Managing booking customers

You can manage all your booking contacts using the Customers area in the Bookings module. When assigning a contact to a booking, the contact search will match against both your Address Book contacts and those organisations and individuals on your Customers list; ideal for organisations that have internal and external resource users.

Adding a customer

The process of adding or importing Customers in the Bookings module works in the same way as adding or importing contacts in the Address Book. To add a new customer, navigate into the Customers section of the Bookings module and click Add customer.

On the Add customer pop-up, complete the various fields of contact information - First Name and Last Name are required fields, as is Site for customers using ChurchSuite's multi-site functionality. Click to Save and close the pop-up when you are finished.

Saving a new customer takes you to the customer profile page, showing all the details you just entered. Notice that the profile page has three tabs listing customer Details, Bookings and Charges. See later in this article for further details about the Bookings tab, and the related support article on booking Charges.

Returning to the Customers section, notice the option to switch between viewing Active or Archived customers, and the Search bar for finding a particular customer in a long list - as you type in the search bar, the list of matching results automatically filters. The Actions menu lets you View, Duplicate, Edit, Archive and Delete a customer.

Notice also the Customer batch Actions, which are surfaced when one or more customers are selected in the list, providing options to perform common tasks with multiple selected customers.

Importing existing customers

You can easily import an existing customer list; perhaps if migrating from another resource management or invoicing system - you will need to export a customer list from that system, and then prepare the list into a CSV format file, ready for import into ChurchSuite. When you are ready to import, navigate to the Customers section and click Import customers.

The Import customers page is opened and includes helpful guidance on how to prepare your data - a CSV format file with each field of information in a separate column and a row header in the first row that describes the data in that column. The row header is used to correctly map each column in your CSV file with the corresponding field in the Customers section of the Bookings module. There's also an Example CSV file that you can download and view, and a full list of supported fields that can be imported, to help you prepare your CSV file. Not every customer field is required - ChurchSuite will only import those fields which you supply in your CSV file; however, you must ensure every incoming field in your file is assigned to a ChurchSuite field (otherwise it won't be imported). Let's look at the process...

Select Choose file to browse and select your CSV file. Click Upload CSV File to upload the file for review.

After upload, a sample of the first five records from your CSV file is shown. The first column shown is the CSV Header names from your CSV file. The Import As column is the field in ChurchSuite that data will be imported into. Check each field in your data is correctly mapped to a field in ChurchSuite. A yellow warning triangle icon alerts you to any field that will not be imported - typically because the CSV Header isn't recognised. You can select the appropriate ChurchSuite customer field from the drop-down list. Those using ChurchSuite's multi-site functionality should include a Site column in the CSV file so that imported customers are added to the appropriate site for their future bookings.

When satisfied, click to Import All Records, or select Cancel if you need to abort and make further changes to your CSV file.

The import progresses to the Preview/Edit stage where you can review the individual customers being imported - perhaps to Edit and correct an Error that's been identified. You can Pause (and later Resume), or Cancel the import. You can also Process at any time - only valid records, distinguished by a green tick icon, will be processed - invalid records, distinguished by a yellow warning triangle icon, remain in the list until they are either Edited and fixed or Removed from the import list.

You can return a partial/incomplete import by navigating back to the Import customers page and selecting Resume or Cancel.

Deleting a customer

You can Archive customers when their details are no longer needed. Archiving a customer will preserve the customer's details against all past and future bookings; however, only Active customers can be assigned to new bookings. Importantly, archived customers can later be Set as active again if needed.

Deleting a customer is a destructive action, which will remove the deleted customer from all past and future bookings, and is not reversible. The deleted customer's bookings and charges are themselves preserved - only the customer profile is deleted. To delete a customer select Delete from the More Actions drop-down button at the top of the customer profile page, and follow the on-screen instructions to confirm the deletion.

Managing customer bookings and charges

From the Bookings tab of each customer's profile, you can see a full history of their Past bookings and Future bookings. From here you can further filter the list by booking Status or Search for a specific booking within a long list. Notice the Actions to View, Duplicate, Edit or Delete a booking in the list.

Similarly, the Charges tab provides a full history of charges, showing the related booking, the amount, payment status and due date. From here you can further filter the list by charge payment Status, to see just Unpaid or Paid charges, or use the Actions to Edit or Delete a charge. Note that you will only be able to delete an unpaid charge.

Communicating with customers

You can communicate directly with individual customers from their profile page, using the communication options on the Communicate drop-down button. The options will only be active if the customer has a valid email address or mobile number. Sent communications are recorded in the communication log located at the bottom of the customer's profile.

Like the other 'People' modules, the Bookings module includes a Communication section, through which you can communicate with multiple Active customers. Searching and selecting customers from the list on the left adds them to the recipients' list on the right. You can then choose what you want to do with those recipient customers; perhaps composing an email or SMS.