Friday, August 15, 2008

Enhancement: Live Search

Besides the detailed search options on the search tab, PlaybookIQ also offers a quick search on the contacts tab. As you type in the search box, your contacts are filtered to all contacts with first name, last name, or company name starting with your search phrase.



Type sm ... and as you type...



... smi ...



This search box is also a quick way to find everyone in a given company.



We've made it faster


With recently improved indexing strategies, this search box is the quickest way to find someone when you know their first name, last name, or company. If you receive a phone call while at your desk, you can quickly find their PlaybookIQ CRM record, open it, and be ready to read through their comments and history all within a few seconds.

Give is a try at http://playbookiq.com. We think you'll enjoy how quickly you can find and open a contact.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

New Feature: Import Contacts from CSV Files

What is CSV?

Comma-separated values (CSV) file format is the most common and easily understood way to manage generic data. A CSV file is simply a straight text file in which each row of text is a contact (in our case). Data in each row is separated by commas and optionally enclosed in quotes. A simple CSV file looks something like this:

"first name", "last name", "company"
"John", "Jackson", "ABC Inc."
"Mary", "Smith", "Widgets LLC."

Microsoft Outlook, ACT, Excel and just about every other software application can export its data in CSV format. More detail about CSV can be found "here".

How does PlaybookIQ support CSV?

Because CSV is so common and flexible, PlaybookIQ supports import of contacts from generic CSV files so you can quickly move contacts from another application to into into PlaybookIQ.

Here is what it looks like:


Step 1: Prepare your data for import.


The import feature leads you through the process step-by-step. The first step is simply to review your data file to ensure it is a valid CSV file. Step 1 describes what a valid file is so that you can visually review your file before proceeding.




Step 2: Select your import file.


PlaybookIQ imports files from your local computer. In Step 2, you simply tell PlaybookIQ which local file you want to use.




Step 3: Upload file for parsing and inspection of field names


In this step, PlaybookIQ reads your file and attempts to match data to PlaybookIQ fields. The process of matching your data to contact fields is called 'mapping'.




Step 4: Map fields


For fields that PlaybookIQ could not automatically map, you are prompted to determine the mapping. For data that you wish to exclude from the import, you simply leave the mapping field blank.




Done!


From here, you can now perform the standard bulk-tasks to the newly imported contacts:
add a tag, assign to a playbook, add a task




We are excited about this new, flexible import feature.