2009 February :: Travel Manager

February 21, 2009 – 8:55 am

This morning we rolled out a number of improvements to the software. These include:

Phase 1 of the customer centre, so quotes from email addresses already known to the software platform are all associated with the same customer.

eg.

If julie@abc-company.com creates a quote on the 1st of February and she creates another quote anytime in the future using the same email address then both of these quotes will be attributed to the same customer in TravelManager.

This will allow you to generate additional reporting on your customer base. For example. How much is Julie worth to me over the past X months / years or how many times has Julie booked with me this year and what was the average $ value of each booking?

In the near future you will be able to choose if you want to give Julie log in access to a specific customer centre so she can create quotes, accept prices, print off invoices etc… without having to contact you. Again – this is an optional feature and you get to choose if you want to provide any or all of your customers this feature.

We have also made some cosmetic improvements to the North American quotation widget with feedback from users.

We also closed down 17 feedback requests from the community this week – we have 27 open feedback items which we plan to lock down within the next 2 weeks – so keep the feedback coming

Regards

Dean

February 16, 2009 – 9:38 am

After 3 days of heavy technical workshops on the future direction of the TravelManager platform we needed the weekend to recover

A lot of discussions took place focusing on the following 3 areas:

Mobility Applications including iPhone & Android platforms to enhance the 24/7 access to information whilst on the move
API’s to allow for extensions by 3rd party providers
Web Services to enhance the TravelManager platform with richer data / information

The iTM 2009 develoment conference was always intented to focus on technical rather than business issues – and as such we created some actual code which can be part of future functionality in the very near future. For example – we have our very first iPhone Application in Alpha testing right now

We are looking for a number of early adopters who would like to beta test the iPhone applications over the next couple of months – if your interested let us know and we will get your iPhone onto our beta platform. The first applications will be fairly primitive – but we expect to have access to all of the core information you require within the next 2-3 months Especially now we have invested in a range of new Apple equipment

We also have the draft specification for the “quotations within a radius” solution written up and we are now in full development of that piece of functionality.

We have an employment widget and a customer members centre designed.

We have other exciting news – we have expanded our premises in Sheffield, UK and recruit additional development resources focusing on mobile applications

Watch this space for a glimpse of these new developments and maybe even some photos from the iTM 2009 conference soon

We will have another development conference in 6 months time – we will open this one up to more people – so if you are interested then email info@gotravelmanager.com and we will put you on the mailing list.

Regards

Dean

February 14, 2009 – 7:16 am

We rolled out the following functionality this morning:-

[1] Log a call button on the main quote details screen ( this is the 1st phase in a full click to call process )

[2] Added “Location Name” to quotation widget (eg. Empire State Building)

[3] Changed passenger number on online quotation widget to accept a range of passengers (eg. 11-13)

[4] Implemented first iPhone API for iPhone applications which are currently in development

Regards

Dean

February 12, 2009 – 10:20 pm

While the techies are enjoying themselves this week at iTM 2009, developer conference it’s good to remind our users what TravelManager is all about, YOU the end user!

It’s a lot more than just a fancy looking software system with a “Dashboard” it’s actually something that can make you day-to-day life easier as Motor Coach Operator. By providing some easy to user tools “Widgets” for handling quotations via your website or over the phone TravelManager can save you time, make you look good to your customers and also give you a better understanding of how you’re performing.

The additional benefits include that we take your ideas and feedback to improve TravelManager with our weekly updates means that you’re more in control of how things should work. Better still you’re getting all those great ideas from other users, sometimes things you’d have never thought of. It’s amazing how much we’ve learned from our users feedback.

Remember YOU will probably come up with better ideas than the TECHIES so make sure you click on “Feedback” when your using TravelManager…

Regards,

Eamonn

February 10, 2009 – 7:25 am

Tomorrow sees the start of the first annual International TravelManager (iTM 2009) developer conference in Sheffield, UK.

We will see developers from many different countries (UK, Ireland, Netherlands, India, China, & North America) come together (both physically and via video uplinks) to discuss some of the exciting technical developments occuring right now and how they may be best implemented into the TravelManager platform for the benefit of our customers.

High on the agenda of iTM 2009 is API extensions using Open Standards, iPhone / Android development, next generation video platforms & GPS systems.

More information to follow soon….

Regards

Dean

February 9, 2009 – 9:56 pm

Today, we have purchased a whole suite of Apple Mac equipment for the office and signed up to Apples iPhone Developer program in anticipation of getting our first iPhone native application for TravelManager out of the door within the next couple of months.

Let us know what features and functionality you are looking for. We are currently thinking along the lines of;-

New Quotes & Quick Respond
Customer Feedback & Quick Respond
Website click through analysis
Industry RSS Newsfeeder
Profile updater
Garage Defect Sheet / Vehicle Check Sheet
What else?

Regards

Dean

February 7, 2009 – 8:45 am

This morning we rolled out the following functionality:

[1] IMG / GPN Member Profiles. This can be found under the MyAccount -> Profile Builder section.

[2] Customisable vehicle types for the quotation widget. You can now add your own vehicle types under the “Charter Settings” screen and these vehicles show up in your quotations widget as options for users to choose.

[3] Documents created as PDF files now have a more obvious naming convention . The file name is the quote or invoice number. eg. Quote 324 will create a PDF file Q000324.pdf etc.

Regards

Dean

February 2, 2009 – 4:53 pm

We have rolled out some new functionality this morning.

[1] You can now alter the services which you offer under the Additional Fields section of the online quotations widget. Simply go to “MyAccount” -> “Admin” -> “Charter Settings” and then click on “Add Service”

[2] We have also implemented the upgrade facility for those users using TravelManager Lite to the full product with payments taken via paypal in real time.

Keep the feedback coming

Regards

Dean

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