The Vision Administration Tool

The Vision Administration Tool provides an interface to all of Vision's facilities in a single easy-to-use application. A friendly Windows-based interface allows any number of users to view and manage the information in the Vision repository. The application connects to Vision via the internet using secured Web Services so can be used anywhere. Here are some key functions:

• Manage your repository with an easy-to-use, secure, multi-user, Windows .Net application via the internet
• Manage all product information including images, documentation, images, pricing, marketing material & inventory
• Keep information online permanently adding and changing as required so that you are always ready to trade (never start a catalogue from scratch again)
• Manage your client and reseller information including sales and quotation history, delivery information, contact details, individual pricing and browsing behaviour
• Easily maintain complex and sophisticated price tiers by organisation, product, product group, category, volume, margin, markup, discount, contract price and date
• Create as many views of your products and services as you need and customise what each user sees at the click of a mouse
• Create brochures and newsletters directly from your Vision repository
• Online content management for websites and catalogues suit novice and graphic design users
• Update the repository in real time
• Control access via sophisticated roles and permission management
• Choose to review and approve content changes with batches and workflow
• Analyse your sales performance online

Product Information
Product information can be viewed and maintained online using the Product Maintenance Tool. All product attributes can be maintained including optional items such as PLUs, barcodes, bill of materials, a wide range of price and cost fields, an unlimited number of descriptive text and images as well as customisable fields. Remember that some or all of your product information can be maintained automatically via online synchronisation with other systems or online import/export facilities.

You can specify preferred display templates for website and printed materials and switch them at the click of a button. Integrated content management tools allow you to interactively create or insert WYSIWYG HTML content for use in websites and printed materials. Add related material here as well such as manuals, schematics, white papers, multimedia and download material. Preview of the product can be made at any time.

Website Structure and Content
The structure of your website and electronic catalogues can be managed online using the Category Maintenance Tool. Categories allow you to organise product and service offerings into logical groupings. An unlimited number of views of your catalogue can be created and you can easily control which views or parts of views you make available to each client user. The appearance and content of categories and products can be switched at the click of a button. Category maintenance also provides all the content management facilities of product maintenance (see above) and preview of categories can be made at any time.

Image and Multimedia Library
Vision includes a library for the storage and management of multimedia, images and marketing text. There is no limit to the size and type of content which can be stored in Vision. Content can be viewed, changed and categorised online and easily uploaded and downloaded to your desktop. Once loaded into the Vision library you have a definitive repository for all of your sales and marketing related materials. Vision tools then make it easy for you to use your materials in websites, catalogues, pricebooks, brochures, information kiosks and in-store screens.

Content Management
Vision's in-built templates or custom ones you create yourself mean users need no HTML or javascript skills. A simple interface allows you to select a template and enter your text and multimedia to create content on-the-fly. You can switch templates at any time and your content is preserved and represented in the new look. For users wanting to add more swish Vision provides easy-to-use content management tools to prepare materials online or load up materials you have already developed. The HTML editor allows even novice users to prepare content with their chosen fonts, colours, tables, links, images and formatting. More experienced users can develop HTML in their preferred tool and load it directly. The HTML editor shows the resulting HTML as you work. You can preview your material at any time at the click of a button. Once you have created content it can be reused in all of Visions tools.

Users, Permissions and Personalisation
Every feature of Vision is controlled by comprehensive access control. External users can self register, client organisations can manage their own users and new administrative users can be created anytime. All users can be managed centrally or users can manage their own profiles. Permissions are controlled by easy to manage roles which can be created, altered and assigned online to suit the way you and your clients work. If they choose, external organisations can further manage the permissions of their own staff. As well as permission and workflow personalisation Vision is built on a content management engine which allows you to quickly tailor each user's experience of your sales and marketing efforts. A system of smart catalogues allow you to create views of your content and assign them in any mix to your clients. Customised pricing facilities use "smart" price tiers allowing you to quickly create simple or complex customised pricing for each individual (see Vision Pricing on this site).

Sales Order Management and Telesales
Clients can create requests for quotation or orders online via the website with optional workflow to allow them to define an internal approval process before the order is placed. They have access to order history, order status information and standing orders to fasttrack order creation. Once placed, the Vision administrative tool offers a comprehensive sales order management process with customisable workflow to direct quotations for response and undertake actions such as approval, stock allocation and despatch requests.

The order interface is suited to high-speed telesales operation or internal order creation. Ordering uses client specific pricing so always uses the right price for every client and volume break. Delivery and billing addresses are maintained online and support "drop ship" operations.

Import/Export Facilities
Even if you use Vision's automated data synchronisation facilities sometimes you need an easy way to upload or download data to your desktop. The administration tool offers import and export facilities to quickly update batches of information such as product and image updates. Imported material is put into a draft batch for review and approval prior to publishing to ensure quality and timing of updates.

Change Management
Vision provides a powerful framework to address the issues of change managment. Vision keeps changes in draft batches controlled by configurable workflow to manage review, approval and publishing. Changes created by one user are locked from change by other users and reviewers can see a before and after view of the changes made. Vision's easy-to-use facilities to control what a user sees can be used to create wholesale change without affecting the already published material. You can trial new content yourself or with selected pilot clients to ensure transition is issue free, migrating to new content or even switching back to your previous content in case of quality issues.

Analysis Tools and Reporting
Vision comes with tools to quickly see the state of your sales and marketing efforts. Targetted garphical reports quickly pinpoint key product and category performance. Interactive tools allow you to analyse more deeply browsing, purchase, volume and margin information by date, client, organisation and products filtered in any group and combination. Use these tools to understand your up-to-the-minute sales performance by territory or product group.

Other Facilities
Vision offers far-reaching functionality and not every feature can be described here, but some additional features offered in the administration tool include:

• simple online configuration management to tailor all sorts of Vision's operation in real time
• point and click management of smart catalogues to control user visibility
• smart, customisable, fast search facilities
• in-built on/off filtering in every screen to speed and simplify operations
• tools for creation and sending of newsletters
• tools to develop and publish answers to frequently asked questions
• a price caclulator to help you track real inventory costs and set strategic pricing
• brochure creation and generation
• bulk image association
• supplier maintenance

[Back To Vision]

An easy-to-use, Windows based tool suited for use by everyone from novice to expert that can be used via the internet from anywhere in the world to view and maintain every aspect of your sales and marketing operations.