Reasons to Schedule Recurring Events

Recurring events (or event series) can be a valuable tool for marketers. This article highlights some of the reasons that you should consider creating recurring events to manage activities with your accounts and contacts.

Less Time Creating Events

For users that don't schedule recurring events, a large part of their time in PlayMaker is spent creating events to record the notes for their activities. Many of these events are with referral sources that are called upon on a frequent basis (i.e. weekly, bi-weekly, etc.). A recurring event series takes about the same amount of time to schedule as a single event. If 75% of your events are recurring events, that's 75% less time creating events, allowing you to focus on adding notes and moving on to the next event.

Prioritizing Accounts

Placing recurring events on your calendar for a high-touch referral source will ensure that the referral source stays on your radar. If a facility needs to be seen two or three times per week, a recurring event can be setup to match that frequency, ensuring that it doesn't fall off your radar as other calls and tasks come up. This keeps your priority accounts visible, and ensures that you keep them in mind as you plan your day or week.

Consistent Presence

Using an event series to schedule your time at an office or facility can help create a regular pattern in which your referral sources will know that that you will be making yourself available. Often, there are best times of the day, or days of the week, to catch your referral sources at a time when you can talk to them, and strategically placing your recurring events at those times will ensure that you're connecting with the right contacts when you call them or stop by.

Historical Call/Visit Notes In Event Details

To see notes associated to a contact or account before a call or visit, you can visit the Contact or Account record and look at the Historical Call/Visit Notes section. This means leaving the event you're looking at, and navigating to another page in the web or mobile application to look at your last notes. When you use an event series, the notes of each event will be added to the event itself, displaying in the Previous Call Notes field on the mobile app (Previous Call/Visit Notes area of the event on the web).

Event Series Tips

  • Nothing is set in stone. Individual events that are part of a series can be edited or deleted. This allows you to move (day and/or time) an event without impacting the overall series.

  • Get started on the web. As mentioned in the Marketer Quick Start Guide, we suggest that users initially build their calendars out the web. In addition to being slightly faster, a grid at the bottom of the Edit Event screen shows your availability for the day you are scheduling an event for. This helps you see how much free time you may have on a particular day before creating the event series. In the image below, you can see that there are other events scheduled on the selected day, so you can schedule around those events by choosing an available time.

  • Add the visit frequency to the event subject. We suggest adding the frequency to the subject of the event. On the web or mobile apps, this will provide quick insight into how often you're visiting the facility without needing to dive into the event's details.

  • Set a consistent End Date for all series. As each event series is created, an End Date must be added. Entering a consistent end date into each series will make the end of all series very visible as your calendar will suddenly become blank after a particular day. When end dates differ, events can drop off your calendar and off your radar. It's also important that the end of the event series is not 10 years down the road (PlayMaker defaults to 3 months). The end of an event series is a great time to analyze the ROI of your time with each facility and adjust your visit or call frequency. While some referral sources will remain consistent, new referral sources may be added to your book of business, and they may need more attention than initially thought. Periodically adjusting your calendar based on the ROI of referrals or orders from a contact/facility will ensure that you're spending your time in front of or talking to the right people.