The Customer Contact Manager is reached by selecting MAIN TASKS and CONTACT MANAGER from the Menu Bar.  It can also be accessed by clicking on the Contact Manager tab at the bottom of the Customer Information Database Screen.

Note that in the Level 6 - 7 program, you also have use of a Primary Contact Manager.  The Customer Contact Manager is used for customers in your customer database.  The Primary Contact Manager is used for all others such as prospective customers, suppliers, advertisers, shippers, financial contacts, etc.

Enter a Business Name in the Customer Information Database. The Contact Manager is designed to work hand in hand with the Customer Information Database.  In order to use it, you need to first enter a customer's business name in the Customer Information Database.  Once you have an entry in the Customer Information Database, click on the Contact Manager tab, and you'll be able to enter customer contact information.

Selecting a Contact. To use the Contact Manager, you begin by selecting the business from the first list and then choosing the appropriate contact within the business from the second list:

1. First click on the desired business from the first (#1) list in the upper left hand corner of the dialog box.

2. Once the proper business is selected, you can select an individual's or a department's name within that particular business from the second (#2) list.   After you've chosen from the second list, information on the selected individual will appear on the bottom half of the screen.

Adding a Contact. To add the name of individual or department to the second (#2) list, press the ADD button.  This will create an empty form on the bottom half of the screen on which you can fill in phone numbers, extension, or fax numbers.  Once the name has been entered in the lower part of the screen, it will appear on the second list on top of the screen. If you'd like to automatically insert the main phone number which has been recorded for the business on the main page of the Customer Information Database, click on the ADD+ button.

Deleting a Contact. If you need to delete an individual from the Contact Manager, make sure the individual's name is highlighted and click on Delete

Using the Contact Manager for Non-customers. The following information is for Level IV or Level V users.  Level VI users have access to the "Primary Contact Manager" which is designed for the purposes described below.

The Customer Contact Manager is primarily set up to deal with customers that you sell to, but since it has a rich set of telephony features, you may also want to include a few other contacts besides customers.  For instance, it may be helpful to include shipping companies like FedEx or UPS.  Since you don't sell products to FedEx or UPS, they are not customers, and for the purposes of this discussion, we'll call such businesses non-customers.

AnyOrder's Advanced Phone Dialer can be a great aid to you whenever you have to deal with non-customers, particularly those in which you have to convey or key-in information over your phone.  Shipping companies commonly require you to input a considerable amount of information.  You usually have to go through a series of menu choices, and then once you get to the proper department, you have to key-in other information such as an account number, zip code, etc.  The Advanced Dialer can input the information automatically for you, making such tasks as the scheduling of package pick-ups much easier to do.

If you want to include non-customers in the Contact Manager, you'll first need to make an entry in the Customer Information Database.  If addresses are not important, we suggest that you group several businesses together under one heading.  For instance, in the Billing Name blank of the Customer Information Database, you could type in "Shipping Companies" or "Commonly Called Numbers."  In this way, one entry in the Customer Information Database can cover several shipping companies.  For businesses in which addresses are not important, the only other information that is necessary is the Summary Name.

There's a trick that you can use for non-customers.  We recommend that you start the Summary Name with "ZZ:" or "~" for all non-customers.   In this way, all non-customers will appear at the bottom of customer lists (the lists from which you select to create invoices).  Since you won't be using non-customers on your invoices, you don't want them cluttering up your customer lists.  By putting them at the end of the alphabet, they'll stay out of your way.  For example, the Summary Name might be "ZZ: Shipping Companies"  or "ZZ: Commonly Called Numbers.".

Once you have the business name or a group of businesses set up in the Customer Information Database, you can add the names of the individual contacts in the Contact Manager. For instance if you've set up a Shipping Company group, you may make the first contact "FedEx Package Pick-up" and the next contact "UPS Package Pick-up," etc.

Sorting the Business List. You can change how the customers are sorted in the first list box (#1) by selecting either "Summary Name" or "Customer Number."  Additional sort choices are available by selecting TOOLS and CHANGE ORDER OF CUSTOMERS from the Pull-down menu.

Email & Web Addresses. Two buttons are found to the right of the "Email" field.  The first button will activate an external email program. To use this, you'll need a non-web based email program such as Thunderbird or Outlook.  The second button "Open" is available with Level 7 programs.  It activates the Internal Email Client with the person name and email address in place.  You can, then, compose a message and send it directly from within AnyOrder without going through an external email program.  If you haven't already, you will need to configure the program for your email server.

Phone Numbers, Extensions, Menu Choices, Account Numbers. Just to the right of phone number are buttons with "DIAL" printed on them.  By clicking one of the buttons, AnyOrder's internal Phone Dialer program will be activated. Note that you can determine how you want the button to function.  You may wish to change the function of the button from Dial to Copy or Copy to Dial.  The button's function is set in Basic Set-up (Telephone and Internet Settings).

If the number is a long distance number, include the "1" before the number: 1-208-232-6857.

You can include additional information along with the first phone number, including an individual's extension, a series of menu choices required to reach the right person or department, and/or an account number required during the call.  When you click on DIAL in the Contact Manager, the Advanced Phone Dialer will appear with all the numbers entered in the appropriate boxes.

The menu choice box is particularly handy for making calls to an individual or department when you have to navigate a phone menu system.  The first time you make such a call, write down what menu numbers are needed and the order.  Then, later, enter the numbers in the Menu Choice box in the Contact Manager.  Separate each menu number with a plus sign (+).

The plus sign inserts an 8-second pause after each number as it is keyed-in by the Phone Dialer.  If you need a greater amount of delay, use two pluses (++) which insert a 16 second pause.  For instance, 2+3+1, means that when the Advanced Dialer inputs the information, the number 2 will first be keyed-in.  After 8-seconds, it will key-in the number 3, and after 8 more seconds, it will key in the number 1.

While you'll want to use the Menu Choice box for menu numbers, you can use the other two boxes for any other numbers you may need to enter.  For instance, it's not necessary to use the Extension box only for phone extensions.  You may need to input your zip code, and if there's no extension, you can use that box for the zip code.

As explained above, the Advanced Dialer is particularly handy for scheduling a package pick-up with such shippers as FedEx.  You can set up all the needed FedEx information in advance in the Contact Manager.  When you click on DIAL from the Contact Manager, the Advanced Dialer comes up.  The Advance Dialer will dial FedEx's toll free number.  Once the computerized voice comes on line, you can click on Menu Choices and the Phone Dialer takes care of navigating FedEx's menu system.  When the computerized voice at FedEx asks for your account number, click on the account number button.  You can also have the phone dialer enter your zip code (In this case, use the extension box for your zip code). Because AnyOrder enters the long numbers for you, it makes scheduling a package pick-up far easier.

Comments. In the comments box, you can write short notes to yourself.  You can use this for a variety of purposes: names of store personnel, information on billings, follow-up suggestions, etc.

Searching. To search in the Contact Database, click on the "Search" button or select GO TO >> CONTACT DATABASE SEARCH.  You may search for a variety of fields in the Contact Manager.  The phone number search feature will look for the phone number in all three phone number fields (Phone1, Phone2 and Cell Phone).  When using the search box, be sure to enter a search string in only one box at a time.  In other words, you would not want to enter a string in the Phone Number and Last Name box.

If you place a checkmark in "Partial Word Search," AnyOrder will look for your search string within the field it is searching.  For example, let's say you are searching for a phone number.  If you type in "6857" in the Phone Number blank, AnyOrder will find all of the following phone numbers 238-6857, 345-6857, 345-6857.  When there is no checkmark in "Partial Word Search," AnyOrder looks for an exact match.  To find 238-6857, you must enter 238-6857.  If you were to enter 238.6857 or 2386857, AnyOrder would not find it.