In this video, we will explain you how to setup flags for your bookings.
Transcript
Hi! In this video, I am going to show you how to set flags.
What is a Flag?
Firstly, what is a flag? Well, a flag is like a task, a personal reminder for bookings and other events in Tour CMS. This can be set automatically by Tour CMS if something happened for a period of time, or it can be set manually by staff users, but just in the type of flag they want to see and which they would like to have modifications sent to them by email or SMS.
Okay, so now that you have an idea of what a flag is, I'm going to show you how to configure them.
Accessing Flags
From the home page, you can go to flags by clicking on Bookings and then on Flags. This will direct you to the flags page, where you can search for a specific flag, and you also have a summary of all the flags you have already set. In my case, I don't have any, that's why it's empty. So to set our flags, you need to click on this link that says Your Bookings Flags and Notification Settings.
Alright, so in the first point, if you want to restrict flags only to a certain collection of bookings, then you should select the corresponding product filter from the drop-down list. If you want to apply to all the bookings, then just keep selecting the default option, which is also bookings, as you can see here. The notification in my email address is by default the email address from your Tour CMS account. I will explain later how to configure the email message of a flag. You can also enable to set SMS notifications, but this requires a paid Clicatel account. By clicking on this link here, you will get full instructions for the process. Details of pricing can be found on the Clicatel website.
Types of Flags
Alright, so there are two types of flags: flags due to events and flags due to issues.
Flags due to events: These are set immediately when something occurs with a booking, and it can be a new quotation, a provisional or confirmed booking, an expired booking, or cancelled bookings. In this section, you can define what kind of events will generate a flag. And if you don't want to be notified when a certain event occurs, then just keep the "off" option selected; otherwise, select the kind of notification you would like to receive and how. As you can see, there are a few options to choose from, like those that I just mentioned, and also last-minute bookings and cancellations, and the last two. You can decide when you would like to receive it. It can be one day before or on the same day after 6 PM the day before or on the same day. Once you do this, as always, don't forget to save changes.
Issue Flags: Scrolling down a bit, you will find the second type of flags, which are issue flags. These are set when the user would like to highlight something about the booking that needs special attention. And these issues include, for example, when the booking status is still in quotation or provisional after a certain number of days. Also, when within a certain number of days prior to the arrival date, and booking status is then in quotation provisional. Another example is when the full balance has not been received within a certain number of days prior to arrival date, as well when the final check has not been completed days before the arrival date, and lastly, when a tour has not reached minimum confirmed numbers within a certain number of days prior to departure. Here, for those you would like to get notified about, you need to select a priority level, either normal or high, or both. You can set both, like for example, normal periods are 4 days, but it becomes high priority within 2 days. Now, as always, don't forget to save changes, which is at the end of the page.
Manually Setting a Flag
And I'm going to show you how staff can manually set a flag on a particular booking, either immediately if they want the member of staff to be aware of something, or at some future date, as a reminder that something needs to be done, such as asking customers for extra details prior to departure. This can be done by going to a particular booking. Once you are in the booking screen overview, you need to go to the Workflow tab. In New Flag here, you can set the notification date, the staff user you want to notify, and the notification text you want them to receive. For example, let's do a flag note to let the staff user know that he or she needs to check the pickup point: "Check pickup point." Then click on Set New Flag, and then your flag will be set. Now, if you go to the bookings page, as you can see, the flag set will appear at the top of the page.
Configuring the Email Message
I would like to finish this video by explaining to you how to configure the email message. In general, the emails generated by flags have, by default, no message body, but the flag text is then in the subject of the email. But it is possible to customise the body and the email address by going to Configuration, System and Setup, and then Booking General Settings. Then scroll down until Flags and Notifications, which is here. Here you can add documentation tags to add extra information about the booking, like this one: "itinerary table" to output the customer itinerary, including operational info. You can find a full explanation of all the tabs by clicking on Further Information here. Go to configure the email message, and then you need to click on this link here, and it will look like this.