[Video Walkthrough] All about Vendors & Locations

VENDORS AND LOCATIONS:

Locations are defined as any physical addresses or set of coordinates that are used in any given event.  This could be any venues you have photographed events at or maybe even a dropped pin of an exact Location you are using for mini-sessions at the beach!  It is important to note that both Vendors and Locations function as somewhat of a mini-database that stores any saved input for future recall.  There are even instances where one of your Vendors actually has a Location that you use frequently, in such cases we recommend inputting their information into both mini-databases.  The difference between the two for the sake of clarity is that the Vendor is the actual entity with which you or your Client does business, whereas the Location is the physical building or establishment from which they conduct such business.  So let’s dive into how we manage these mini-databases!

VENDORS (01:14)

Vendors are any entities you or your Client do business with and can be found under CONTACTS and VENDORS.  What you see here is basically your mini-database of Vendors.  New Vendors can be added at any time in various ways, but if you want to start with a quick list of some Vendors you know you want to add off the top of your head, you can always click [+ Add New Vendor] and add them manually.  If you are new to Pixifi you may already have a database or spreadsheet with all of your Vendor information on it and it’s sounding pretty cumbersome to you to have to enter them all into Pixifi, but just like it is with Leads and Client Records, you can always import them!  You would do this exactly the same way you learned in Class 101: All About Leads!  You click on the [Actions] button at the top right and then click on the [Import Vendors] option.

Vendor Categories (02:04)
Vendors can be classified by type and organized and filtered by category.  In other words, the Types list for your Vendors will likely be exhaustive or limited, in that all of your Vendors will likely fit somewhere within your short list of types such as Videographers, DJs, Florists, Bakers, in the example of wedding-related events.  Vendor Categories, on the other hand, can be thought of as “tags" and may be unlimited!  For example, you could have a wedding venue listed as a Vendor and attach a category tag such as “Vendors worked with in 2017" or any other year you want to filter by, “Preferred Vendor" for Vendors you really love to recommend, or even “Need to a Bring Meal" because you want to remember next time you ever have an event with this Vendor that they never feed you!  You can create these Categories to help you organize your Vendors in any way you might find useful to sort your Vendors in the future!  You can further organize your Vendor listing by rating them and all of this information will help you manipulate and filter your Vendor listing any time you need to!  

You’ll also see other information about your Vendors like which events (and how many) they have been linked to over the years.  Also if you’d like to recommend one of your Vendors to another Pixifi user that is connected to your studio (which is set up through studio sharing in a later video) you can even share Vendors with each other just like you can share Leads!

One of the things we just covered in our last video Class 204: Questionnaires was the fact that some of the Questionnaires you build for your Clients can have what we call “smart fields" and they function like this.  As a Client enters information for any of their Vendors into any of your “smart fields" that are Vendor-specific, your Client will essentially create a new Vendor record in your database for you (as well as attaching this new Vendor to their event!).  If the Vendor your Client is attempting to add to his/her Questionnaire is already in your database, an alert will pop up letting them know that you already have this Vendor in your system, prompting them to let Pixifi auto-populate the rest of the fields!  This creates less room for user error in required fields, but most importantly does not allow the Client to create a duplicate record you will have to deal with later and saves your Client time and effort making their overall user experience better.  It also doesn’t hurt to give your potential Clients the impression that you have a working rapport with nearly every Vendor in the area!  

LOCATIONS (04:31)

As a reminder, Locations are defined as any physical addresses or set of coordinates that are used in any given event.  Usually you will only need to deal with Locations when dealing with an actual Event so most of the time, you would view any Locations for that event on the Locations Tab within that Event.  You can, however, view a master list of all Locations in THINGS TO DO, EVENTS, and LOCATIONS.  This is essentially your list of all the Locations that have ever been entered into your database and classified as “Master Locations."  At the risk of sounding redundant, similarly to Vendors, you can set up “smart fields" with respect to Locations that Clients would fill in on a Questionnaire that will essentially create a new Location under their Event which you could later create into a new Master Location.  If the Location your Client is attempting to add to his/her Questionnaire is already in your “Master Locations" database, an alert will pop up letting them know that you already have this Location in your system, prompting them to let Pixifi auto-populate the rest of the fields!  This creates less room for user error in required fields, but most importantly does not allow the Client to create a duplicate Master Location that you will have to deal with later, all the while, saving your Client time and effort, making their overall user experience better.

CLOSING REMARKS (05:54)

Class dismissed!  Thank you for taking the time to learn all about VENDORS and LOCATIONS.  In this video, we covered what the differences between Vendors and Locations are and how to create and organize them and even how to let your Client add their own Vendors and Locations to their events through the use of “smart fields" in Questionnaires!  In the next video, we will be showing how to use those product templates and package templates to create invoices.  

We want to say CONGRATULATIONS!  You have completed all necessary coursework for your Sophomore experience and you are now officially upper classmen!  Now we start getting into some of the major ways Pixifi can be your workhorse!  So, whenever you are ready, go ahead and checkout Tasks & Workflow!