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CRM - Postcode Management

CRM - Postcode Management

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Postcode Management Setup

Connecting to AFD Postcode software

The Postcode Management window is opened from the Postcode function on the toolbar of the CRM Control window.

Postcode management enables you to assign your Prospects to the Customer Partners who will be looking after them, by area according to the postcode of the Prospect record.

Postcode Management

Postcode - If you plan to use the Assigned To field, you may wish to use the postcode management feature to assign postcode areas to specific partners. Then, when a new prospect record is ready to be assigned to a partner, the prospect's postcode can be used to locate the most appropriate one. When using Dimensions with Access Workspace, also see: Postcode Lookup

Assigned To - You may run partnership network, whereby you have a team that find and qualify prospective customers but then pass these leads to other companies to follow up; if so, you will be making use of the Assigned To field in the company information section of the data entry window. The companies to which you assign the prospects will also be Customers within your accounts. They will support the Prospect as they become a Customer. When a new Prospect or Customer is entered in the CRM module, or when editing an existing record, if a postcode is entered for which there is a matching record in the postcode matrix, clicking on the Assign Account function on the CRM Data Entry toolbar will assign the record to the correct partner account.

Toolbar tasks

Generate Postcodes

See step 3 below.

Copy down

See step 4 below.

Output to Excel

See step 5 below.

Postcode Management Setup

Step 1

Go to System > Options > CRM Options, select the Postcode Matrix tab and check that you have selected the:

'Assigned To' field - this should be set to indicate which Sort Key field on a Customer record is to be used to give the Customer 'permission' to be a partner. Select from the drop down list: Sort Key; User Sort 1; User Sort 2; User Sort 3.

'Assigned To' field starts with - here you should enter the value that must be present in the selected field before Prospects can be assigned to this Customer partner. It is only necessary that you enter the start of the value. This enables you to use the field in other ways, for example, by entering sort key values of PTNR NORTH; PTNR SOUTH, the field can still be used for searches (contains SOUTH) and for sorting but both these values will qualify for assignment if the qualifying value is entered as PTNR.

Step 2

Open the records for Customers who qualify as 'Partners' and ensure that the field you have selected to be the identifier (Sort Key; User Sort 1; User Sort 2 or User Sort 3) contains a value that starts with the qualifying value you have entered in the system control settings (e.g. PTNR).

Step 3

The next step is to generate the postcode groups by which the Prospects will be assigned to a partner.

  1. Open the Postcode Management window from the Postcode function on the toolbar of the CRM Control window.

  2. Click Generate Postcodes to open the Postcode window.

  3. Enter the characters of the first part of the post codes you wish to generate. For example CM.

  4. In the second field, enter the start number of the postcode range that is to be generated. For example 6 (CM6).

  5. In the third field, enter the last number of the postcode range that is to be generated. For example 12 (CM12).

  6. If you want to make the assignment immediately, you can select the Customer code from the last list. This can be done later in the Postcode Management window.

  7. Click OK to generate the post codes. If you are using Dimensions with an Access Workspace unlock, this will open the Postcode Lookup.

  8. Close the Postcode window.

  9. Click Display on the Postcode Management window to display the codes you have created.

Step 4

If you have already made the assignment then both columns, Postcode and Assigned to, will be populated.

If you have not yet made the assignment, or you wish to change any you have already set, you can do this now.

  1. Place the cursor in the first empty Assigned To field.

  2. Enter the Customer code to which the postcode is to be assigned.

  3. If appropriate, with the cursor still in the Assigned To field, click on the Copy Down task on the toolbar to copy the value into all the fields below.

  4. Continue entering the codes until the list is complete.

  5. Close the Postcode Management window.

Step 5

Open the Postcode Management window from the Postcode function on the toolbar of the CRM Control window.

  1. To generate more post codes - repeat the steps described above.

  2. To display all the records - click Display.

  3. To display all the records for a postcode area - select the area letters from the postcode list and click Display.

  4. To display records assigned to a particular Customer code - select that Customer code and click Display.

  5. Records can be edited by over-typing the values in the assigned to column.

  6. You can export the post codes displayed in the list to Microsoft Excel for checking, printing and for reference.

Connecting to AFD Postcode software

If you have AFD Postcode and Address management software installed, you can set it to search automatically for addresses that match a particular postcode you have entered.

To connect to your AFD Postcode software:

  • Locate the folder in which your Access Accounts software has been installed. There should be a file called CRM.INF in the same folder.

The location of the program is displayed on the System tab of the User Information window which can be opened from the About menu option.

  • Find the CRM.INF file and open this file for editing. You can use Notepad to do this.

  • There are two items that will be used to establish a link between your DimensionsHorizons software and your AFD software.

    • [AFD LOC] is the location of the AFD Postcode software.

You should refer to your AFD Postcode software installation instructions to confirm the name of the file to which you should link. We would expect this to be the path to the pcode32.dll file, installed in your WINDOWS\system32\ folder. You can locate the file by running a search in Windows Explorer.

    • [AFD Proc] is the name of the external procedure in the AFD DLL file that retrieves the addresses from the postcode file.

We would expect this to be AFDPcode but you should refer to your AFD Postcode software installation instructions to confirm the name of the procedure.

  • Edit the file to add this information.

  • Save the file.

Your file should now contain these items:

[AFD Loc] C:\WINDOWS\system32\pcode32.dll

[AFD Proc] AFDPcode

Where D:\WINDOWS\system32\pcode32.dll is the path to the AFD Postcode software on your computer and AFDPcode is the name of the procedure that retrieves the post codes.

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