Nice to Meet You! Now that you are registered on appliance.io, let's get you through platform configuration so you can start navigating around the system more confidently and really engaging with it!
GET READY TO LEARN ALL ABOUT SETTINGS
SETTINGS 1.0 | SETTINGS 2.0 |
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SETTINGS 3.0 | SETTINGS 4.0 |
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1.1: Connecting with Us
WATCH THE FUN VIDEO HERE or read the article below, your choice!
You can reach the AIO Team anytime through the side "HELP" tab on any screen of the platform. When you click it you will have 3 options:
Got a Question?
When submitting a question, you will notice you are redirected to the bottom chat icon. Type out your question here and include an images that might help us understand by simply pasting them right in the messenger field.
While in the messenger, notice you can access all of your open conversations with us, this is important because you might have several quetions you have asked and need to access the answers. The Help Guide also lives here.
Please begin new chats for each new topic or issue you may have. This is so important so we have the information we need and can answer you with quickness and efficiency!
Reporting Bugs!
If you are having issues or need to report a bug in the system.. Keep it cool, we're with you, just report that bug!
Please be as descriptive as you can. It's so important to give as much detail as possible upfront, to avoid the back and forth. Pics are a must! You can even take a short screen recording, you just have to choose that before the screenshot option!
Once you've notified us, our brilliant dev team will be hard at work and once your bug has been resolved, they will notify you here. They will even give you a link back to your original inquiry so we're all in the loop together!
We LOVE Hearing about Your Ideas!
We absolutely Love to hear every one of your ideas to help make us better! Please tell us your full vision for the feature! Your Why is the most important. Why? Because you want it the way you want it, am I right? Letting us know what goal you were trying to accomplish is also crucial, their might already be a way to do what you want somewhere else, or it will help us figure out how best to implement your idea!
Always Give us Your WHY
Details are important! How do you see your new idea working? Where in the system would you prefer to see it? and How do you expect it to work?
While Onboarding
When you are first onboarding, we will be in communication via email so that we can get your inventory loaded, all of your defaults set and arrange your e-commerce settings. Then we ask that you please continue the discussion through the chat feature.
To schedule an initial meeting with Katie to go through all of the details and see just how easy it will be to integrate your needs into our solutions, just follow this link to get on her calendar.
To schedule a meeting to discuss a website build, hop on Michaels calendar here, he is our website manager.
To schedule full onboarding Training via Google Meet, hop on Katie's calendar here.
If you are interested in live-in-person training for you or your whole team, just let Katie know and arrangements can be made!
1.2: Company Details & Locations
WATCH THE FUN VIDEO HERE or read the article below, your choice!
Pretty simple stuff here, but don't skip it - there's a few details you will want to catch!
Head over the Side-Bar Menu on the left side of your screen. There, at the bottom with the gear icon, you will find "Settings".
First Tab - Company
Here you can upload your logo. We support JPEG, PNG, JPG. Max size is 5MB. This will be displayed on your website we build for you and your invoices or anything else you print from the platform.
Notice your PARTNER ID at the top there. This designates your company across the platform. Just take note of its location.
The basic information you provided us when you registered will be pre-loaded for you. Please run through it to confirm the accuracy.
The first email is your company email, this will be used in the "Contact Us" section of your website footer.
The Email Sender is listed to the right. On each email sent through quotes, orders or notifications there is a toggle where the sender can choose "send from salesperson". If this toggle is turned off, this will be the default email that is used.
Next are your Social Media Accounts. If you add them here, they will appear in the footer of your website we build for you to help you advertise!
Sales Settings
Require a customer email to start a quote: This Option will require your salespeople to get the customers email before starting any quote. It's a good way to ensure you can easily follow up on any customers that don't buy today
Show cost in inventory for all employees: Showing your cost for items with your employees is up to you. You set each cost when you enter it into inventory and even if you choose not to activate this option, your salespeople will still be able to see the profits and margins.
Required "How did you hear about __(your company name)__?: If you activate the how did you hear about us question, your salespeople will be required to get this answer from each customer before beginning a quote
Activate a custom model feature on Quote?:This will allow additional pieces to be added to a quote that is not in your inventory. Some users use this for additional labor costs, or odds and ends that are non-serialized items.
Protection Plan Lockout for Delivered Items: Most warranty providers allow protection plans to be added 0-90 days after delivery. Activate this setting if you wish for protection plans to only be added before delivery."
Restocking Fee
Here you have lots of options:
1st you can choose to apply a restocking fee to either all returns, or delivered items only.
2nd you can choose to use a predetermined percentage that you will designate in the field below, or have your employees enter it manually at the point of return.
3rd you can choose to either lock your selected restocking fee amount across the platform or choose to lock the designated amount as the minimum. This gives your employess the option to charge a higher re-stocking fee if they see fit.
Location Settings
Now, hop over to the top tab called "Location Settings". Time to get those set up!
At the top right, choose "+Create New Location"
You will want a separate location for every place you sell or store items. When your salespeople reserve item, they will choose the location to reserve them from.
For example, if you work with large contractor orders, it's a good idea to set a location named "Contractor Inventory". This way you can set those items aside, and lock it so your salespeople don't reserve from that location
You will not create a separate location for items in a different condition, such as "on display" or "floor model" - you will designate that later in your condition settings.
Location Code : Choose a short code for each location, this will be displayed on orders, under an icon.
Location Manager: Note that you cannot choose your location manager until they are added as a user from the main settings under "Users". You can always hop back here once you have that info in. Go ahead and fill out the rest of the details here.
Store Hours: Make sure to set your store hours accurately. This will be reflected on your website as well.
Save! Don't forget to save your updates! And remember to pop back here to assign your store manager if you haven't done it already.
1.3: Adding Users & Assigning Roles
Time to get your employees loaded in the system!
WATCH THE FUN VIDEO HERE or read the article below, your choice!
Before you get started: You'll want to grab all of the details for your employees that will be using the Platform.
Full Names
Emails
Photos
Direct Phone numbers
Cell Numbers, if you wish
Now that you have everything, hop over to "Users" from the Settings Page.
Here is where you will find your current user list and details, once it's created. You can have your salespeople, delivery drivers, warehouse workers, store managers, warehouse managers, buyers, anybody you wish!
To add a new user, just select "+Add New User" from the top right
From the box that populates, you simply upload their photo, add their name, email and contact numbers right there.
Create a job title and description
Choose the location where they will work from the drop-down for default location. Remember, you created those locations under Company Settings earlier. Now just select their role.
Don't forget to set the password and keep track of those. There is not currently a way to see the existing passwords, only change them FYI.
Invite Users Option: You can also invite new users to make it quicker by choosing this option. It's located just to the left of "Add New User".
Simply add their email address and assign their role. They will fill in the rest of the details and choose their own password.
From the Main Users List you can From that main list, you can easily edit any of your users detail by clicking the edit pencil. FYI- you will see those pencils all over the platform!
Right next to the pencil, you can also edit their password, super simple.
The last icon their is to archive a user.
Notice at the top their is a tab for archived users as well, you can always bring the back if you choose. We like to use this format throughout the platform so you will be seeing very similar page formats as we move along.
1.4: Product Catalogue
Ok let's get get your brands in, review your categories and set up all of your conditions. We're moving along nicely here.
WATCH THE FUN VIDEO HERE or read the article below, your choice!
Hop on over to Product Catalogue right from the settings page.
This is your Product Catalogue. You have brands, categories, and conditions in the tabs along the top.
Brands
Notice you can slide each brand on or off. Slide on every brand you will have in your inventory.
The Brands re-arrange; See how when you toggle one off, they re-arrange. This is to always keep the active brands at the top of your list.
There's that edit pencil again, off to the right at the end of the row. Use it to edit your brand names.
Add a custom brand: Incase we don't have a Brand loaded that you sell, just pop it in with the "Add Custom Brand" button.
Name it and move on! Some Clients use this to add small items they might sell at the register, like range cords for example. Anything that would not be serialized.
You can expand the items shown on the page at the bottom left. Keep in mind many of the pages you will come across have the option to expand the amount of items shown, to make things move faster!
There's that archive icon again, last icon in the row to the far right. Archive any brands you don't want to show on your list.
Categories
Tab over at the top to Categories.
This is your category map.
Categories are defined at sub-levels for a certain group of appliances directly related to each other.
Visualize your inventory: This is really just a mapping visual so you can see how all of your categories are listed in the system. We have them all pre-loaded for you.
Add a custom category: You might need to add a new category. For example, maybe you sell dryer ducts, PEX piping, or other random items you want to organize. Just use this guy!
Conditions
Tab over at the top to the third option, conditions.
Conditions are designated based on the physical state of an appliance. The only exception to this rule is using the "Floor Model" condition. Just choose add a new condition from the top right there and follow the prompts, pretty simple.
Notice the toggle to the right to turn this condition ON or OFF for the digital floor tags.
Most clients would choose the default as new so when you are loading up inventory it's already selected for you, but's your choice of course.
Use the edit pencil for changes at any time.
The last icon in these rows is the good old trash ca, delete as you wish!
Keep in mind, at least 1 condition must always remain active at all times.
1.5: Install Settings
WATCH THE FUN VIDEO HERE or read the article below, your choice!
Head on over to INSTALLS from the Settings Page.
We have pre-loaded all of the default Install settings for you here. You can see there are a lot. We have gone ahead and toggled them all on for you to start. But you will want to sort through them and be sure to toglle off any you don't plan to offer. Notice their are separate toggles for offering the install on either the platform and/or the website.
Layout
First, notice that clicking the drop-down arrow under the name, the drop-down displays all of the categories that specific install will apply to.
This breaks it down to sub and even detail category so you can be very specific in what products the install will be offered and you have complete control.
Before we get to sorting, notice the layout of the page.
We have the install name:
This is the name of your install, it will be displayed this way for your salespeople to choose from the system or your customers directly from the website so make sure it is listed the way you want.
We have the description:
This is the full install description, it defines everything the install will entail. This is not the place to hold back on details. Be clear and upfront about exactly what is going to happen.
We have the price
This is the price of the install
We have toggles to determine where the install will be offered:
Platform
Website
Both or neither
As normal, you are able to use the edit pencil to the right to edit any of these details, and you have the option to archive any of the installs.
When an install is archived it is moved from the Active tab to the archive view. You can switch tabs att he top under the manage installs title.
Sorting Your Installs List View
There are various ways to filter down your results so that you can easily access a group of installs that you might want to view or edit at once.
You can use the category search drop-down to select a category, next you would break that down further by selecting from the detail category drop-down.
After results are populated, you can also use the free search to the left to narrow those results even further.
You can also start with the free search : Notice how this search was pretty loose and therefore resulted in a mixed bag of options without any additional filters.
At this point, you can always narrow down your results by utilizing the category filters.
You can reset the filter at any time by selecting reset filter.
CREATE A NEW INSTALL
To create an install that is not already listed, simply select the create a new install button to the top right of the page.
Begin by entering your Install Name, description, and price.
BRANDS
The default will be for each install to apply to ALL brands. This is where you can narrow down certain installs to only apply to specific brands if you like.
Categories
Now we get down to exactly which categories you want this install displayed for. Remember, if an appliance does not fit into one of your selections here, it will not be an option to add the install. So make sure you cover all of your categories.
Add as many categories that you need to get it all lined out properly.
