Setting up Touch Points in My Fundraising Place

Scope of document: This document will provide a user an understanding of how Touch Point were designed to work in My Fundraising Place, and how to configure them for normal use in the fundraising sales process. This document does NOT help a user design touchpoint documents.

Objective of Touch Points: To help a dealership provide a high level of service to their customers, without creating an administrative burden during the busiest times of the fundraising sales cycle.

What exactly are Touch Points and how do they impact a dealership? My Fundraising Place Touch Points are a series of automated workflows that pull information together for transmittal (via email) to a customer. Most are fully automatic (see definitions below) and some are manually initiated. My Fundraising Place is configured to only send automatic Touch Point emails from 8 AM to 5 PM. The goal is to pretend that the emails are being sent from a real person during normal working hours.

Most of the work to utilize Touch Points is in planning and setting up the Touch Point process for each fundraising program in My Fundraising Place. This work is typically completed in the off season when a dealership plans their communication strategy for the upcoming fundraising season.

Before this document discusses how to setup Touch Points for use in My Fundraising Place, we will provide a little more background information on Touch Points and how they work.

Definitions / Terms:

• Workflow – a computer service that uses logic to analyze My Fundraising Place data to determine when to take an action that is defined by a touchpoint.
• Manual touchpoint – a workflow item that is initiated by a manual push of a button by a user. When a user initiates a manual touchpoint, the logic is reviewed and if the logic is satisfied, the touchpoint will execute.
  • Because a user is initiating the event, there is no risk of the workflow being automatically ran multiple times.
• Automatic touchpoint – a workflow item that is monitoring the software for the right conditions to execute an event (such as send an email when a date is satisfied)
  • Automatic Touch Points are sent from a workflow engine installed in the SQL Azure environment so that emails and workflow events can be sent if all client computers are off when the conditions are satisfied, and to prevent multiple clients from trying to send the same workflow at the same time.
  • Automatic Touch Points are configured by a dealer to send “XX” days before a triggering event. These triggering events are defined on the Touch Point setup page located on a program.
• Touch Point enable / disable – this is an option that allows a user to select if a touchpoint item will be included in a manual or automatic touchpoint event.
• Merge fields – a data tag that is inserted into a MS WORD® document that is designed to accept data from a computer process automatically
• Template for Touch Points – an MS WORD® document that has a pre-configured message written (including pictures, formatted text) that contains merge fields. The contents of the MS WORD® template ultimately will be merged into an MS Outlook® email for delivery to customer

After creating templates for use in My Fundraising Place (refer to other training resources for help on creating templates using merge fields), there is a simple 3 step process for configuring a program to use your templates. The 3 steps are:

Figure 1 – 3 Step Process for Configuring My Fundraising Place to use the automated Touch Point process

What are the available Touch Points in My Fundraising Place? This question is best answered using table 1 below. Each Touch Point (TP) is named in the first column, and the table is grouped by the fundraiser stage that the TP is expected to be executed. Any of the individual TP steps can be manually “resent” by clicking the icon. This icon with pop open a MS Outlook message with the TP content included for the user. If a TP item was sent automatically, the last column will display the date and time it was sent. In addition, any of the TP steps can be printed from MS WORD® by clicking on the icon found on each TP step on a fundraiser.

The highlighted numbers in table 1 are settings that are defined on each program. The midpoint date is a date that is calculated from the fundraiser start date and the fundraiser Return Order date.

Table 1 – List of Touch Point steps in My Fundraising Place

Following is a description of each Touchpoint email

Fundraiser “Booked” Status Emails:

1 – Fundraiser Booked Confirmation Email: This TP is designed to be sent after collecting all the relevant dates and information about a fundraiser. It collects the important information about the fundraiser service cycle into a template that the dealer manually sends to the primary contact to let them verify what the dealership has committed to help their group with to raise the funds they need. Typically, key dates are verified in this email. This email also can have various resources attached that are relevant to the fundraiser service cycle (See attachments 1 through 5).

• Attachment 1 – Letter to parents – this letter is a MS WORD® document that is a dynamically built letter the group leader can use to print a letter for the parents of the kids.
• Attachment 2 – Called the “fundraiser sales toolkit” – it really is just a file that a dealer can upload (PDF, or other format) that is attached to the Touchpoint 1 email. Some possible uses include a copy of the “book of motivation” or other resources for new groups. Many dealers may configure this step with a resource but not include it by default (by unchecking the “enable” button on the program TP setup page). Then the dealer can choose to include it on just 1 fundraiser by enabling the TP on the fundraiser so that it will pull this resource in.
• Attachment 3 – The custom flier that is selected and customized for this fundraiser
• Attachment 4 – the order tabulator – the excel order tabulator that is setup for the program

2 – Reminder Fundraiser Start Email: This TP is a message to remind the group that their fundraiser start date is approaching and is a good chance to verify that they have everything they need (they got their forms, etc.) so that the fundraiser schedule is not affected.

3 – Reminder Fundraiser Kick-off email: This TP is an email that is sent out prior to a kick off activity reminding the group that a kickoff is planned. Typical data that can be used in the TP includes the date / time and the address.

Fundraiser “Running” Status Emails:

4 – Midpoint Check-in Email: This automated email is an automated email that just reminds them that they should be half way done with their fundraiser. It is a good time to encourage the group leader to check-in with their sellers and ask for updates as to who is achieving their goals. The midpoint date is a date that is calculated from the fundraiser start date and the fundraiser Return Order date.

5 – Reminder Order Email: This automated email is user configurable on a program to be sent out XX days prior to the call in order date.

• Attachment 5 – Order Tabulator Resend: This touchpoint is a good place where the order tabulator resend attachment is best used with a program. It allows the order tabulator to be attached a 2^nd time with a selected Touchpoint email (recommended is #5). Some dealers like to send it a 2^nd time so that the group leader doesn’t need to look for the order tabulator in the email (or they may have deleted it).

Fundraiser “Ordered” Status Emails:

6 – Order Confirmation Email: This email is a manually initiated email that is sent when the dealer wishes to send the invoice to the customer. Information that can be merged into this email includes a profit summary, participation statistics, and delivery information (date, time, address).

7 – Delivery Confirmation Email: This email is an automated email that is sent XX days prior to the delivery date. Information that is typically used for this email includes the total number of items, total profit, delivery details (address/date/arrival time) and also the time that the product is to be picked up by parents.

Fundraiser “Delivered” Status Emails:

8 – After Delivery Email: This email is an automated email that is sent XX days AFTER the delivery date. This is the email step that thanks them for their business and is a good place to include a survey link along with a thank you.

Fundraiser “Paid” Status Emails:

9 – Thank You Email: This is an automated email that will be sent when a fundraiser is marked as paid (which occurs when all invoices associated with it are marked as paid). Some dealers will choose to use this automated email step to send a survey link along with their thank you, and others will not use this as a thank you (because they prefer to use a written thank you note) and they may just use it to encourage the customer to sign up for next year and ask them to take a survey about their opinion of the fundraiser.

10 – Follow-up Email: This is an automated email that will be sent XX days after a fundraiser is marked as paid. This a good email to ask them for a good time to setup their next fundraiser (if they do not have one already signed up).

Detailed Touch Point Setup instructions: Following are the detailed steps to setting up touchpoint emails. These instructions do not include how to design or edit the templates, just the process used to configure all Touch Points.

1. Upload templates to the template library. While uploading, you need to identify what type of template you are putting into the library.
   • Click “+” near top of list to add a new template
     
   • Give the template a name that will make it easy to select from a list when you add the template to a program. Then select the file type so My Fundraising Place knows what data to push to the template when it is being utilized
     
   • Set the file status to active so it will show up in the template library and make it available for the programs. Also give the file a description to help you choose between the different versions of this document.
   • Select the file from a location on your computer.
     
   • Close the form. Repeat the above steps until you have all the templates in your library you wish to use.
2. The next step is to attach the templates to a program.
   • Open an existing program and select the Touch Point page. In this example we are going to select the lookup icon located in the TP Item 1 to attach an email template to it.
     
   • Once attached, the user can click the preview button to look at the template file (without data) and click on the button to set the default (enable/disabled) for this TP item. If there is no check mark in the box, the TP is not enabled by default and would look like this
   • Repeat these steps for each Touch Point until the program is configured.
3. The next step is to configure the custom flier templates that will be available to the program. To attach these templates, you will need to navigate to the “flier” page on the program.
   • Click on the (look up button) in the flier template area and add the appropriate flier template(s) to this program. You can have multiple flier templates associated with the program. It is important that you have all available templates on this view that you expect to use during the fundraiser sales process so that you can quickly choose an alternate flier layout while working with a customer fundraiser basis.
     
     
   • The 3 note fields that are provided on a program give you 3 custom fields that will merge to a flier template. These fields can have a program level default, but also be customized on the fundraiser flier page on a fundraiser by editing the fields show below (the proper use of this page is discussed in other training documents
     
4. The last step is testing the document to see if the template displays data as expected. To test, choose a test group, or create a test group with your own email address as the contact’s email address so you can test the entire process if you would like. Create a fundraiser with this group and start working it through the process. You can use the “resend” function on a fundraiser’s Touch Point step to see what the test emails would look like. This will pop up in a MS Outlook window with the merged data and files (if applicable).

How to use the enable / disable options on a Touch Point:

To explain how a dealer would use the enable / disable settings, let us consider A Item #1 (the letter to the parents). Some dealers would not want to include this on every fundraiser, so they would configure the program to have a template in #1, but they would “Uncheck” the enable button on the program as shown below. You can see there is a template titled “Parent Letter Test” and it is disabled by default.

If the user is on fundraiser and wishes to enable the parent letter, they would just need to click the enable box on the A Item #1 [shown below on the fundraiser’s Touch Point page] prior to sending the TP Item #1 confirmation. If they check that box, when the TP Item #1 Touch Point triggers (in this case manually) the parent letter will be attached to the Fundraiser booked confirmation email Touch Point.

Other Touchpoint Best Practices:

Email Account Configuration: There are 2 typical ways that dealerships will configure their automated emails depending upon their staffing and support model. All dealerships typically start with Method #1 while they are an owner/operator, but then as they grow and have additional resources (multiple salespeople, office administrative help, etc.), they sometimes may migrate to Method #2. Method #1 and Method #2 are explained after a short description of how My Fundraising Place sends automated emails.

My Fundraising Place is configured to send the automated workflow emails from the fundraiser’s owning user. The email account that is used is the email credentials that are found on the settings tab of a user’s card (shown below).

The REPLY ADDRESS of the automated email will be the primary email address of this user. A workflow email could be sent from one account and have a reply address of another account.

Method #1: The email comes from the owning user (typically the sales person) and the reply address is the same email address. In this scenario, users have their own email account credentials entered into the email settings on their user card, and their own email address is configured as their primary email address.

Method #2: The email settings on the owning user’s card is set to a generic company email address (such as info@dealership.com) that is reviewed by an office worker. The reply to can either be to the salesperson’s real address, or the reply to could be directed to the same info@dealership.com by setting the user’s primary email address to be this email address.

Monitoring Automated Emails: For automated emails to go out, there are a few requirements. These include:

• The owning user of a fundraiser must have an exchange email account setup and enter those credentials on the email settings tab of a user.
• The Owning user of a fundraiser must have a primary email address
• The fundraiser needs to have a primary contact
• The primary contact on a fundraiser must have a valid email address
• The global workflow email setting found in the dealer setting page must be enabled (see picture below)

The Touchpoint Successes screen shows how many automated emails were sent during each week.

If you want to view an exact copy of the email that was sent, you can look in the sent items of your MS Outlook® email account that corresponds to the owning user’s email settings.