prior to that. VendAbility allows you to archive data into compressed archive files and restore them at a later date.

Once again, the system works in a very similar way to back-up or synchronise.

It is not an error that the data management utilities run in a very similar manner. Maintaining a common format for data management reduces the opportunity for error and helps users learn how to use the software much faster. The developers of VendAbility have worked hard at ensuring the system is easy to use and fast to learn, the goal from the outset was to create a simple, efficient and fast data management tool that allows sales people the freedom to sell.

 

System Users

Because VendAbility is a Multiple User application, we have incorporated the ability for many users to be added to any one system. In most instances, only the license holder will operate their VendAbility package but in some cases, especially in hierarchical team structures, many users data may be on a single persons package and they may, temporarily, wish to grant access to another user. If your structure requires multiple user access you need to build your users table.

Remember, it is a crime to use software that is not licensed and each user of VendAbility must own a license for the software. If you are unsure about your license rights, please contact abASE for clarification, you can eMail them on sales@vendability.co.uk or contact them at the telephone numbers on the back cover of this manual.

Click on the System Users button in the main menu. The System Users window will appear. The command panel includes navigation buttons to move first, back, forward and last.

The Add User button creates a new user in the system, Delete User removes a user and Change password sets the password for users. The defaults when creating a new user are:

UserID = newuser

User name = New

User Password = pass

UserID and Password details are case sensitive.

The system users window is a live window, any changes made to the User Name or UserID will be made in the user table. Please ensure details are correct before exiting.

 

Help

The VendAbility Help system is designed to provide users with basic guidance through the system. Every effort has been made to develop a software interface that is so user friendly that help is unnecessary but we recognise that there may be some elements of the software that have confusing terminology or are difficult for novice computer users to understand, we have therefore incorporated an index based help system into the software.

Help Builder

Some companies may have a specific way that they would like VendAbility to be used. They may wish to establish certain standards for data input such as a probability of value x% will be classed as forecast or there may be guidelines for establishing the success change. Another user group may wish to establish a discount structure and document that in the help system. These guidelines can be incorporated in the help system through the use of Help builder. Help builder is a powerful feature that comes as standard in VendAbility 7.0.

Clicking on help builder brings up the Help Builder window. This window has three command buttons and two input fields.

Add Help

Users add a help topic by clicking the Add Help Topic command button, this creates a blank record in the help system database. Now type the topic in the topic box and then the text in the text box. Please note that VendAbility converts the text you input to a format recognisable by the database. The character “ (double quotes) is very confusing to the database and makes it think that your text has ended so you MUST only use a single quote character in your text data.

When you have completed your help topic and text, Exit with the Exit Command Button.

Clear Help Builder

After you have built a help screen and returned to add a new screen, the help details may be in memory, you can clear the memory data by clicking Clear Help Builder. You will then be ready to add another help screen.

 

Reference

VendAbility 7.0 Manual

Published by abASE

14 Addison Gardens, Douglas, Lanark ML11 0PW

Tel: 01555 850 036 Fax: 01555 851 943 eMail: sales@vendability.co.uk

Copyright © abASE 2001. All Rights Reserved.

It is an offence to copy any, or all, of this manual without the written permission of the copyright holder.