Creating Events on Web – Marketscape CRM

The Basics: Creating an Event

In the PlayMaker web environment there are three ways to create an event.

From the Account (Recommended)

Creating an event from the Account Detail screen will automatically associate the event with the account, requiring one less field of data entry.

Navigate to the Account Detail
Click the New Event button in the Monthly Events section

From the Calendar page

This method is helpful when a user would like to see what other events are on their calendar, and is likely the first place new users will start to build out their event activity.

Navigate to the Calendar
Click the New Event button at the top of the page

From the Navigation

Select Calendar > Schedule an Event

All methods will take you to the same New Event screen (below), where information is entered to create the event.

When creating an event, several fields are required:

Subject - The name of the event.
- This should be descriptive enough to know at a glance what event it is.
- A suggested naming convention would be: Facility (or Account) Name - Frequency of visit.

Event Type - This describes what kind of event is being scheduled.
- Using the correct event type will allow users to see what types of events have the best return on the investment of their time.
- The Event Type list can be modified by your system Administrator to ensure proper options are available. The Other option should only be used in rare circumstances, when no other option represents the type of event being scheduled.

Account & Contacts - The Account field is required for all events, unless the Cold Call or Other event types are selected. Once an account has been added, the user will be prompted to select contacts for the event by showing a list of related contacts. It is suggested to include all applicable contacts, as any that did not attend the meeting can be removed when the event is being notated after the call.
- NOTE: Cold Call should be used appropriately, indicating when a user is stopping at a new facility, once they have verified that an account does not exist in PlayMaker.

Start Time and End Time - Each event will need a start and end time. Some users will use the calendar to map out their day, while others will use the calendar as simply a list of sales calls that they would like to complete on a particular day. However, the events will block out availability in the chart at the bottom of the New Event page, which can show the user their availability for the day the event is being scheduled.

Event Purpose and Expected Outcome - While the event already has a subject, this field provides users with an area to note what they would like to accomplish with this event.

Once these fields are filled out, the event can then be saved to the calendar by clicking the Save button, taking the user to either back to the Calendar or to the Account Details, depending on where the event was created from. For users just getting started with planning out their calendars, the Save & New button will save the event and load another New Event page to start working on creating another event.

Planning Ahead: Recurring Events

More often than not, PlayMaker users are visiting the same facilities on a regular basis. Creating individual events for each week, and trying to remember when an event should be bi-weekly or monthly can be cumbersome and time consuming.

Using the Recurrence drop-down, users can set events to automatically repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Once a basic event frequency has been selected, additional options become available, allowing users to further refine when these events will occur. The image below shows the options that load when the Weekly option is chosen.

While the option selected states Weekly, the options provided allow users to set bi-weekly meetings, simply by changing the Every __ Weeks value to the desired number of weeks.
The day of the week can be set by checking the appropriate box.
Lastly, the End Date should be set. We recommend a period of six months to a year. This encourages users to evaluate which facilities (and the frequency) they are visiting, as well as view the return of investment of spending their time with these accounts by looking at the graphs and table at the bottom of the Account Details screen.

Some accounts may end up benefiting from more visits, while others may be getting too much attention for the number of referrals generated.

Once the recurring event has been saved, a series has been created. This series can be edited or deleted at anytime by clicking on the event, then selecting the Edit Series button. When series are edited, only future, incomplete events are impacted by the changes made. The option to Edit Series is also available in the PlayMaker mobile application for both Android and iOS.

Note: Individual occurrences of events can be easily rescheduled. On the web, editing the event (not the series) will allow a user to adjust the day and time of that particular event. In the PlayMaker mobile application, single events can be dragged to another time on the same day, or to another day (by dragging the event on to the calendar days showing above the list of events on the Calendar view).

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