This is the first of several blog posts we’ll be making about the new Email Template section of TravelManger. After several weeks of development and planning we rolled out the new email template feature of TravelManager in last weeks rollout.

All emails sent via TravelManager either automated / user driven are now customizable. So everything from the quotation widget acknowledgement email sent to a customer that submits an online quote to the customer feedback email are editable.

Email Template Navigation

In this 1^st post I’ll explain quickly how to find and edit the email templates. Navigate to MyAccount -> Admin -> Email Templates. From here you will be able to see some default templates we’ve created to based on customer feedback.

Here’s a quick video explaining how to edit your email templates:

**Tip: Expand the video to full screen by clicking on the Monitor icon at the bottom right of the video

More posts to follow tomorrow and over the next few days.

Regards,

Eamonn

Some of the development team are attending DevDays today in Dublin. It’s an annual event help in Belfast and Dublin for developers working with mobile technologies. We met a lot of interesting developers last year so looking forward to more of the same today.

DevDays Dublin

**Expect a video from the event later today.

Regards,

Eamonn

If anyone is interested in helping translate the TravelManager into the following languages then please contact us as soon as possible. We are looking to start the translation process from the 1st June.

• French
• German
• Spanish
• Italian
• Polish
• Lithuanian
• Portuguese
• Swedish
• Danish
• Dutch
• Romanian
• Turkish
• Mandarin Chinese
• Bengali
• Hindi / Urdu
• Arabic
• Russian
• Japanese

Many Thanks

Today we started the work required to translate the entire travelmanager application into multiple languages.

The process is as follows:

1. “Tag” all screens within the application in English
2. Enter those “Tags” into the translations engine
3. Provide End User accounts to the translation engine for those users interested in assisting in the translation process
4. End Users map the English “Tags” into their language (over 50 to choose from)
5. Once all “Tags” have been mapped into a language create the translated dictionary file
6. Roll translation dictionary to beta and test
7. Roll translation dictionary to live.

This has taken some months to get to this position with a considerable amount of work occurring in the background.  We now have all the systems in place to make it happen and are started at 1. above.

regards

TravelManager Support

In the latest rollout we’ve added an upload facility to attach files to Charter / Private Hire Quotes / Booking. This facility allows for TravelManager users to attach documents that a client or subcontractor may have provided.

File Upload Facility in TravelManager Quotations

File Upload Facility in TravelManager (part 2)

The email templates section has also been updated with the addition of some new Merge Fields such as “Customer Company/Group Name” and “System Generated Reference”. The layout of the fields have also been improved by grouping them into Customer, Quote and User/Company details. We hope this makes it easier to create your dynamic email templates.

New Layout for Email Templates in TravelManager

Finally, the HTML email template has now been moved ahead of the plain text template. The HTML email template is the default template and the plain text template is only displayed if the customer opts to view plain text rather than HTML.

Regards,

Eamonn

As part of the ongoing improvement of TravelManager we’re always interested to hear from users on how they find the latest changes. So to make things easier here’s a few recent updates we’ve love to get feedback on.

1. Mandatory Fields on the Quotation Widget (screenshot below)
2. Ability to edit the vehicle types requested by a customer
3. Upload facility to attach files to quotes
4. General feedback on the email templates

We’ve already had some great comments and changes are already in development for this Saturday’s rollout.

Mandatory Fields on the Quotation Widget

Regards,
Eamonn

As promised in last weeks blog post we’ve rolled out Email Templates this week so you can now create a range of emails to handle regular scenarios during the charter process. You have the full flexibility to have different templates for every step of the process from sending a quote, to confirmations and payment acknowledgement emails and more…

You’ll find the setup under MyAccount -> Admin -> Email Templates and to send this emails just click on the new button in Quotes.

TravelManager New Email Button

Some of the advance features include:

• Send both plain text and HTML emails
  

  Send HTML and Plain Text Emails from TravelManager

• Automatically have attachments to your email templates
  

  Automatically Attach Documents to Email Templates

• Preview your emails before sending
  

  Preview with Image and Attachment

Emails are stored in Notes

TravelManager Emails are copied to Notes

We’ve more updates to follow next week to automatically trigger Status changes based on the email templates you use but more to follow on that early next week

*I’m running Webinars this week for any TravelManager user that wishes to get some training on this new feature. Email info@gotravelmanager.com for more information.

Regards,

Eamonn

**To keep up to date with the latest news and feature updates you should subscribe to our RSS feed and follow our going effort to make TravelManager the best software solution for the Bus,  Motorcoach & Chauffeur industry.

Thought I’d share a nice article from Phil Tonks of Bus Users UK www.bususers.org about his experience of using the Dublin Coach iPhone app powered by TravelManager Developers.

Phil Tonks from Bus Users UK was really impressed with the robustness and quality of the Real-Time Passenger Information provided via the iPhone App:

“I tried to find holes in the system; I’ve used technology before in several different guises and if often let me down…. But TravelManager proved faultless as I nearly flattened the battery on the phone trying to see if us bus users could actually depend on this technology…” – Phil Tonks

Bus Users UK Article – Dublin Coach

He goes on to say that with this technology takes away the unpredictability of a bus service and one of greatess arguments for not using a bus.

**This is something we find time and time again with our customers once the passengers are informed they can make decisions that reduce their waiting time at stops and this encourages an uptake in usage of bus services.

Regards,

Eamonn

Knowing your customer segments is an obvious one for Business Intelligence and every business has slightly different customers and segmentations depending on your location and operation size. So in this latest update to TravelManager we’ve add the facility to customize your list of customer types.

Segment your Customers with TravelManager

(You can find this new feature in Account Information under MyAccount).

Understanding your segments will help with online marketing as well to identify opportunities for targeted marketing in new media like Social Media and niche websites. We see some really nice reporting to follow this update later in year to help extract even more information basis on segment buying patterns, travel patterns and more..

Why focus on the mass market when niches can provide more loyal and profitable customers? Do you really know your customers?

If your answer is No or not really….. then you should be using TravelManager

Regards,

Eamonn

We’re fortune enough to work with a diverse group of Bus and Coach companies ranging from 1 vehicle businesses to 1,000+ vehicle business. Not only do we work with different size of operations our TravelManager users are geographically spread from areas as far as Australia to Iceland as well from Asia to North America so we really get a global perspective on the industry.

A key area for all customers is how then can become more efficient in managing the large amount of administration that occurs during the booking of a Bus or Coach. The client communication such as emails, phone calls, quotations, confirmations, contracts etc are all time consuming and critical in converting leads and providing good customer service.

So over the last few weeks we’ve been documenting all the feedback and building a really strong process to implement in TravelManager factoring all the different states of a quote from “New” right until Invoicing and Payment.

I think we have it cracked by giving our users the facility to track the status of every Charter/Private Hire and an email template engine to create multiple emails for every step of the booking process.

**Here’s a couple of screenshots for some of new features rolling next week.

Email Template Engine adding default File attachments and Labels

*This feature allows users to create multiple email templates with the ability to label, associate with a “Status” of a quote and select files that will be attached by default e.g Terms & Conditions PDF or a Company Overview PDF etc

Create your own HTML Email Templates

*This new feature gives you the ability to create you’re own email templates so you can send nicely designed / styled emails with your logos and branding. Really helps your correspondence stand out from your competitors.

Regards,

Eamonn

We’re testing some of the new features at the moment on the Beta server and if we’re happy with the results I think we’ll push out an early rollout next Tuesday rather than wait until the usual Saturday update!!!