ProVisions Training Guide A Step-By-Step Walkthrough

ProVisions Training Guide A Step-By-Step Walkthrough

ProVisions Training Guide Created 9/10/2015 // Last Modified 9/11/2015 Contents Introduction.............................................................. 2 Chapter 1: PDF/Print Options.................................................... 3 Section 1.1: Portfolios and Essentials........................................... 3 Section 1.1.1: What s the Difference Between a Portfolio and Essentials?................... 3 Section 1.1.2: Anatomy of a ProVisions Book.................................. 3 Section 1.2: Spec Sheet Packets.............................................. 8 Section 1.3: Bin Labels................................................... 8 Chapter 2: Website.......................................................... 9 Section 2.1: Accounts and Logging In........................................... 9 Section 2.1.1: Create a New Account...................................... 9 Section 2.1.2: Password Recovery....................................... 10 Section 2.2: Navigation................................................... 10 Section 2.2.1: Home............................................... 10 Section 2.2.2: Finder............................................... 10 Section 2.2.3: Portfolio Builder......................................... 11 Section 2.2.4: Essentials............................................. 11 Section 2.2.5: Administration........................................... 11 Section 2.2.6: Logout.............................................. 12 Section 2.2.7: Left Navigation Column...................................... 12 Section 2.3: Footer - Help & Information.......................................... 14 Section 2.3.1: Your Profile........................................... 14 Section 2.3.2: Quick Search.......................................... 14 Section 2.3.3: Resources............................................ 15 Section 2.4: Portfolios List................................................. 16 Section 2.5: Creating a New Book............................................. 17 Section 2.5.1: Details.............................................. 18 Section 2.5.2: Cover.............................................. 20 Section 2.5.3: Rooms.............................................. 22 Section 2.5.4: Adding Products......................................... 24 Section 2.5.5: Creating a New Product..................................... 25 Section 2.5.6: Optional Pages......................................... 26 Section 2.5.7: Product Summary........................................ 27 Section 2.5.8: Finishes............................................. 29 Section 2.5.9: Preview and Print........................................ 31 Section 2.5.10: The Preview Menu...................................... 31 Chapter 3: Automated Template.................................................. 33 Section 3.1: Downloading and Using the Automated Template.............................. 33 Section 3.1.1: What is the ProVisions Automated Template?.......................... 33 Section 3.1.2: Enabling Macros in Excel.................................... 33 Section 3.1.3: Using the Automated Template to Download, Edit and Save a Bid from Trilogie........ 33 Section 3.1.4: Loading Bids to ProVisions to Create a Book.......................... 37 Section 3.1.5: Adding Missing Products.................................... 38 Chapter 4: Tips, Tricks, and FYI.................................................. 40 Section 4.1: FAQ......................................................40 Section 4.2: Tips & Tricks................................................. 40 Section 4.3: Contact Information..............................................40 1

Introduction Hello, and welcome to ProVisions! ProVisions is a web based PDF catalog generator that allows associates to create full-color custom Portfolios, Essentials, and bin labels. These books are intended to help Ferguson associates promote building a relationship with our customers by taking the time to go the extra mile. Whether our customers are builders, plumbers, homeowners, or small business partners we have a book detailed to suit each of their needs. Showrooms can offer their customers product choices in a six to twelve page layout. This allows the customer to have a well detailed inspiration catalogue, a project book that can be shared with their builders, or even a visual representation of a receipt. Counter and Field associates may opt to use either Portfolios or Essentials to create barcoded scan books for our small business customers and tradesmen on the go, who need a quick and simple solution for reordering. Thier same book can be turned into custom 1 X 4 or 2 X 4 sized bin labels for their stockrooms or trucks. We hope ProVisions can be a helpful tool to you, and that you find many creative uses for its features. -The ProVisions Team 2

Chapter 1: PDF/Print Options 1.1 Portfolios and Essentials 1.1.1 What s the Difference Between a Portfolio and Essentials? ProVisions offers two different types of book template: Portfolios and Essentials. While similar in the way they present products, there are a few things exclusive to one or the other. Portfolios offer an option to insert special marketing initiative pages, warranty policy pages, and other types of informational literature. Essentials was originally designed to mimic the look of the printed Facility Supply Catalog (FSC). The intent was for Essentials to function as a customizable supplement to the FSC. As such, there are 8 optional section divider pages available that reflect sections in the full size printed catalog. These dividers will only appear when one of the default section headers are used, and not when a custom header is used. These headers can be designated by editing the sections on the ProVisions website via the header drop down menu, or by naming them in your bid (more on this in Section 2.5.3, and in Section 3.1.3). 1.1.2 Anatomy of a ProVisions Book The next few pages show examples of ProVisions Portfolio and Essentials covers, interior pages, as well as an Essentials back page. The elements have been labeled, so please use these images for reference. 3

Portfolio Cover Page 4

Interior Product Page - 12 Items Per Page In this view, the user has chosen to show product SKU, description, pricing, barcode, and MPID. Interior Product Page - 6 Items Per Page In this view, the user has chosen to show vendor name, customer code, description, quantity, and pricing with unit of measure. 5

Essentials Cover Page 6

Essentials Back Page 7

1.2 Spec Sheet Packets All available specification sheets for products in your book can be combined into one large packet to be downloaded as a PDF. You also have the option to paginate spec sheets between sections of your Portfolio or Essentials (more on this in Section 2.5.1 ). 1.3 Bin Labels Bin Labels are useful if you have a customer that could benefit from tagging their warehouse or truck. ProVisions can generate labels with barcodes for any item, whether it s a stock or special product. They can be formatted to print on Avery adhesive label sheets in 1 X 4 (5161, 5961), and 2 X 4 (5523, 8253, and 81163) *Please note that bin labels can currently only be generated from a Portfolio. They are unavailable for Essentials. 8

Chapter 2: Website Provisionsportfolio.com is the web-based tool that allows you to create the aforementioned books and labels. 2.1 Accounts and Logging In If you already have a ProVisions account, you can log in by going to http://provisionsportfolio.com 2.1.1 Create a New Account If you do not have a ProVisions account, click the link next to New user? below the Log-In button. This will prompt your default email service to create a new message with ProVisions Support as the recipient. Simply write a short message that includes your AA#, your location number (ie. 0018, 2627, etc), and the name of your showroom/branch manager. 9

2.1.2 Password Recovery If you have a ProVisions account, but cannot remember your password, click the link next to Forgot password? below the Log-In button. You will be taken to a page where you can enter the email address you used to sign up for ProVisions (most likely your Ferguson email address), and an email containing recovery information will be sent to that address. 2.2 Navigation Once you have logged in to ProVisions, you will see several navigation links at the top of the page. These links are only available while you are logged in, and do not show up if you are logged out. 2.2.1 Home Clicking Home will take you to your Portfolios page. Clicking the ProVisions logo on the left of the header will also take you to the Portfolios page 2.2.2 Finder Clicking Finder will take you to a page you can use to search for portfolios. You will see several fields where you can enter search criteria. Please note that you may only search for portfolios at your location. 10

2.2.3 Portfolio Builder Clicking Portfolio Builder will take you to the first page of the Portfolio creation process. 2.2.4 Essentials Clicking Essentials will take you to the first page of the Essentials creation process. 2.2.5 Administration Clicking Administration will take you to a page where you can view and edit your personal account info. 11

2.2.6 Logout Clicking Log Out will log you out of ProVisions 2.2.7 Left Navigation Column 12

You must be viewing/editing a book to see this column. It will not appear on your Portfolios page, or while you are logged out. You can expand each section by clicking on the corresponding green arrow. You can collapse a section by clicking the arrow again. Details, Cover, Rooms, and Optional Pages will allow you to edit your book. Clicking Details, then the Edit button will take you to your Portfolio Details page, which was the first page of the Portfolio creation process. Rooms does not have an Edit button. Instead, click the list all rooms link to go to the Rooms page and make edits. Finishes will allow you to choose a palette of product finishes for each room in your book. Preview will be discussed later in section 2.5.10. 13

2.3 Footer - Help & Information The page footer features are available whether you are logged in or logged out. 2.3.1 Your Profile You can view the current name and location address on file for your account and edit your personal info. Addresses are global and tied to your account s location. If you need to have your location info edited, or if you change locations, please contact provisions.portfolio@ferguson.com. 2.3.2 Quick Search 14

You can use Quick Search to search for a product in the ProVisions database. Enter the SKU of the product you need, and click Search. Full or partial SKUs may be entered. After you click Search, a list of results that match your query will appear. 2.3.3 Resources There are several resource documents and files available in the footer. 15

2.4 Portfolios List Your Home page is also your Portfolios list. All Portfolios and Essentials you have created or copied will be on this list. The Details column shows the book s name, the date it was created, and the date it was last modified. The ID column shows the book s unique ID number. This number is the most reliable method of finding portfolios using the Finder (section 1.2.2). The Bid # column will show the bid number used for each book, if you recorded them. The Status column shows the status of each book. In Progress means that the book creation process has not been fully completed by generating a PDF. Open means that the book is an open project readily available for editing. Completed and Canceled will both close a book, removing it from your main Portfolio list and into an archive. Completed and canceled books can be found at any time using the Finder feature. To change the status of an open book to completed or canceled, use the drop down menu to select the desired status and click Update. To open a book or edit its details and contents, click its name (highlighted in green). 16

2.5 Creating a New Book To begin a new book, first decide whether your project requires a Portfolio or Essentials (section 1.1.1 has information to help you choose between the two book types). To create a new Portfolio, click the green New Portfolio button or the Portfolio Builder link in the header. To create a new Essentials, click the green New Essentials button or the Essentials link in the header. The following walkthrough is for a new Portfolio. 17

2.5.1 Details 18

We have pre-selected some items as default on the Details page, and marked others as required. It is important to include the bid number, if available, as this will help you find your portfolios when you have a large number of them. Otherwise, you will have to scroll through all your work or try to remember the exact name of the project to locate it. Some options on this page include: Locate Spreadsheet - use for uploading a bid using the automated template Display Net Price - if you save your net price on the template, it will populate in your portfolio when this option is checked. Display User Product Description - this activates any comments you have written about a product in the additional copy field in the rooms section. Display MPID - MPID is the Trilogie key code (also referred to as a scramble code ). You may deselect Show SKU and select this option if you don t want your customer to use the SKU to price shop. You can also deselect the vendor name to make it more difficult. Display SKU/ALT Code or Display Cutomer Code/FAST.CODE - this option allows you to use the customer s FAST.CODES or other product codes they may have. If the customer has codes for some products but not others, the ones without customer codes with default to their FEI SKU/ALT Code. Include Spec Sheet - when checked, this feature populates specs after each section rather than at the end of the book. Once you are finished on this page, click Continue. 19

2.5.2 Cover 20

Select your cover, page layout (6 or 12 items per page), add logos, or change the default information that appears on the cover. 21

There are three cover types from which you can choose: Showroom, Business, and Simple. Showroom and Business each have several styles available. Simple is text only, and is intended to be more printer-friendly than other cover options since it consumes much less ink. For each cover type, there is a drop down menu with Ferguson logo options. Choose any option, or choose Blank if you do not wish to show a Ferguson logo. Logo 2 allows you to upload a second logo of your choosing. You might find this useful for customers that are designers or contractors. Image upload guidelines are kept current in the notes for this feature. Once you are finished on this page, click Continue. 2.5.3 Rooms Rooms refers to sections in your book. Type the number of rooms you require in your Portfolio and click Continue. 22

Sequence - determines the order in which rooms appear in your Portfolio Header - This is the only required field. Every room must have a header name. Choose from the drop down menu suggestions on the left, or enter your own in the field to the right. Subheader - You may add a subheader. Description - You may add a short description for your room. These elements will appear at the top of the page in your Portfolio: When you are finished, click the Update All button. The page will refresh, saving your changes. You will see two new buttons in addition to Update All are now available: Portfolio Summary and Search Products. Portfolio Summary will take you to a view of all the rooms and products in your Portfolio. You have not added products, so you will see only your room headers if you click this now. Search Products will take you to a product search where you can find and add products to your Portfolio. 23

2.5.4 Adding Products Click Search Products. You will be taken to a page where you can enter a SKU to find a specific product, or search products by vendor. If searching by SKU, you may use full or partial SKUs. Please note that products in the ProVisions database use FEI SKUs. If your search produces no results the first time, check the FEI SKU and try again. If you see your product in the search results, check the box labeled Select and then click the Add Selected Products button. 24

You will be taken to a page where you can select one or more rooms to which the product will be assigned. Check the boxes next to the rooms you want the product in. Clicking Assign and Continue Product Search will assign the product to its room(s) and take you back to the product search so that you can find more products to add to your Portfolio. Clicking Assign and Move On will assign the product to its room(s) and take you to the next step in the portfolio creation process. 2.5.5 Creating a New Product If your product search does not return any results, it may not be in the ProVisions database. If this is the case you can create a new product. If there are no search results, there will instead be an area where you can input an image and information for a custom product. 25

SKU, Vendor, and Description are required fields that must be completed. Adding an image is optional. If you choose to add an image, you must first have an image of the product saved to your hard drive. When you have your image, click the Choose File button to locate your image file and select it. Please follow the image type/size/quality guidelines provided below the Choose File button. Complete the required information and click Create Product. 2.5.6 Optional Pages Select which inserts you would like in your Portfolio and click Continue. If you do not wish to add any of the offered page inserts, click Continue without selecting anything. Please note that optional pages are only available for Portfolios, not for Essentials. 26

2.5.7 Product Summary 27

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You will see each of your rooms with all the products in a list on this page. There are three buttons at the bottom of the page: Remove Selected - you can check boxes next to products you want to remove from your book, then click this button to remove them. List All Rooms - takes you to the Rooms page (see section 1.5.3) Generate PDF - takes you to the Preview and Print page. 2.5.8 Finishes The Finishes options may be accessed by expanding the Finishes menu in the left side navigation, then clicking the Edit button. 29

There are several choices of finish available to choose from in the drop down menus. Choose one to three finishes for each room, then click Continue to save. *Please note that the finishes provided are not specific to any brand, so they may not be exact matches for the finishes of the products you have chosen for your book. Finishes will appear on a page preceding your rooms in the PDF. 30

2.5.9 Preview and Print You have several options for saving your Portfolio. If specification sheets are available, you will have the option to generate the portfolio and/or the spec sheets. Clicking Download PDF will either save the PDF to your desktop, or open a window where you can choose where to save the file. This will depend on your system settings, and is not determined by the ProVisions website. If you wish to email them to yourself or your customer, type the recipient s email address in the Send to Email field and click one of the Send buttons. You may send the portfolio, the spec sheets, or both. The email will contain links to download PDFs. 2.5.10 The Preview Menu There are several additional options involving output from your book. You can find them in the left navigation column. You are already familiar with Portfolio Summary, Generate PDF, and Generate Bin Labels. SKU Report generates a list of the products in your book, alphabetically by SKU, with the vendor names and the categories assigned to them in the ProVisions database. 31

Duplicate Portfolio allows you to create a copy of your book. It will copy to your account. This is useful if you start a new project that is similar to a project you have already done, and would like to reuse your product list without having to create new products. You may also duplicate a Portfolio to an Essentials and vice versa via the Portfolio type drop down. Save and Close will commit changes you have made and take you back to your Portfolios list. 32

Chapter 3: Automated Template 3.1 Downloading and Using the Automated Template 3.1.1 What is the ProVisions Automated Template? The ProVisions Automated Template is an Excel file with built in macros that allow you to quickly download, convert, and save a bid or order from Trilogie for use on ProVisions. You can find the most current version of the Automated Template in the footer of the ProVisions homepage (provisionsportfolio.com). Scroll to the bottom of the page and look under the Resources section. We advise that you periodically download new versions of the template, as updates to the template may be applied when Trilogie updates occur. 3.1.2 Enabling Macros in Excel 1. Click the Office button 2. Click Excel Options to open the full options window 3. Click Trust Center, which is located in the list on the left side of the window 4. Click Trust Center Settings 5. Click Macro Settings 6. If the box next to Enable All Macros is not checked, check it to enable all macros 7. Click OK 8. Before changes can take effect, you must close and reopen the Excel program. 3.1.3 Using the Automated Template to Download, Edit, and Save a Bid from Trilogie Open the Automated Template in Excel 33

Enter the required information: LOGON - This field lets the template know where to tell Trilogie to log you in. You only need to fill it in if you have more than one Trilogie logon location. If you do have multiple logon locations, enter the name of the location you wish to access to find your bid. For example, if your bid exists in OHVAL, type OHVAL in this field. USERNAME - your Trilogie logon (AA number) PASSWORD - Your Trilogie password *If your Trilogie password contains any of the following symbols, the template will not run:! @ = % ^. We apologize for this inconvenience; these symbols trigger functions in Excel that interrupt the macros used to operate this template. BID/ORDER - If accessing a BID, you will need to include a capital B prefix (I.E. B123456). If you are accessing an order, your order number may be entered as is. *If you use more than one monitors at your workstation, please ensure that Excel and Trilogie are on the same monitor. Click the Download button, and Trilogie should automatically open and log you in. 34

*It s important not to multitask while the template is running. It may take a few moments, but please allow the template to complete operations until you click anything else. If another program or window becomes active while the template is pulling your bid or order, it will enter commands into that window and the download will fail. Click Import Click Clean. A series of prompts will appear. You will be asked about the room names in your bid. Room names are comment lines in your bid that separate products into sections. When writing your bid, please format your room names with two asterisks on each side, **LIKE THIS** You must have at least one room name in your bid, and it must be in the first row after the headers. If you do not have a room name there, the template will ask you to create one. 35

Each room must have at least one product in it. If there are SP-codes in your bid, you will need to enter a vendor name for each one. When asked if you want to show NET.PRICE, clicking Yes stores the price information, and clicking no clears the column. We recommend clicking Yes, since you have the option to hide pricing once your portfolio has been created. If you have included customer codes in your bid, the template will ask if you want to include them. If you have them, we recommend clicking Yes, since you have the option to show or hide them once your book has been created. If you do not have them, click No. 36

Once all the formatting prompts have run, Run/Save will be highlighted. Click it to save your bid as a.txt. The template will save all files to a DOWNLOAD folder on your C: Drive. If you do not have this folder, it will be created for you the first time you save a file using the Automated Template. Your bid has now been converted to a.txt file that can be uploaded to ProVisions to create a book. If you need to repeat the process, click the Reset button to start over. If you are finished, you may close Excel. *When you close Excel, it may ask you if you would like to save changes. Click no or don t save, since saving changes may cause the template to malfunction the next time you need to use it. 3.1.4 Loading Bids to ProVisions to Create a Book A.txt file can be loaded to create a new portfolio, or loaded to an existing portfolio to add multiple products at once. Log in to provisionsportfolio.com 37

Once you are logged in, click either New Portfolio or New Essentials Continue as you would to create a portfolio manually, but when you arrive at Locate Spreadsheet, click Choose File. Locate the file in your DOWNLOAD folder (You may have multiple files with the bid number you need, so make sure you choose the one that is.txt format). Click Open, and you will see the file name appear next to the Choose File button. When you click Continue, the file will be loaded. Continue with the cover section as normal, and you will see your rooms already created when you get to the Rooms portion of the process. 3.1.5 Adding Missing Products In section 2.5.5, we discussed how to create new products. When you use a.txt file to add products to your book, new products will automatically be created for items not in the ProVisions database. Missing products will look like this in your Portfolio Summary: Click on the Edit Product button to go to the Update Product page, where you can add an image and edit information about your product. This page is similar to the Create New Product page, the difference being that you can also upload a specification sheet. You must first save a copy of the product s spec sheet to your computer. Once you have saved your spec sheet file, click the Specsheet button near the 38

bottom of the page. Locate the file and click Open. You will see the filename next to the Specsheet button. To complete the update, click the Update Product button. Chapter 4: FAQ / Tips & Tricks 4.1 FAQ Q: How large of a book can I make? A: The system now accepts a maximum of 1,000 products in a book. If you need to create a larger book, break it up into multiple books and combine the PDFs. If you need help with this, please contact provisions.portfolio@ferguson.com Q: Why can t I print my PDF? A: You may not have downloaded a PDF of your book. Make sure you have saved a PDF of your book to your computer. Q: How do I email my PDF if it s too large? A: You can email the portfolio link to yourself, then forward it to your customer. They should be able to access the link from any internet connected device. Q: Can I delete a room from my book? A: Rooms may be added or deleted at any time. To delete a room, go to the Rooms page by clicking list all rooms in the Rooms section of the left navigation column. Click Remove for the room you wish to delete. 39

4.2 Tips, Tricks, and FYI To request images to be added to ProVisions, please send an email containing the SKUs and corresponding vendor names to provisions.portfolio@ferguson.com. Requests for product additions can take 48 hours to be processed, so please send your request in advance of when you need the products for your book. If you are in a hurry, you have the option to create custom products for your books using the Create New Product feature, or by updating missing products. Please note that products you create and update are only added to your book, not the ProVisions Database. Only products that have been assigned a Master Product ID (MPID) in Trilogie can become permanent additions to the ProVisions database. SP-codes and most combo codes cannot be added to the database, and must be created by you. The nature of the system does not allow the back and forward buttons to work as they would for other sites. Please use the navigation on each page to travel around the ProVisions website instead of clicking back or forward. If your bid times out in Trilogie while you are using the Automated Template, you can contact IT and reference ticket #206408. Another option is to type your AA# followed by a space and PALM (example: AAA1234 PALM) on the automated template. This will usually allow your bid to download. Remember to logoff in Trilogie after doing this, and logon again with your usual username and password. 4.3 Contact Information For general help, product additions, product changes, login information, and any additional comments or feedback please contact: provisions.portfolio@ferguson.com. 40