CommenceRM 3.0 - New Features Make Commence Even Easier To Use

Multi-View Filtering Toolbar

Our customers tell us that one of the reasons they love Commence, is because of the ability to filter down to any criteria in any field. This provides tremendous flexibility in analysing customer information, or finding a particular contact. But they also told us while this was great for the advanced user, for the more novice user, a simpler interface would be better. 

So Commence have developed a "filter toolbar" which can be enabled at the top of a multi-view window. 

The Filtering Toolbar means you can configure all your most commonly used views on the Toolbar, right there, in the window where you are working. There is no need to move across to the View Bar or go to the Views menu.

In addition to defining a number of views on the Toolbar, you can also provide some filtering parameters. From the toolbar, you can filter on one or more of the following (or a combination):

• Selected Item
• Alpha numeric text contained in any pre-defined field
• Before or after a selected date
• Within a Selected date range.

For example, consider when a contact calls you. You know you can easily see if you have spoken to them before, by just typing their name. There is no record matched; yet you know you have dealt with the company previously, but with a different contact name. You could start putting in various other contact names or you could go to the company view and lookup the company, to find out what is the company name --- but in Commence RM 3.0, all you need to do is type in the company name in the MultiView Filter toolbar, and all the contacts at that company will be displayed.

We have typed "advanced" into the filtering toolbar, and Commence now only display the companies that have "advanced" in their company name - simple, intuitive and fast.

You can also use the same technique in various creative ways. Set up a filter on the suburb, and you can quickly locate all the contacts in any particular suburb. You can even filter on the phone number - then you can just type the phone number into the filtering toolbar, and Commence will show you which contact has that number.

Another common application of the Toolbar is in quickly viewing groups or contacts by keywords. Most contact categories in Commence will be set up to allow one or more keywords to be added to the contact. Now the list by contact is easily accessed by the "Contacts by Group" option on the toolbar.

Here we are viewing just the contacts that have enquired about a particular product, in this case Windows XP.

Detail Forms

Over the years many new features have been introduced to Detail Forms. The VBscripting gave developers tremendous power to perform data checking on the fly, as data is being entered. Then with the introduction of the api, entry of data was further automated with a means to lookup existing tables - for example to check for duplicates as data is being entered.

With CommenceRM 3.0, Detail Forms take a leap forward in providing a user friendly interface. Now you can add labels and group fields together with drawing objects, like lines and rectangles, as well as inserting graphics.

Studies have shown that users more quickly identify with a picture, than for a textual description or title. In the RM 3.0 detail forms, we can now have pictures to help users quickly determine they are in the right part of the application.

Frames can now be added to group fields, as in the "Address Details" above. In this example, the user has hovered the cursor over the Suburb field (perhaps unsure what to enter there). The tool tip text "Type in the Suburb, then <tab> for automatic lookup of the postcode" will automatically appear to prompt the user for the proper input.

Finally, it may be useful to provide instructions or explanation in detail forms. Any text can now be added, as in this example regarding entry of Country for overseas addresses.

Technical note: Just as you have always been able to access the data in fields, you can access the settings (properties) for any of these new features through VBscripting. This gives developers unparalleled flexibility to create applications to suit individual business processes - and provide a true easy to use interface.

There are also enhancements in the connection control in detail forms. You can now add multiple fields to the connection control - which conveys more information to the user.

In this example, for the "Affiliated with Contact" connection, we have added the company name and suburb.

Calendar View

The Calendar View now allows you to see a several days at a time, from the day view.

To view multiple days, just drag across the days in the mini-month on the right. Then Commence will display a view by day, for the selected days. This view makes it easy to see appointments through out the day, plus you can have multiple overlapping activities display. To edit an item, just click in the view and start typing - you don't have to bring up the detail form.

If you would like more information on the other new features in Commence RM3.0, visit our web site, http://www.aus.com.au/commence/newfeatures.html

You can download an evaluation of v3.0 from our web site, http://www.aus.com.au/crm. 

All customers who are on the Commence Maintenance program, have already received their upgrades to Commence RM3.0.  By being part of the maintenance program, they are able to immediately take advantage of and benefit from these new features.

For more information, complete our information request page and we will contact you or alternatively you can call us on 02 9878 4777.