Robin
Okay, hello everybody. It's half past 12. We're just about to start our webinar. I'm going to see how many folks we've got on the webinar before we actually start. Can you see my screen okay, Dan? Kim?
Dan
Yeah, I can see your screen all good, Robin. Yep.
Robin
Great. So this is our Tuesday Alpha Tracker tips and tricks webinar. I do them on the last Tuesday of every month. We try and show you something to help you to get the most out of Alpha Tracker.
Robin
So some little tip or trick that's going to help you in your job. Kim and Dan are in Telford today. Say hello Dan and Kim.
Dan
Hi everyone!
Kim
Hi.
Robin
Good. hi I can see you fine. We're going to show you the amazing Tracker Filer today. If you've not seen it before, we think you'll really like it. If you have already used it, Tracker Filer, we hope you'll learn something.
Robin
We think you'll see something today that you've not seen before. I'm actually out of the office. That's why my camera's not on. But that's going to help us today because I'm going to pretend to be a customer later, which will help the demo.
Robin
Hopefully, you'll see later. There's a Q&A window, which you should be able to see in your Zoom toolbar. If you can just say hello for us now, that would be wonderful. And let us know that you can see and hear us okay.
Robin
Dan and Kim, can you see any messages coming in? Nothing yet, no. So if someone can just say hello, that'd be wonderful so that we know this is all working.
Dan
Great, yeah, we can see those coming through now. Brilliant.
Robin
Lovely. And you can see my screen OK, Dan, yeah?
Dan
Yes, we can see your screen. All good.
Robin
Great. We always finish in 30 minutes, so we'll be over and done by one o'clock. And the first thing to say, I guess, is, oh, and ask us any questions you like, because any questions, ask them in the Q&A window that we can, we'll answer them during the call.
Robin
If we can't get to them during the webinar, then Kim will be in touch afterwards and she'll be responding by email. So what is Tracker Filer? Tracker filer is, it's like an automated Alpha Tracker assistant.
Robin
And it's called Tracker Filer because the first thing that we taught it to do was file emails and attachments automatically in the Alpha Tracker folders. It can now do a whole lot more. For example, we're going to show you towards the end of the webinar how it can work with Microsoft Teams and put Teams meetings in your Alpha Tracker diary automatically.
Robin
I actually blogged this week about ChatGPT. If you're into the AI stuff that's going on in the world at the moment, you might have seen ChatGPT. I've put a blog up. ChatGPT is this incredible artificial intelligence thing that you can ask any question and you can integrate it into software and you'll see it popping up all sorts of places.
Robin
We may even try and integrate something like ChatGPT into Tracker Filer to make it even more intelligent at some point. We'll see. But I've had lots of feedback from that blog post people suggesting how ChatGPT might help.
Robin
But at the moment, Tracker Filer is a link between Alpha Tracker and your email system and Microsoft Teams. So that's what we're going to show you today. Before I do, before I hand over to Dan and Kim, I'm just going to show you how you would file documents manually if you don't use Tracker Filer because I think that will put it into context.
Robin
So here I've got a quote in an Alpha Tracker system. Here's all information. If you're familiar with Alpha Tracker, you'll recognize the screen probably. Here is the folder button where the filing goes, all the documents that alpha tracker creates go in this folder, and you can also add your own.
Robin
So if, for example, this was a real quote and somebody had sent them site plans to go along with the quote to help you quote, what you can do is you can click here you can find the site plans that someone sent you.
Robin
So they've sent me these three. Now I've got them in my downloads folder, so it's nice and easy, but you'd normally have to sort of hunt around to find wherever they were. You can upload them like that.
Robin
It's not difficult, but you'd have to have found the quote first. I cheated because I had it open already, then found the documents, then uploaded and then put them in the folder. Tracker Filer makes this process even easier.
Robin
And I think at that point, I'll hand over to Kim and Dan. Kim's going to create a quote for us. You may not have seen how to do that in Alpha Tracker before, and then she's going to show you how you can use Tracker Filer with a quote.
Robin
So I'll just make you the host, Kim, if I can. So there you go. Hopefully you can now share your screen.
Dan
We'll just give that a go now, Robin. Thanks for that. And then, I think you should be able to see Kim's screen now. Can you see all that?
Robin
Yeah, I do.
Dan
Perfect. Great.
Kim
Good. Okay, so I'm logged into our Alpha Tracker system, and I'm going to create a quotation on here. So this is in the sales area, and I'm going to go to new quotation. This is the screen for creating new quotation.
Kim
I'm going to use a T letter. So, if you've not used quotations before, just give you a view of how we do it. And same as with projects you can give it your own office letter whichever office letter you're creating one for, and then click get next number, grab that number.
Kim
Now I'm just going to quickly create one so I'm going to do one for the client start, closing all this information. I'll give it a type. I'm going to call this one a presentation.
Dan
That's convenient.
Kim
Contact names, I'll just put in.
Kim
I'm sending this to Robin. That's great. Okay, I could put some notes in here. The fact that this is just a test one I'll just mark it as that so we don't accidentally do anything with that on our system.
Kim
So that's where all the sort of inquiries type details or the contacts and things and then I need to give it the site names is where the work would be taking place for us the site name tends to be more like a job name, so I'm going to call this one webinar.
Kim
I have then got a description that I can put on. So let's say this is to discuss Tracker Filer. And I'll give this quote a value. There we go. So this is, we know what it's all about. We know what detail is we know what the value is.
Kim
And then from here, I would save my quotation. That's it created my basic details. I can then generate the document. So as Robin was saying, I could just sort of put anything into this folder at this stage, the folders here, but I can also just generate my document, my start software quotation, click it here, it generates now this is generating the quotation immediately. This is a new feature this immediate generation of the quotation rather than you getting an email and it going to the folder.
Kim
It's there on the screen. It's really, really quick.
Dan
Yeah so for those of you that aren't using this and then you do want to use this feature do get in touch. Yeah we've started using this and it definitely is a game changer with the instant quotes generating right there and then rather than yeah get an email to you.
Dan
So that's like Kim said nice new feature we've got in here.
Kim
From this quotation, I can download it immediately from here. So I've got a download option. Downloads that I can open it. You can open it up and see it there, or I could just go straight to my downloads folder.
Kim
And of course, it will be then in my downloads folder, it'll be here straight away. So that one, I could simply email. So there it is, it's attached to the attached to the email, I can send this off. So Robin, this is what I'm going to need you to act as a client.
Robin
Love to, Kim.
Kim
Lovely, excellent. So this is the email address I'm sending it to. So with this one, I'm going to be copying in Tracker Filer. And then I'm going to write my email.
Robin
And Kim, that Tracker Filer email address, everybody's system has a different email address, don't they? But it'll always be Tracker Filer or something similar.
Kim
Exactly. Yeah, important to say that. So that's our Tracker Filer and email address. So it's linked to our system. It will go looking at our quote numbers and everything.
Robin
Great. So if you email that to me, I'm going to be the customer, I'm going to reply back with some site plans. And then you can, you can then show how Tracker Filer can file those site plans automatically.
Robin
Your caps locks gone crazy doesn't matter. What send what you've done, it's fine.
Kim
Awful. There we go. That will do.
Robin
Great, just send that over, fab. Okay, I'm gonna get that in my Gmail now. By the wonders of Gmail.
Dan
So just while Robin's getting that email up, it's important to note that because we've copied in Tracker Filer to that original email, that will now get stored against the quote. So we've got traceability of that email linking to that quote.
Dan
And then essentially it's just an easy way for you to store things against a quote or a job, things like that. So you can just forward things on to Tracker Filer as well as copy in that email address. So it just makes everything so simple when you come into storing those documents, rather than having to hunt around for it, as Robin mentioned, and then upload it into the folder.
Robin
Right, so you should have got that, Kim. I've attached about 400 site plans for you so you could firm up the quote. Does that come through?
Kim
Not come - oh, here we go. Right, so if I open up your email, so we can see this here. Lovely, so come with that quote, excellent. So what I want to do with that is I'm just going to forward that into my quotation folder.
Robin
Perfect.
Kim
So here if I just do forward it's already mentioning the quotation number so I don't need to put it in anywhere else because it's important to say that with with the emails that you're sending you've got to mention the quotation number somewhere so here we've got it in the subject we might also have it in the in the body of the text if it wasn't there I could just type it in as part of the message because I'm sending it to Tracker Filer that's it click the button and all of those will go in.
Dan
And probably just an important one to add on there. If you do forget to add in a quote number or project number, Tracker Filer, it will tell you and say, oops, it looks like you forgot to add that in. And then you can just re-add in the appropriate reference and forward it on.
Dan
So if you do forget it, don't worry, it will give you a nudge in the right direction.
Robin
That answers all of the questions we've just had, which is, where do you have to put the quote number in the email? Is it just anywhere, Kim?
Kim
It is anywhere. Yeah, you can put it in the subject and it's easiest if you do put it in the subject, but you can put it in the body of the email as well.
Robin
Can you put more than one quote number if you've wanted to file it in several quotes at the same time?
Kim
Absolutely you can, yes. Great. So you can put it into lots of them. So I've just clicked on there. Here we go. So we've got this. Here we are. Here are your floor plans that you sent in.
Robin
Great.
Kim
So typically I would sort that by modified date, get the most recent things up at the top, so that's the email sent in, those are the floor plans that you attach to your email. So it's not just the email that goes in, it's all the attachments as well.
Robin
Fantastic. So all you had to do then was forward it. Now, I couldn't, as a customer, people that were thinking, hang on, what happens if my customer copies in Tracker Filer? Tracker Filer doesn't actually, normally speaking, Tracker Filer ignores emails that are external, don't they?
Robin
Like, customs emails. That's just to protect your filing system from people sending you crazy things or viruses or something else. So Kim forwarded it rather than me copying it in because I'm the customer in this circumstance.
Robin
And so Kim just needed to forward it on. We do have people that set up automatic rules on their emails so that all emails they send out automatically get copied into Tracker Filer. And that works well.
Robin
So then you're guaranteed to have a central copy of everything. But this means, of course, that anybody can look in the folder and see the correspondence, see the email trail at any point without having to look in somebody else's email or ask around the office.
Robin
So it's really good if you've got sales teams or you've got people, multiple people doing a job, doing a role. Brilliant, Kim. Hopefully that made sense. I'm getting thumbs up here on the Q&A. Should we do the same for a project?
Kim
Brilliant, so if I win this quotation, so I'll mark it as one and create my project from here because it's by far the easiest way to create a project. Put in project manager, so let's make that me, that's fine, that's my job, all nicely created and I've got the project number here.
Kim
So anything that I want to file now into this project I can do in exactly the same way, so if I were to start a new email, OK, so Robin do you want me to send this to your normal one?
Robin
Don't mind, yeah, whatever you like.
Kim
Yeah, so if I send this one to you, and I'll say. Something in there. So make sure I copy in Tracker Fileer.
Robin
You got your drunk, drunk typing going on there again.
Kim
Oh, gosh, I'm not doing very well with this, am I?
Robin
Doesn't matter.
Kim
Do apologize I'll send that to you.
Robin
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. So this is the sort
Robin
of email you'd send to confirm a piece of work isn't it so this is as you say you've won the quote you're sending an email out with the project number so that your client has got the reference number and by copying in Tracker Filer that email in itself will be filed.
Kim
Sorry, I will just correct that. There we go. That's great. So for my name. Lovely. That'll do. I'm going to send that to you. So I said that because I've copied in Tracker Filer, it means it will automatically go into here as well.
Kim
So I get to see that going out here.
Robin
And if you wanted it to go to a project and a quote, if you'd have mentioned the quote number in that email as well, that would have had the same effect, wouldn't it? In fact, the email that you had before from me with the site plans, if you just forward that, if you want to just try that, Kim, just to prove it, if you forward that to Tracker Filer with the project number in, that's something we do all the time.
Robin
Yeah, so this one.
Kim
Yeah, so this one, if I forward it on, if I just forward it, so I'm not replying to the customer this time. Perhaps I'm just sending it off to Tracker Filer. That's great. So we've got the quote number in there, but I also want to file it against the project number.
Kim
I can simply do that, even if I'm not sending it on to somebody, just do it to Tracker Filer with the number.
Robin
Brilliant. And that now will be in two places that will be filed away in the project folder, but also in the quote folder, which is nice because that makes it that easy to define things, isn't it, when you're looking.
Dan
Yeah, I personally love Tracker Filer. I always use it for just the example Kim did there, forwarding it on into a project and then you just got everything in one place and it's just nice and easy to find what's going on.
Robin
Right, any questions from anybody at this point? Yes, we've got a question. Thank you, Oliver. Aha, can track a filer add information to a site folder rather than a quote or project folder? So could somebody reference a site UPRN, for example?
Robin
I've asked a really hard question there, haven't I, Kim? Well, I haven't, Oliver has.
Kim
I don't think it does, but I think it's got to be either a project number or a quotation number.
Robin
But I think UPRNs a brilliant idea, isn't it?
Kim
Yeah, it is a good idea.
Robin
We'll steal that one.
Kim
New feature.
Robin
Yeah, I think UPRN is a brilliant idea, Oliver. So we'll do that. We'll make it look for UPRNs. The tricky bit, Oliver, and anyone else that's thinking about this is we, of course, have to read the emails to look for things that look like project numbers and quote numbers.
Robin
So we'll have to think of a way of referencing a UPRN or highlighting it in some way so that it can read it. But I think that's a great idea. One thing that it can do, by the way, if you ever have to call our support desk and they give you a ticket number, so you've got a problem with the system, or you've got a query and they give you a ticket number, we can actually use this for filing information against tickets as well.
Robin
So we've got a thing that says if the word ticket or problem is in an email with a reference number, then it reads it. So I think, Oliver, we could do the similar thing with site. So it might be that it's going to look for the word site and then a UPRN, and then we'll match it up on that.
Robin
Or perhaps this is where ChatGPT will come into play and it'll be sort of artificially intelligently reading emails. No more questions at the moment. So I think we'll go on to the Teams integration, if that's all right, Kim and Dan.
Robin
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a Teams meeting just as normal in Teams. And I'm going to invite you, Kim, as an attendee, okay? That's all I'm going to do at this point. And you should get an email in a second, Kim, with that invitation in.
Robin
So just bear with me while I do that. I'll put it for one o'clock today.
Dan
Robin, just on that one, could you pop it in for Friday? Cause we've got a clear day there. So it'd be easier to show.
Robin
Yeah, no problem at all. Okay, so I've just sent that. So you should have a meeting invitation now for Friday, coming by email just from Microsoft Teams, Kim, hopefully.
Kim
Oh, there we go. Nice one.
Dan
Yeah, that's a nice teams meeting to receive.
Kim
So here we go, there's my Teams meeting, thank you.
Robin
Bring down the pub. Right now, this is only in Microsoft Teams at the moment. This is in your Teams diary, but if you use Alpha Tracker's diary to manage your work, like most people do, this is a bit of a pain because this is living outside of Alpha Tracker, but this is where Tracker Filer is going to come in to play.
Robin
So, Kim, if you forward that invitation,
Kim
Okay, forwarding it to.
Robin
Tracker Filer.
Kim
Tracker Filer.
Robin
This is a relatively new feature, so not all of you might have known about this one.
Kim
I'm just going to send that as it is.
Robin
Yep.
Kim
So all I've done is put the two addresses in.
Robin
And now if you look in your diary in Alpha Tracker for Friday.
Kim
There we go.
Robin
It's automatically in. And even better than that, if Kim opens the appointment there in Alpha Tracker, there's a link to join the meeting in Teams. She hasn't even got to start Teams on Friday because the link's already there.
Robin
So that integration between Microsoft Teams meetings and Alpha Tracker is proving to be really popular. You can also, as well as forwarding the invitation like Kim did, you can actually include Tracker Filer as an attendee or an optional attendee to the meeting in the first place.
Robin
I can't share my screen very well now, Kim, because you're showing yours. I don't know if you can drag Teams on or if that's a bit tricky. Well, if it's too difficult, don't worry, but you can also just include Tracker Filer as an attendee and it has the same effect.
Kim
Lets say I've just put an appointment in for a couple of hours over here on Thursday. So we get a...
Robin
You'll just need to drag your... Yeah, just drag that on. That's it. Perfect. Thanks, Kim.
Kim
There we go. So then we've got, let's say it's a webinar discussion and who do I want to attend? Well let's, I'm going to make it, I'm going to make it Dan and then I can, if I optionally include Tracker Filer.
Robin
We did have one of our clients Kim who who saw me do this and thought the Tracker Filer was a real person and it was their job.
Kim
And they're free.
Robin
And they're free yeah.
Kim
So yeah, that's there. And if I just send that off as an invitation.
Dan
Yeah, that'll do two things now. So that'll add it into your Teams or Outlook calendar, as you can see there on Kim's screen. But then it'll also, at the same time, add it into your Alpha Tracker calendar.
Dan
So it's doing two birds with one stone. So if we refresh that, and then scroll down, I'm just wondering... There we go. Now we've got the webinar discussion showing in there. So you can do it two ways. If you've either received an invite to a meeting, you can forward it on to Tracker Filer, and then that'll go into your calendar.
Dan
Or if you're setting up a Teams meeting, for example, you can copy in Tracker Filer. And again, it will drop that into your calendar. So there's just a couple of ways you can do that.
Robin
Perfect. So just a quick recap, then we showed how Tracker Filer can file emails and attachments automatically, if you mention a quote number, a project number, we've had a request to make it work for site UPRNs.
Robin
So we'll have a look at that also works for tickets, the ticket system, by the way, I meant I mentioned it briefly, it's our internal system that we use to track tickets on our support desk, that actually will be part of Alpha Tracker in the next release.
Robin
So if you have a requirement to track queries and tickets and problems and questions from your customers, you'll be able to use the ticket system yourself. That's a new feature that's going into Alpha Tracker this next release.
Robin
We also showed how it can link through to Microsoft Teams so that you can automatically add Teams meetings into your Alpha Tracker diary, including the link back to the Teams meeting straight from Alpha Tracker.
Robin
So it integrates your diaries for you as well. And we're looking to build new features in all the time. We've got another couple of questions that have come in. One from Amanda, would it populate an Outlook calendar, Dan, if Microsoft Teams is linked to Outlook?
Dan
Absolutely, yeah, it would populate your outlook and your team's calendar, so that will work quite nicely for you there, remember.
Robin
And we've got one from George saying, would it work with Google calendars as well?
Dan
Yes, it would, yeah. So if you've got your Google Calendar sync set up, it would then sync through to your Google Calendars. So you can then go ahead and see that on your phone as well as in our phone.
Robin
Grand. Right, I think that's it, us done isn't it? We've wrapped up a couple of minutes early this time, we're getting better at it, or worse, not trying to pack so much in, we normally run five minutes over.
Robin
Thanks everybody for joining, really appreciate it. The webinar's been recorded and it will be going on YouTube in a couple of days, we get over 100 people each month watching it on YouTube, so that's nice, so it'll go on YouTube, you can share it with your colleagues, email the link around to people if you think they'd benefit from it.
Robin
And thanks again for joining, really appreciate it, see you next month, last Tuesday of the month, 12:30. Thanks a lot.
Dan
Perfect, thanks everyone.
Kim
Thank you. Bye.
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