Getting Started

The Basics

HQ is designed to be easy and intuitive to use. Here are a few guidelines on how best to use HQ from a beginners perspective.

The Card

HQ Card

The Card is the representation of a Customer in HQ. The analogy is a Business Card. Each customer will have a business card.

HQ Card

The Card is the control centre for all operations related to a Customer. For example, if you want to change any details for that company, you can click on the pencil icon to edit the company details. To write an email to the Customer, click on the envelope icon. To send a text message to the Customer, click on the mobile icon. To create a letter or document for the customer, click on the document icon.

When you create a document or email using the Card, the item that you create will automatically be associated with the customer. Performing actions from the Card will create a History for the customer that can be accessed by everyone in the company.

The History is a time ordered list of all items created by all of your colleagues, viewed in a time ordered list.

There are other ways of creating content in HQ, for example, you can create email using the inbox view rather than from the Card. If the email address is recognised, then the email created from the inbox will automatically be linked to the customer and added to the contacts history.

Viewing the Customer

The fastest way of getting to the customer Card and History, is to use the quick search facility.

HQ Search Box and Button Bar

To find the customer quickly, type the first few letters of the customer name or reference into the search bar. You will need to type in a minimum of 3 letters. For example, to find a person called “Howard Cole” you can type in n “Howard” or “Cole” or just “how” and it will list possible matches. The more you type the easier it will be to find a match.

Dynamic search results

Once the customer you require is listed, use the mouse to click on the search result, or use the cursor keys to highlight the required customer and click on the enter key. You will be directed to the History Page which contains the Card for the customer and the History of the contact with that customer.

Information is Shared

HQ is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service. This essentially means that the information on your customers is held together so that you can see emails, documents, notes etc in one place. For instance, a typical email inbox contains information from all of your customers mixed together in the order that you received it. With HQ, the information is all sorted into customer specific areas.

Additionally, the information is automatically collected from all your staff, regardless of where they are located, and visible to everyone that needs to share that documents (Emails, Notes, HQ Documents, Office Files etc).

HQ is available Everywhere

As a cloud service, HQ is accessed using a web browser on a computer or mobile device. Anywhere that you have a browser and internet access, you can keep up to date with your customers. HQ is very useful if you are away from the office or you have multiple offices, since all your valuable information can be shared and be visible to all your staff.

Links

Once a documents (email, HQ documents, notes, Office files, to-do’s etc) is created from the Card, the document is Linked to the customer. The list of all documents linked to a Customer is referred to as the Customer’s History.

For example, if a customer exists in HQ, then all emails sent to and received from that customer will automatically appear in the contact’s History. The association between the email and the customer is known as a Link.

Each email can be linked to multiple Customers if necessary by manually linking the email to other customers. Other document types (e.g. Notes, Files) can also be linked to customers, by manually linking the document, or by creating the notes from the buttons on the Customers Card.

Customer Information

The customer’s card is the source of all static information for that customer. For example, the customers email and address, aswell as other information that you may need to store such as tax references, date of birth, etc.

Organisation Structure

Customers can be different types such as Businesses or People. Businesses can be linked with other businesses or other people and a Hierarchy can be constructed between Businesses and People.

The people associated with any business customer are listed on the History page of the business, so if you want to contact that person relating to a business matter, then you can click on the icons associated with the person.

Jobbags

One other way of grouping data is using Jobbags. Jobbags are collections of documents that are linked in an arbitrary manner. An example would be collections of documents linked to a Project such as “Employee Procedures” or “Health And Safety”. These documents can be linked to other customers (Businesses or People) but that would not be their main grouping.