DayClips Administration for Dummies
1. Service Providers
The first menu item shows a list of current service providers from which everything service provider related can be dealt with. A dropdown above the list can be used to quickly filter this list on:
· Trials
A trial is a service provider that signed up for the 30 day trial period without choosing one of the two possible contracts yet (monthly fee or per appointment payment). A trial is NOT a service provider that’s still in his 30 days free period of a paying contract.
· Dead Trials
Dead trials are trials that were ended and not converted into a paying contract.
· Paying Providers
Service providers with a paid contract and who are not paying delinquents. Note that “paid contracts” also include zero dollar contracts.
· Payment Delinquents
Service Providers with a paid contract who have not paid their fee within the grace period after their due date. This grace period can be set in the “Tools” menu of the Admin Exec site.
Trials:
A trial can only be started from the signup page; you cannot start a trial from the Admin Exec site. You can, however, extend a trial from the service providers list by clicking on the “change” link in the “trial End” column; a popup will be shown where you can enter a new date for the trial. Entering a date in the past will end the trial, entering a date higher than the current end date will extend it.
Note that by ending the trial this way, it does not convert into a paid contract. For that you click the “convert” link in the “Trial” column; that will show a popup that allows to choose the contract type and set the next payment date and fee. By default the next payment date is calculated off the trial end date; trial end date for monthly payments (since those are being paid in advance) and trial end date plus 1 month for payment per appointment, since those charge the provider over confirmed appointments in the past month. The default fee is set to what’s specified for the contract in the “Tools” menu of the Admin Exec site. Both date as well as fee can be overruled.
Next Payment Date:
The next payment date can be changed from within the list of service provider by clicking on the “change” link in the “Next Payment Date”. You can de-activate an account by setting a date in the past and re-activate it by setting it in the future. Note that an account is only deactivated after the grace period (set in the “Tools” menu) has expired, so you’ll need to set it far enough in the past to actually de-activate the account.
Subscription Type and Fee:
These can only be changed in the service provide details page; click on the name of the provider in the list and select the payment type you want and then enter the fee you want. Leaving the fee empty means it will be using the default fees set in the “Tools” menu.
Changing the default fees and grace period:
Go to the “Tools” menu and change the payment settings section as required. Not that service providers that were set to use the default fees will automatically be charged the new fees on their next payment date; service providers who are being charged a different than the default fee will keep being charged their usual fee; nothing changes for those service providers, except the grace period, which cannot be set on an individual basis.
Payments:
A list of payments made from service providers can be seen on the “Payments” menu. This is a read-only list; nothing can be changed to payments that have been made. You can click the invoice number link in the list to view the invoice related to the payment.
Changing the details of a service provider:
Click the name of the service provider you want to change in the grid and you’ll be redirected to a page where you can change all the details of the provider.
Creating a new service provider:
Click the “Add” button above the list of service providers. You’ll be redirected to a page where you can enter all the details of a service provider. However, it is not advisable to create a new service provider this way; it is better to do that using the regular signup page as you’ll be creating an admin user for the account that way as well and that page contains a lot more sanity checks.
Deleting a service provider:
Mark the checkboxes of the service provider(s) you want to delete and click the “Delete” button above the list. Note that this action cannot be undone so be very careful with this functionality.
Merging several service providers into a single account:
Mark the checkboxes of the service providers that you want to merge and click the “Merge”. You’ll be redirected to a page where you must make a choice of which account will be the remaining account after the merge and, when you continue with the merging process, all other accounts will be merged into the chosen account, including staff and appointments. Note that this action cannot be undone, so use it with care.
2. Members
This menu allows to search for and edit, delete or merge existing members. Not that you cannot add members from the Admin Exec site, nor is it possible to show the entire list of members; you can only list members based on a search criteria. The merge process is the same as the one for service providers; select the members to merge, choose the account that should remain after the merge and the rest will be merged into that account. Not that, just like service providers, deletes and merges cannot be made undone.
3. Web Designers
This menu shows a list of applications from web designers. Details of an application cannot be changed. There is only one thing that can be done from within this menu and that’s telling the system that an application has been activated/processed. You do that by clicking on the “no” link in the “Activated” column of the list; it will then flip to “yes”, which is not a link anymore and can’t be changed back.
4. Profile Claims
This menu shows a list of claimed profiles (from the service provider services page). Like the web designers list, it is a read-only list and you can only mark the claim as being processed by clicking the “no” link in the “Processed” column, which will replace the link with the text “yes”.
5. Statistics
A report of confirmed appointments per service provider in a certain category. Note that the date pickers on this page do not work; you’ll have to enter the dates manually.
6. Occupation
Maintenance of the list of categories that’s sown on the website.
7. Country & Time Zone
Maintenance of the list of countries and time zones on the website. Very unlikely that something will ever need to be changed here.
8. Testimonials
Maintenance of DayClips testimonials.
9. Pages
This is where you can add, edit and remove static content pages. There a re three types of pages:
· Default Links, which cannot be deleted and you can’t add new ones either. They are content from some of the main website pages.
· Custom pages. Use to add custom pages to the website or change/remove existing ones.
· Help pages. Use to add, edit and remove help pages to the website.
10. Articles
Use to add/edit remove article pages and set the layout of the articles list page and set the options of the articles list page (note that the “Layout Column” option of the article list options doesn’t have a function anymore. Article pages are just like other custom pages, except that they are being stored in the “/articles” subdirectory and their title and short description is listed on the article list page.
11. Banners
For promotional uses. Use to add/edit/remove banners to the website. Not that the right banner does not exist anymore; that has been moved to the bottom.
12. Newsletters
Use to edit/edit/remove/send newsletters. Sending a newsletter can only be done from the details page of the newsletter; mark the newsletter to be sent and click “Modify”. Then select the recipients from the “To” dropdown and click “Send”.
13. Error Log
This is a list of all system errors. A link at the top (“view old log”) shows the old list of errors; not likely to be used. Clicking “view” shows a detailed log of the error being clicked.
14. Uploads
Upload files to certain directories on the server, or remove files from those directories.
15. Bounce back Config
Edit the list of email addresses to be excluded from bounce backs and the period after which bounce back notifications are being automatically deleted.
16. Email Templates
A list of email templates that the system uses when sending certain types of email. Click on the code of the template to edits its design, subject and the email addresses that this email should be BCC-ed to.
17. Tools
This is where you can set some system options:
· Sitemap submission
The interval in which the sitemap should be submitted to google.
· Auto Log Off
The period of idle time after which a user will be automatically be logged off from the system. Three different defaults can be specified for the three different sections of the website; admin exec, service provider and member. The defaults are being used for users that were created before the auto log off functionality was built and for prefilling the field on the details screen of creating a new (staff) member.
· Payment settings
Use to set the default fee for monthly and per appointment payments and the credit period; the number of days after the next payment date after which a service provider account will be de-activated.
As for making payments:
Providers do not get an invoice before they actually pay; an invoice is being generated AFTER payment has been made.
Paying service providers have an extra menu item in the header: "Payments". Clicking that will show the payments page, but only If it's actually time to make a payment; it will show "No payment due at this time" otherwise. When it IS time to make a payment, the menu item that regularly shows in the normal, black-ish color like the rest of the menu, will show red and bold instead, to draw attention to the fact that payment must be made now. Clicking the menu then will actually show the payments page and there it will show the amount to be paid for people that pay per appointment or the months that you want to pay in advance for people that pay a fixed fee per month; you can chose to pay from 1 month to 12 months ahead, so that sort of covers your wish to pay in advance for as many months as one wishes; it's just capped at one year.
If the grace period for making the payment has passed, the service provider won't be able to visit any other page, but the payment page in his account; everything that's clicked will lead to the payments page.
If payment is required for a provider that pays per appointment, but no confirmed appointments exists in the period being covered, the system will generate a zero invoice and send that to the provider, plus extend the next payment one month.
Email reminders regarding the payments are going out during the grace period to remind the provider of the fact that payment is required. The template of those reminders can be maintained on the admin exec site.
There is no report on the provider site that shows payments that were made, or when the next payment is due. Might be a good thing to create such a page. Probably not in the settings page, but as a link on the Payments page?
As for the admin exec extending a subscription:
The admin exec cannot enter payment information, but he can set the next payment date to some date in the future to extend a subscription. That can be done from the list of service providers
How can the Exec Admin convert a service provider into a "paying provider"?
You can do that on the details page of the service provider by selecting the payment method (per month or per appointment). The next payment date will then automatically be set, but that may be overridden on the service provider list.