What's new with Synchronized Portal this week? Take a look below!
Previously referred to as “Automation Templates”, the ability to build & save a set of Automations is an extremely powerful capability. These pre-built Automation sets will now be referred to as “Auto-Templates”.
Auto-Templates are designed to bring the power of Automation to your workflows when they reach a point that needs a human decision and/or interaction.
When building automated workflows, the goal will always be to fully automate as much as possible, but of course there will be times when the automation needs to stop and a human needs to be involved to review and make a decision on the next step. We call these places where a human decision/check is needed “Checkpoints” and it’s at these Checkpoints where you’ll find Auto-Templates are very powerful.
When you pre-build an Auto-Template for each possible decision or direction that may be encountered, the human (you or your Staff) simply needs to decide which is appropriate, and then trigger the Auto-Template that is associated with that decision.
For example, let’s say there are 3 possible decision outcomes (A, B & C) and thus you can create a dedicated Auto-Template for each of those possible outcomes. So if the decision is A, then your Auto-Template for that outcome (Auto-Template A) might do things like add the Target to a new Circle, remove them from another Circle, add them to a new Marketing Audience, trigger a Project Generator, send an Email to members of your Staff, fire an Email Cannon to the Target, etc.
So, the end result is that you can use the power of Automations in your workflows even in cases where a human interaction point is required (Checkpoint). Using pre-built Auto-Templates lets you and your Staff re-launch your automated workflow by instantly triggering multiple Automations with just a few clicks! Imagine the many hours that you’ll save!
And to make things even easier, you can now create, edit and manage your Auto-Templates from the new Auto-Templates list which you can find in the primary navigation. Look for the Automations > Auto-Templates menu item.
Auto-Template functionality is only available to Summit accounts
The Synchronized Portal Block Builder gives you a wide range of powerful options, but maybe the most important is the ability to show/hide individual Blocks or even entire Rows based on the logged-in user’s Circle or Team affiliation. This gives you the power to customize the content of the Portal Page or Document Templates in real time based on who is viewing the Portal Page, Document or LMS Lesson.
But wait! There’s more! We’ve now given you even more control by enabling the ability to Show/Hide any Block or Row on an individual level. This means you can create a Row/Block and designate that only one or more individual users can view that particular Row/Block. Or you can use the Hide option to show the content to everyone except one or more individual users.
With this update, you have the power to use the powerful Block Builder tools to design your Portal Pages, Document Templates and/or LMS Lessons to fit any imaginable scenario! But, keep your eyes open because this same power is on its way to the Dashboard and Proposals! Now don’t go using that POWER all in one place!
One of the many benefits of using Synchronized Portal is that when you set up your Custom URL and White Label Login Page, we also give you a fully White Labeled PWA Mobile App that you, your Staff and your Clients can install directly on their iOS or Android devices.
On Android, we are able to show a visible “Install Now” button to help your Staff/Clients get the App installed, but the option to show that same button is not yet possible on iPhone. Instead, iPhone users need to install the App by using the “Add to Home Screen” functionality built into the Safari mobile browser.
With this update, we now show a helpful message to Apple device users that will dramatically simplify the process of getting the App installed on their iPhone or iPad.
Additionally, the message will be shown to iPhone & iPad users in any mobile browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Brave, etc.) so that they will be aware and will easily understand how to get your White Label Mobile App installed on their iOS device.
Synchronized Portal’s PWA strategy continues to be validated as both Apple & Android steadily move closer and closer to full PWA support. Every few weeks, we are seeing both major mobile OS builders increase their commitment to PWA support in the form of key capabilities. For example, Apple recently announced that push notifications for mobile PWA apps on iPhone would be supported in 2023. The future is happening!
For our many customers who are using the ever-evolving and increasingly powerful Appointment Scheduling toolkit, you’ll now have another option for presenting your Appointment options to your Prospects/Clients.
FLOWs are a super-powerful onboarding and data-collection tool, but now you also have the possibility to include an “Appointment Block” Step in your FLOWs!
In addition to the current FLOW Steps (Update/General Form, eSign, File Upload, File Download and Content/Embed) you can now introduce a FLOW Step that will present the Prospect/Client with your choice of Appointment Types from which they can choose and book/reserve an Appointment at an available time.
Congratulations!! We’ve given you even more powerful options to design and build workflows that fit the way you do business!
FLOWs Automation functionality is only available to Summit accounts.
Our “No-Code Automations” widget opens up a world of possibilities everywhere it can be referenced.
One of the many places you can set up Automations is in Projects/Tasks. Tasks can be configured so that when they are marked Complete, that action will trigger the Automations that you specify for that particular Task. This can be set also on the Task Template level.
One of the possible Automations is the sending of an email to your Staff or the sending of an email to the “Assigned User” (the Client assigned to the Project), and this Automation is where this new update comes into play.
Now when you set up an Automation to send an email based on the completion of a Task or Project, you have the option of using Project/Task placeholders, and those placeholders will reference the data associated with the Project/Task that triggered the Automation.
Available options include: TaskTitle, TaskDueDate, ProjectTitle, ProjectValue, ProjectDueDate, ProjectEndDate and any other Project Custom Fields that you have created in your account.
The end result is that you can send automated emails to your Staff and Clients that directly reference the Project and/or Task that triggered the sending of that email. Get it? Got it? Good 🙂
Trigger/Action Automation functionality is only available to Summit accounts.
Task Templates are an incredibly robust way to pre-build sets of pre-assigned, pre-configured Tasks & Phases. They can be referenced and utilized as a part of Project Generators or they can be manually referenced when manually creating a new Project. They can also be merged into existing Projects either manually or via an Automation.
With this update, you are able to more efficiently merge a Task Template with a Contact’s existing Project. You are now able to accomplish this directly from the Contact’s CRM Dashboard.
Another step towards the goal of making the CRM Dashboard a “one stop shop” for handling every aspect of business, communication and collaboration with your individual Prospects/Clients.
When you “Apply a Task Template”, you’ll be prompted to help the platform determine which Project the Task Template should be applied to. In just a few clicks, the Task Template will be applied and the associated Tasks/Phases will be instantly created & assigned.
For our many customers who don’t accept online payments, or have certain scenarios where they need to accept payment using some other method, we’ve added a new option that should enhance the platform’s usability.
Now when you use the “Record Payment” option to partially or fully satisfy an open invoice, you have the option of uploading/attaching a file to that payment. This would typically be a PDF ‘proof of payment’ or receipt that was generated by another payment method.
As an example, if you agree to accept Bitcoin or some other crypto currency as payment for your Invoice, you can use this new feature to save a PDF of the payment receipt confirmation and then upload it while recording the payment.
The file(s) will then be available for your Client to view/download when they view that particular Payment from inside your Portal.
The CRM Import offers a wide range of flexible possibilities including the ability to import and update Default/Custom Fields, set/update Coordinators, etc. With this update, you not only have the ability to associate a Contact with a Company via the Import, but you can also assign a Company Category.
Company Categories are a useful tool that help you organize, filter and find Companies that fit some similarities defined by you. Company Categories are completely customizable and can be created, edited and deleted at any time.
Project Generators are an amazing way to pre-build and streamline workflows for you and your Team. Because they need to generate Projects with unique & relevant titles that can be understood by your Team, we provide data placeholders to help ensure the Project Titles fit the needs of your business. (Things like First Name, Last Name, Today’s Date, Year, etc..)
With this update, we’ve now added a placeholder that will output the first line of the Address associated with the referenced Client. Many businesses in the real estate and construction industries reference their projects by the street number/name and that’s the primary purpose of this new addition.
So now, you’ll be able to include the property’s street number/name in the actual Project Title which should help you and your Team get on (and stay on) the same page.
Kickoff Forms are critical to onboarding and reboarding prospective and existing Clients! Kickoff Forms can be used in hundreds of different ways, but one of the most useful is to let prospective Clients book an Appointment with you or your Staff.
When you include Appointment Booking in your Kickoff Forms, it’s not possible for the platform to accurately understand the Time Zone of Unknown Targets when they access the Kickoff Form in a non-logged scenario (Ex. Embedded on your website or when set up as a public Landing Page).
In this scenario, we provide a Time Zone selector for the Target so that they can make sure the times they see for available appointments are matching their local time.
This new setting/option gives you the ability to set a default Time Zone for this selector. This would be most useful in situations where your Targets are most likely to be in the same Time Zone as your business or organization.
When the Target first encounters the Appointment Booking interface, they’ll see the Time Zone selector is pre-set with the Time Zone that you configured, but they still have the option of changing it if needed.
