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resortroster.com Help Page
| Introduction | Top | |
| ResortRoster.com has been designed to allow any shop, facility, resort, charter company, retail store, club, or otherwise, to easily and centrally track scheduled activities, and participation by clients in those activities. It can also photos of both upcoming and past activities for customer viewing. It was created to improve internal management of this information, and also to improve customer relations by more accurate and timely publication of this information. The program was designed to be used with no documentation and minimal instruction. We encourage you to experiment (it is difficult to lose data inadvertently) and to explore. For the basics, try these links for help on navigation, forms, tables, and an important note on saving changes. | ||
| Database Statistics | Top | |
| This is the first page you'll see when you login and has some useful information that you'll want to see regularly. If there are any system bulletins, this is where they will appear. How many Clients, Photos, and Activities are shown, along with information about Participation. Finally, the page shows all clients who have a birthday in the next 3 days, provided you've been inputting clients' birthdays. You have, haven't you? | ||
| Navigation | Top | |
| The entire program is a set of web pages. Each page will have some combination of form fields and tables, and will also have buttons and/or links which look like this. With the exception of reports, where you should actually close the new window when you're done, most navigation is done from links and buttons on the page rather than using the "Back" button on your browser. The most important thing you can learn early, often, and over and over again, is to save any changes you make to a form before going to another page. We've set up the "tabbing" order of forms to make this somewhat intuitive and we encourage you to become friends with the Tab key. Most of your time will be spent around a core section of pages where you will maintain information about your organization, maintain client lists, rosters, and associated photos. You will see, at times, links that are not active or buttons that are dimmed. These options are just not available to you at that time, either because you're already where the link would take you, because of your security level, or because the action would create a nonsensical data situation (e.g. deleting an activity record when there are already participant records). | ||
| Sample Database | Top | |
| The Sample Database that is available from the ResortRoster.com main page is intended to be representative of how the database might be used. Clicking on the button logs the public user in as a "View Privileges" staff member to let prospective ResortRoster.com clients see what the software will do. To see how that data would appear to the public on a shop's website, look at the website for the fictitious shop at http://www.resortroster.com/example. | ||
| Tables | Top | |
| Tables are lists of data records, and are used a lot in ResortRoster.com. Most tables are linked so that you can click on an individual record to see and/or edit that information. The primary tables you will see in diveroster.com are for clients, trips, and photos. Under each trip you'll see tables for participants and those on the interested list. Internal reports are tables that are optimized for printing and lack links. | ||
| Forms | Top | |
| Forms are where you view and edit data for a particular record. Unless there is a good reason why not, you'll also be able to delete a record from its form. (a good reason is that the record has 'child' records or that you lack the security level) Form fields will appear with a yellow background if that information can be seen by the public. This will only occur if the option has been chosen to show Public Pages (on the Shop Info screen) and if that particular Activity has the Public? field set to 'Yes'. For Clients, only Current Staff have publicly viewable information. In ResortRoster.com, the primary forms are for clients, activities, and activity participants. | ||
| Saving Your Changes | Top | |
| This is the most important topic in the help section. When you change any form items, including check boxes, select lists, text boxes, dates, times, or notes, you MUST save your changes by clicking a "Save and Remain" button or a "Save and Exit" button. You may make this mistake a few times (we sure have) but soon it will become second nature. Unfortunately, there was no better way to do this without severely slowing the program down. (the good news is that if you really foul up a note or text field, clicking a link to another page without saving will get rid of your mistakes) | ||
| Note Fields (internal & external) | Top | |
| Many records have one or two note fields. These are free form fields that have no practical limit on size. The input windows will simply scroll to allow continued entry of text. It is recommended, though, that you keep the information in them concise and sensible. Internal notes are to be seen by staff only, and only show up on internal reports. External notes are for customers eyes and show up on both internal and external reports. You can look at the Sample Database for ideas on how to use these - most use internal for notes to staff about particular issues or situations, and external for details that are not covered by the other fields. You will find that activities have both internal and external notes, while participants and client records only have internal notes. Finally, there is no formatting available beyond carriage returns to separate paragraphs. Extra spaces will be compressed, tabs cannot be entered, and there is no way to otherwise modify the appearance of the text. Notes are intended for promotional information and details that are unique to a particular situation. Anything general should probably be covered in a static description page that is linked to the particular activity. | ||
| Technical Information | Top | |
| ResortRoster.com uses a MySQL database running on a Linux server with Apache web server software. The pages themselves display in HTML, and all of the programming is done in PHP. This combination of programs is among the most powerful, fast, and secure programming environments available today. The system was written around Internet Explorer 5.5, but has been tested with Netscape Navigator 6.2. It will likely do well with just about any browser so long as it can do JavaScript and accept cookies. Important: While you can use diveroster.com from any internet connection, for regular use in a retail setting you will be FAR more pleased with things if you have a broadband (high speed), always on, internet connection. | ||
| Technical Support | Top | |
| The "Support" button on the ResortRoster.com page offers an e-mail form to request support. We will try to have a response back to you within hours, but certainly no longer than a business day. | ||
| Plans for Future Enhancements | Top | |
| Use the Support page to make suggestions for improvement. Note that reports, statistics, and just about any kind of output you desire USING DATA WE PRESENTLY TRACK can be done fairly easiy and will be created as they are requested. Similarly, changes to the user interface are fairly easy and will be done on request (provided they make sense for all users). One thing that is NOT presently contemplated is online sign-ups for activities. It seems everyone does this a bit differently so we suggest you add a link to activities for which you want online signups to a page you've already developed on your website. | ||
| Shop Information | Top | |
| Note: shop is the term we use for any facility, store, resort, club, or other organization that is using ResortRoster.com. There is no one term that will please everyone; we picked shop largely because it is short and common. The edit shop form permits the owner to edit the shop name, location, page headers, website address (just list the address, no http:// needed), and a number of largely self-explanatory options. Other users can view this information, but not edit any of it. No users can edit the shop's start date or its paid-thru date (for obvious reasons). The owner can also add or change users, and edit codes for both client and activity participant status (STRONGLY recommended to be done once, in the very beginning). They can also make payments from this page and change the logo that is displayed on every web page. Other users can see most of the shop information and edit their own user record. | ||
| Codes | Top | |
| There are two sets of user-definable codes. One for client status, and one for activity participant status. Your account begins with a set of codes as default that should have many you don't need but will hopefully have all that you do. Simple delete the ones you don't want, change those that need modification, and add those that are missing. Designating a code as "staff" for activity participants will group those participants and bolds their status to indicate they are staff for that activity. The most important issue with these codes is that you want to try to figure them out as best you can when you start and to NOT have to change them drastically in the future. The amount of work it will take to go back through past records to update them if you alter your codes substantially could be significant. At any time you can re-order your codes; this will affect nearly all tables and reports in the program. You can also look at counts for each of the codes to get an idea how your clients and activity participants are broken down. | ||
| Appearance | Top | |
| Users with owner privilege are able to choose colors, background, and what logo displays in the header of all pages and public pages. There are a number of backgrounds and logos to choose from; you may also upload a logo of your choice or e-mail us a background you'd like to see available. | ||
| Payments | Top | |
| Yes, we here at ResortRoster.com do intend to be a profitable.com. The only way to do that is to have our users pay a small fee every month to use the software (a fraction of what it would cost to buy it or have it written for you). We sincerely hope that we offer far more value than we charge for, and that our user base will grow to sufficient numbers to not only pay off the development of the software to begin with, but to permit us to continually enhance it. Owners can access the payments page where they can get an address to mail us a check, or can click through to PayPal where they can pay us by a variety of electronic methods. It is possible to pay for a fixed number of months, or to set up a subscription whereby a monthly charge is made against your credit card. In any case, when you pay, time is added to your paid-thru date. Payments via PayPal will usually post in hours; those by check take days. In the unlikely event that your payment is not received in time, your service will stop immediately after your paid-thru date passes. Further payment will start the service up right away, and time will be added to the day you paid, not your old paid-thru date. You don't pay for time service is stopped. | ||
| Linking From Your Web Site | Top | |
| Most users will want their websites to point to the monthly, weekly, and daily calendars. From there, the public can access the rest of the external reports / public pages including the individual trip pages. Additionally, most users will want a link for their staff roster. To link to the public pages, create a link by copying the link from the links page. You or your website designer can use these links to either link to a new window with public pages complete with logo and header, or to open the reports in a frame on your site with no headers. If you wish to have links to individual activities, simply browse the public calendar and copy the URL from the external report you want to link from your site. We think you will find, though, that the easiest thing to do is set up links to the general calendars from your site, allowing your client to easily access your activities at diveroster.com. | ||
| External Reports / Public Pages | Top | |
| One of the main functions of diveroster.com is publishing your calendar for anyone in the public to see. For those shops that do not wish to use this function, it is optional and may be turned off at the Shop Information page by setting the "Public Pages" variable to No. Setting it to Yes will allow public pages to be accessed. This can be turned on and off for each activity as well. For most, this is a key feature of the software. Selected information that you store and use internally is automatically updated and available to your customers. You can create a link on your website to any external report. It is recommended that you link to the monthly, weekly, and daily calendar, as well as link to the staff page. This will allow your clients to navigate from the calendar to see details about each activity. Note that no client information is published. Information that only staff should have access to, including internal notes, does not appear on any public access pages. Provided the Public Pages variable is set to Yes, and the individual flag on the activity is set to Yes, all publicly viewable information will appear on edit screens with a yellow background. This is a visible reminder that the public can see that information. There are five external reports that are available: - the monthly calendar, - the weekly calendar, - the daily calendar, - individual activity pages, - and the staff roster. | ||
| Edit User | Top | |
| This screen allows the owner to add, change, or delete any or all information about other users. Additionally, each individual user has full access to his or her own user information. The owner can set individual user privileges to either view or edit ability. | ||
| Security | Top | |
| Every user of ResortRoster.com has an associated security level. There is at least one user with owner privileges for every shop. This user has full access and can edit users, change codes, change the appearance/logo, and change shop information. They are also the one that pays the bills! They are responsible for creating and maintaining other users with lower security levels: they are fully responsible for the security of the database. There is no limit to the number of users with edit privileges or view privileges. Owners create these users and grant them the ability to edit client, trip, and class information, or simply to view information that is not available to the public. Users with owner, edit, and view privileges are all required to have usernames and passwords which are assigned by the owner initially, but can be changed either by the owner or by the individual. Also, it is crucial that all users have a valid and operating e-mail address. Public users can only access external reports. They need not (and in fact cannot) login, and there is no tracking of who they are. This feature may be turned off by owners. | ||
| Passwords | Top | |
| If you've read the security section, you know that every user must have a username, password, and e-mail address, and that you can change this information from the Edit Shop form. Passwords have to be from 6-12 characters long, made up of only upper and lower case letters and numbers. They are encoded such that ResortRoster.com staff are unable to view anyone else's password, we just encode what is sent to us and store it, then when you log in we encode what you send us again and compare it to what we've stored, if they match, you get in. If you forget your password, enter your shopcode and username on the login screen and click "Forgot Password." Confirm that you are sure you forgot it and you will be e-mailed a new random password. Your old password will be gone and you are encouraged to change your new password to something you can remember. ResortRoster.com staff, and the owner of your shop, are both able to edit anything about any user except their password. They can however replace an existing password with one of their choosing. | ||
| Internal Reports | Top | |
| ResortRoster.com was initially created purely for internal management of activity lists, and for generation of neat and accurate rosters. During its creation, the idea of publishing this information for customers to see was hatched, leading to the external reports / public pages features. The internal reports, though, are still valuable to you. Most of these reports are designed to be printed and used by staff -- they can be taken on activities. Most rosters can be printed with blank lines so that you can write in additions if needed. Be sure to later update your online database. Finally, there is no doubt that future enhancements to ResortRoster.com will focus heavily on more reporting options and that most of them will be for internal use. Your creativity, and that of other users like you, is what will lead the way. | ||
| Clients | Top | |
| This page has a table that lists all clients, in your choice of order. Click on a blue table heading to sort the table by that column. You can look at all client records, or a subset of them based on first letter of last name or on client status. You will see "pages" of clients if there are more clients in the subset you have chosen that you've set in the "page length" setting under Shop Info. Bolded status indicates current staff members, italicized status indicates former staff members. A photo icon next to the client name indicates there is a photo attached to that particular client. An "Add" button permits you to create a new client, and a link for each client permits you to edit one. Finally, there are a number of Client Reports that are available from the Clients page. Reports will run using the same subset of clients that you have chosen. | ||
| Client Reports | Top | |
| At this time you can get an internal e-mail listing of all clients with e-mail address, and you can view the public Staff Roster. | ||
| Edit Client | Top | |
| This form permits you to edit the name of the client, their status (your choice of codes), their staff status (not on staff, on staff, former staff), and their e-mail address. There are several fields that are optional and are chose on the Edit Shop page. There is an internal note for a client record which should contain information specific to that client but not to a particular activity. This is the identical form that is on the screens to edit activity participants, and interested list entries. If there is a photo attached to the client, you may edit it otherwise there is a button to add a photo to the client record. The page also has two tables: 1. All the activities in which the client has been a participant, and 2. All of the Interest Lists that the client is on. Links permit you to go instantly to those edit screens. | ||
| Photos | Top | |
| This is a powerful feature that not only allows you to promote upcoming activities with images, but also allows you to post photos of recent activities for those participants to enjoy. The main photo page shows a listing of all photos currently in the system, which activity or client they are attached to, and what the size and upload date of the photo is. It is strongly recommended that you use this tool to manage your photos so that the total size of your "album" is less than 20,000,000 bytes. At this point there are no limitations other than this suggestion. | ||
| Activity Photos | Top | |
| For each activity there is a page of photos attached to it. From here you can view thumbnails of all photos or choose one to edit. You may also add photos here to the activity. While there is no limit now to the number of photos you may have attached to an activity, there may be in the future. As a practical matter, the public pages, which just show thumbnails of the photos, won't load fast enough to be useful to your clients if there are more than 8 or 10 photos. Keeping your pictures cropped well, and optimized for size, will help when clients want to look at or download the full image. Our recommendation for software to help you manage/crop/edit/optimize your digital photos or scans is Paint Shop Pro, a very powerful but inexpensive tool that rivals or exceeds PhotoShop at a fraction of the price and learning curve. | ||
| Edit Photo | Top | |
| Here you are able to edit the caption and change the image for a given photo. It is recommended that you keep photos tightly cropped and optimized for screen viewing. | ||
| Activities | Top | |
| This table has a list of all activities and their dates, and can be viewed with a variety of indexes and filters. The linked name for each activity permits you to view/edit the details. There may be an icon indicating that photos are attached to an activity, and totals are shown for clients, staff, total participants, capacity, and the number on the interested list. Buttons permit users to create a new activity, or toclone one. The "radio" style buttons allow you to choose to see the table with a variety of filters. Reports will run using the same subset that you have chosen and will display with the same index you have chosen as well. | ||
| Edit Activity | Top | |
| This form permits you to edit the name of the activity, the start and end dates and times, the price, the capacity, and both an internal and external note. Most importantly, from here you can add or change clients that are participants in the activity. You can also maintain the Interest List of those clients interested in this activity, staff that want to crew this activity, or those on the waiting list. You can also edit the links for the activity, go to the photos page for the activity, and access a number of reports for the activity. | ||
| Cloning Activities | Top | |
| For activity records that have a lot of information that does not change significantly, there is an option to "clone" one. This function creates a new record with much of the same information as the one that was cloned, including links. It will ask you for a new start date and adjust all dates up relative to that one. This is purely a timesaver built for convenience and speed. | ||
| Add Participant | Top | |
| You will be presented a list of clients that are NOT presently participants and may select one to add, or you may choose to create a new client that will be added to the activity at the same time. Once you make your choice you will end up at the Edit Trip Participant page to view/edit the new participant record. | ||
| Edit Participant | Top | |
| This form permits you to edit all of the client's information. It also permits you to edit the details surrounding this client's participation in this particular activity. The status refers to what they are doing as a participant during this activity; these codes can be modified to suit your needs. Participants can be designated as staff via their code. This will result in their being placed at the bottom of rosters, and having their status bolded on reports and screens. The invoice numbers are for both deposit and payment in full, with room for the initials of the staff member that took payment. There are optional fields for which may be set on the Edit Shop page, which provide space for those considerations. There is also an internal note for each participant record that will handle just about any information you can imagine needing to track. Finally, you can get to this form from both the client page and the activity page, and can return to either. | ||
| Activity Links | Top | |
| You may have as many links for each activity as you like. They will appear on the public's activity page and can be used for maps, static pages on your website that describe the activity or staff, links to the resort or operator's pages, travel information, or for anything else that you think is pertinent. Links are copied when you clone an activity. | ||
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