Viewing and Editing Customer Information

To edit any customer, you can use the Add Customers button (faces icon) on the toolbar or the Customers / Customer Details selection on the main menu.  If a customer was not already selected on the current tab view, you can use the Find button to get to the one you want to view or edit (see below).  If you enter part of the customer's Last Name before clicking Find, then that will automatically be used to do an initial search.  (This must be done on a "New Record" -- don't try to do it on top of an existing customer record!)

The quicker way to get to a customer, if you have a current reservation for the customer, may be to find them on the On Site tab or other tab view and use the right-click function Customer Details (right-click directly on the customer's name to edit that customer).  Or if you already have a Reservation Details dialog open, just click the Customer Details button.

In any of these cases, the Customer Details dialog will open.  (This is exactly the same dialog that's used to add customers in the previous section.)  However, if you open it for a particular customer (from right-click or from a Customer Details button), there won't be any navigation buttons.  Therefore you can only see that one customer.  If you used the main menu or the toolbar to view customers, you will see buttons to navigate between customer records.  You can use the navigation buttons to step through customer records.  The Previous and Next buttons step forward or backward, as expected.  The button to the left of Previous, which looks like |<<, will jump to the very first record (it's meant to look like the "back-to-beginning" button on audio tape and CD players).  Likewise, the >>| button to the right of Next will jump to the very end of the database.

At the top you will see something like "Record 5 of 53", and a Record ID.  Don't be alarmed if the Record ID doesn't match the record number -- there can be gaps due to deleted customers.  The Record ID is a fixed stamp on the record that's used by reservations and transactions to refer to the customer. The other record number is simply a sequential number that is just used to indicate where you are in the database, and is not part of the actual customer record.

See the Adding Customers section for more details on entering the customer information.  

The "+Scan..." button will be shown at the top if you have Scan codes enabled, to edit the scan codes for the customer (see that separate section).

New Reservation can be used to immediately make a new reservation.  It is unique in that it will save the customer information and close the Customer Details dialog first, and then open the New Reservation dialog with the customer information filled in.  (It closes the Customer Details dialog first to avoid circular dialog problems.)

Reservation History will open a list of reservations that this customer has made or has been a guest of.  It contains a summary of the reservations, with their current status flags (checked in, canceled, etc.).  To see more information, you can double-click on it or click once and then click the View the Selected Reservation Details button, which will open the standard Reservation Details dialog, where you can make changes if you wish.  If any old reservations have been purged for this customer, you will see "Reservations" and "Nights" totals for the reservations previously purged.  This will tell you how much the customer has stayed in the past that's not in the current "live" reservations list.  

Warning -- Be careful when going this far to edit reservations, since it's possible to start from the reservation dialog, click to customer details, click to reservation history, and click to edit the same reservation but in a different dialog (you're several layers deep at this point).  The results are unpredictable for this circular situation, and depend on whether you click Save or Cancel at each step of closing the dialogs.

New/Edit Transactions can be used to directly enter or edit transactions for this customer.  Keep in mind that these transactions will not be associated with a reservation!  Only use this if entering non-reservation transactions, such as gift shop purchases.

Transaction History will open a list of all transactions for this customer (including all transactions made for every reservation by this customer), in a raw table format.  This can be used for reference, or to print a complete transaction history.  If any old transactions have been purged, a "Total Payments" amount will be shown for transactions previously purged.  This will tell you how much the customer has paid in the past that's not in the current "live" transaction list.  

When you're finished editing a customer's information you can click Save, or you can click Cancel (or the Esc key) if you were just looking and don't plan to make any changes.  If you were editing and decide not to keep changes you've made, click the Cancel button.  You will be warned if any new information would be lost by canceling the changes to the record, so you can abort the Cancel and get back to the dialog to Save it instead.

Guarantee Info

This shows the last information used to guarantee a reservation.  Changing it here won't affect any current reservations, but would be used as the default information used for the next reservation guaranteed.  Note that any credit card information may be masked for security (depending on the Access levels settings).  If the credit card is masked, then you need to use the "..." button to make any changes. If it's not masked, then you could edit the field directly (e.g. add a note to the beginning), but we don't recommend changing the existing information.

Printing Customers

You can print an entire customer record or a customer form with the Print button.  This opens the Form Selection dialog, which gives you the option to print a grid or a form.  The grid format prints a simple table with each field name and value, generally meant for reference purposes.  You can also choose to print any Form defined for this type of record, which allows you to easily print a receipt, label, invoice, or any custom form you've created for customers.  (You can also print "Receipt" types of forms from the New/Edit Transactions dialog.)

E-mailing a Customer

If the customer has an E-mail address entered, you can click on the blue "E-mail" tag next to it to send them an E-mail.  This normally opens your E-mail application, e.g. Outlook  (assuming Windows knows your default E-mail application), with the customer's E-mail address already filled in.  However if the SMTP Setup has been done in Campground Master, then the internal E-mail function will be used instead of your default Windows E-mail application, and you can also E-mail a form (see below).

If you want to include more than one E-mail address for a customer, you can put multiple addresses in the same field, separated by a semicolon (;).  When sending mail through Campground Master, it will be copied to each address.  Example: [email protected];[email protected]

E-mail Form

If you have SMTP set up, then you can send an E-mail directly from Customer Details.  This can be a free-form E-mail or a custom Form.  A Form Selection dialog will appear where you can choose what to send and whether to preview it first.

Text Message

If you have Text Messaging set up then you can click the Text Msg... button to send a text message to the customer's phone, directly from Customer Details.  This can be a free-form text or a defined Form.  A Form Selection dialog will appear where you can choose what to send and whether to preview it first.  

Alternatively, you can click the blue phone number field label, e.g. "Phone 1", to send a message specifically to that number.  

"Opting in" phones for texting

Before sending a text to a phone number in the customer's details, one or more of their phone numbers must be "Opted in" for texting.  This is done by checking the "T" box next to the number.  (If you don't see the "T" checkbox or the phone label is not blue, then you need to do Text Messaging Setup first.)   This will also select that number for being used automatically when Batch Texting.  If there are no valid phone numbers Opted in, then you can still send a text through the "Text Msg" button (if you have sufficient operator access) but you will need to manually enter the phone number.

Why is this required?  We did not want to make it too easy to randomly send texts to every phone number in your database, both for privacy/spamming reasons, and also because it generally costs money to send each message.  So you will need to check a box next to each phone number in Customer Details that you want to be able to use for texting (and of course we recommend that you ask the customer for permission to send text messages to that number).  In addition, some services may have requirements that there be some steps that the customer should take to opt in, which would be outside of Campground Master's scope.  Campground Master assumes that if you check the box to "opt in" a phone number, that means you have done the due diligence to get the customer's permission to do so.

Automatic Phone Number Formatting

If a phone number is entered as 10 digits (or 11 digits starting with a 1), and if it has NO other characters besides the digits (no dashes, spaces, or anything else), then it will be automatically formatted to the U.S./Canadian format of (XXX) XXX-XXXX.  Otherwise it will be left as-is.  This auto-formatting can be disabled through Program Options if necessary.

Notes

Notes will be shown as a single line here, but you can enter multiple-line notes as long as you like by clicking the "..." button at the end of the notes entry field.  This will open a separate Notes dialog for entering the notes (discussed in the Working with Reservations section) .  Any current notes will of course be shown, and the cursor placed at the end so you can begin entering notes immediately.  When multi-line notes are displayed as a single line, for instance on the Detail dialogs or in lists, each line break will be shown as a double-backslash (" \\ ").

Journal...

In addition to the single-entry Notes field, you can add any number of Journal entries to a customer, which are date/time/operator tagged.  This can be used any way you like, for instance to track customer comments, or make notes as to why certain changes were made to it.  This button opens a list of existing entries and also the adding/editing functions. Important: The Journal entries for the Customer record will not show up in the Journal for any of its Reservation records, and vice versa.  They are specific to that particular record.

Audit Trail...

This button opens the Audit Trail for this particular customer, showing a list of all changes made to it (at least as far back as when version 6.0 was installed, since the Audit Trail function did not exist before then).  Note that audit trail entries for any of the customer's Reservations and Transactions will also be shown, since they indirectly affect the customer.

Temporary Operator Override

If you're entering a customer but you're unable to complete a function due to your Operator Access Level, you don't necessarily have to go all the way out to have a manager log in.  Just right-click in the caption bar, and select "Temporary Operator Override".  That will allow someone to log in for this function only -- after leaving this dialog, it will revert to the previous operator automatically.