Buyer's Guide

The Buyer's Guide is a collection of addon components which provide a member directory for a subset of membership. The functionality is designed to encourage suppliers guide listees to upgrade their display in the guide. They can do this by paying for banner ads, enhanced listings, priority placement within a category. You the owner of the site determine which organizations are displayed by manually selecting each organization you wish to include.

Terms

Directory Manager 

The individual with the website who is responsible for managing the Buyer's Guide

Account Contact 

The contact as the customer/member organization who is responsible for the organization's listing

Directory Landing Page 

The initial page where visitors land when they go to the directory.

Directory Ad Types 

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Directory Banner Ads 

these are records that are created by Buyer's Guide admins and managed by Organization account contacts

Directory Placements 

the list of available placements (display order) that can be purchased in the Buyer's Guide

Directory Showcase Ads 

these are the ads that rotate within the subcategory list on the landing page of the directory

Directory Subcategories 

Filter or heading for business classifications that can be associated with each organization.

Organization Subcategories 

These are records that associate organizations to Directory Subcategories.

Organizations 

companies in the organizations table

Account Contacts Group 

A group that contains all account contacts.

Banner Ad 

Horizontal, Vertical and Product Showcase positions

Product Showcase Ad 

Link-able rotating ads on the Directory Landing Page.

Enhanced Listings 

An enhanced listing is an enhancement to the Organization Details Page and an enhancement to the listing in the results page. With an enhanced listing, the listing also gets a vanity URL to the listing.

Organization Details Page 

Lists the details of an organization.

Premium / Priority Placement 

The position within the category and/or the position on the page where the organization's listing appears.

Roles

Site Owner 

The organization that runs the site.

Account Contact 

The person at the organization who manages their listing

Directory Administrator 

An employee of the Site Owner who assigns Account Contacts.

How-To

Setup the Buyer's Guide

Go to the navigator and open manage add-ons, look for an open supplier guide. Here you will find the tables and tools to setup and manage the Buyer's Guide.

• Enter Organizations into organizations table
• use the initialize tool - the initialize tool is in the Buyer's Guide add-on collection in the navigator, running this add-on will initialize all the data in the Directory tab from other fields in the record this only needs to be run once.
• Add directory subcategories to the table Directory Subcategories, these are the business classification filters for the directory.
• check the appropriate organizations to Include in Directory, by checking the box "include in directory" under the directory tab in the organization record, and then individually assign Directory Subcategories to each Organization
• Assign account contacts to those included organizations

Setup the Buyer's Guide

To begin using the directory, you must install it on your site, update your data and add the Buyer's Guide addon to your public site. The Buyer's Guide handles its ecommerce transactions with the Invoice Manager. If you do not already have it installed, it will be installed automatically.

1. Open the Addon Manager and install the Buyer's Guide
2. Open the Admin Navigator to the Buyer's Guide folder. Click on Directory Categories and add the Categories you would like to appear in your directory. Each Subscategory you enter also has the main category under which it will be located.
3. Add an Organization to the Buyer's Guide

Add an Organization to the Buyer's Guide

1. Add or edit the organizations you would like to appear by selecting Categories in the Categories tab
2. Check the box in the Directory tab to include this organization.
3. In the Directory tab are all the fields that will display on the directory. If you are entering data the first time and would like all the address information transferred from the details tab to the Directory tab for all organizations, there is an initialization tool available to developers.
4. Assign account contacts to those included organizations
5. Setup your desired Directory Placements

Assign an Account Contact to an organization

1. Edit the contact's people record and add them to the Account Contacts Group
2. Edit the organization and select this contact as the Account Contact, under the directory tab.

Assign a new directory sub-category placement association for an organization (or How to add an organization to the guide by category)

Open Manage Add-ons, look for and click on Buyer's Guide, Click on "Organization Subcategories" This will display all of the current records that associate organizations to categories. To create a new record at the top of the page click on the “Add” button. This will open a blank record. Here you need to:

1. check the “approved” box to make the record show on the site,
2. select the organization from the drop down list field “Organization”,
3. select the subcategory you wish to associate the organization to,
4. Select the type of placement (if you don't select a placement type the listing will not display), and set the date expired. (Note: If this is one of the 3 free listing leave the date expired blank).
5. Click "OK" to save the record or "save and add" to save and add another.

Create a Priority Placement

When a user calls in to upgrade to a priority placement, the Admin takes the request over the phone, including credit card information and enters the transaction into MemberMax. Once the transaction is complete, the Admin goes to the admin site and enters the placement.

Admin/manage add-ons/supplier directory, click on the “+” sign to open the information buckets, click on “Organization Subcategories”, these are all the records that associate organizations to categories. Using “filters” search for the organization you need. This will return all of the current sub-categories for the organization.

If the priority listing is for an existing association you can edit the listing, by clicking on the “edit icon” (green paper with pencil) and open the record.

With the record open you update the listing to a priority by selecting what they purchased from the drop down menu called “*Placement”.

Once done click on the “OK” button at the top or bottom of the record and your changes will be saved and reflected on the directory.

You can also change the subcategory by selecting the new one in the drop down menu filed called “subcategory”.

Add Directory Subcategories

To add/edit directory subcategories and categories; first, navigate to the admin site to find the appropriate information bucket; Admin/manage add-ons/supplier directory, click on the “+” sign to open the information buckets, click on “Directory Subcategories”. This display the list of current records.

To add a record, click on the “add” button at the top of the page. This will open a blank subcategory record. Simply fill out the fields (see below) and click “OK” at the top of the page. This will make the record visible in the directory and available for selection in placements. Name- This is the name of the subcategory, as it will display on the site. Category – This is the “main” category heading as it will display on the site.

To edit a subcategory record select the record you wish to edit from the list then select the edit icon to open the record.

Create an Enhanced Listing

When a user calls in to upgrade to an Enhanced listing, the Buyer's Guide rep takes the request over the phone, including credit card information and enters the transaction into invoice manager. Once the transaction is complete, the admin goes back to the site and enters the information Navigate to the admin site to find the appropriate information bucket; Admin/manage add-ons/supplier directory, click on the “+” sign to open the information buckets, click on “organizations”.

This lists out all of the member organizations in the directory. Find the organization you are looking for and click the edit tag to open the record.

Click on the check box in the field “Is Enhanced Listing” and then click “OK” at the top of the page to save the change. This will automatically make the listing an enhanced listing and send a system email to the contact person in the account record notification that their listing is now enhanced and they can update their information.

Setup a Banner Ad

Banner ads are created and authorized by the Directory Manager, but can be managed by the Account Contact for the Advertiser.

1. Directory Manager sells the ad and processes the transaction
2. Directory Manager creates the Banner Ad
   1. Navigate to the admin site > navigator > manage add-ons > open supplier directory
   2. Click on Directory Banner Ads. This will display all of the banner ad records in the directory.
   3. Add a new Directory Banner Ad by clicking Add. This will open a blank Directory banner Ad record.
   4. Fill out the Name and Organization fields on the “Details” tab and click “OK” to save the changes.

1. Now the Advertiser can log-in to the directory and configure the Ad Banners

1. When the Advertiser has finished updating their ad, the Directory Manager can go back to the record and check the Approved By Directory checkbox, making the banner live.

Setup a Product Showcase Ad

When a user calls in to upgrade to purchase a Product Showcase Ad, the Admin takes the request over the phone, including credit card information and enters the transaction into MemberMax. Once the transaction is complete, Admin goes to the admin site and enters the update to the account for the showcase ad(s).

First, navigate to the admin site to find the appropriate information bucket; Admin/manage add-ons/supplier directory, click on the “+” sign to open the information buckets, click on “Directory Showcase Ads”.

This will display all of the Showcase ad records in the directory. To give an organization authorization to place a banner ad click the “Add” button at the top f the page. This will open a blank “Directory banner ad” record. Fill out the fields under the “Details” tab and click “OK” to save the changes. Name- This is the name of the record it is good practice to name the ad so that you can remember who it is for Organization- This is a drop down select to associate the ad to the company who purchased it. Approved by Directory- This is a check box that updates the organizations “My Account” form to allow them to upload showcase ad information. • Date Expires- this field is a date (mm/dd/yy) that the ad will expire from the directory and no longer be visible on the site.

To edit a “Directory Showcase Ad” record (to extend the expiration date for example) find the record in the list and click the edit icon. Make whatever changes you need and then click “OK” button at the top of the page.

Reference

Initialize Directory Records

Each organization in the system has a tab for the directory. The fields in that tab are what the directory displays. To copy the fields from the details tab to the directory tab, go to the bottom of the directory and uncheck the box label Directory Fields Initialized and click OK.

Buyer's Guide Settings

Use this tool to configure custom settings for the Buyer's Guide.

This link allows you to control some of the settings for the directory; the items that you can manage globally are represented in the fields below:

First, navigate to the admin site to find the appropriate information bucket; Admin/manage add-ons/Buyer's Guide, click on the “+” sign to open the information buckets, click on “Buyer's Guide Settings”. This will open a form that allows you to edit settings.

• Buyer's Guide MEMBER LINK –
• Buyer's Guide MEMBER COMPANY CAPTION- This is the display of the text mentioned above.
• Buyer's Guide MEMBER COMPANY LINK - This is the destination link for the text that displays when a listing is a member of TCA
• Buyer's Guide EXHIBITOR CAPTION – The display text when an organization is an exhibitor
• Buyer's Guide EXHIBITOR LINK – This is the destination link for the caption above
• Buyer's Guide SHOWCASE CAPTION - The display text for the Directory Showcase Ad
• Buyer's Guide TEST MODE – When checked the system will not send system emails to the contacts in the accounts but to the test email entered in the below field
• Buyer's Guide TEST EMAIL ADDRESS – This where you enter the test email address

Buyer's Guide Vanity URL Processor

This tool creates a custom vanity URL on the website for every organization in the system. The URL is constructed as [Buyer's Guide Vanity URL Prefix] + [Organization Name], then special characters such as & and ? are replaced with dashes. The [Buyer's Guide Vanity URL Prefix] is a value you can set in the Buyer's Guide Settings. Be careful to ensure the final name is not used on the website for other pages or services.

for example, if you set the [Buyer's Guide Vanity URL Prefix] = "Directory/" and you have a organization named "ACME Shoes", a URL will be created http://www.yoursite.com/Directory/ACME-Shoes