location

Introduction

Retail outlets are physically existing delivery addresses in real world, where visits are made by field staff and SKUs are shipped and delivered.
All the activities of the field staff are tied to visits to customers outlets, many business processes of the system are built around this entity.
The functionality of the point of sale directory allows you to view the list of customers, manage address recognition, coordinate determination and customer notes.

List of Retail Outlets

By default, the list of outlets looks like this:

Attributes of the list of Outlets

If not all columns fit on the screen, horizontal scrolling of the screen appears to the right and left.
The display of columns, their width and relative position can be customized.

Additional features of the list of Outlets

Export to Excel	Export directory data to an Excel file.
Export empty template to Excel	Export in Excel format an empty template containing all columns displayed in the table, intended for filling in and subsequent data import.
Export template with data to Excel	Export in Excel format of a template containing all columns displayed in the table and all the directory data visible at the time of exporting. Intended for information editing and subsequent import it back.
Import from an Excel template	Upload data from Excel template to the directory, exported before by using the Export Excel Template buttons (empty or with data). Important: template downloaded from the directory should be imported only in that direcotory!

Point of Sale Card

To view all the details of the point of sale, click  in the list of outlets.
The point of sale card looks like this:

Address and coordinates of the Point of Sale 

As part of working with the point of sale card, it is possible to recognize the address and coordinates in the Address tab.
Only the recognized coordinates and addresses of customers are used when displaying visits in the GPS report or when viewing territories and visit plans.
Without recognizing the coordinates of retail outlets, it is impossible to set up a ban on starting a visit outside the outlet and much more.
In addition to point recognition, there is the feature of mass determination of addresses and coordinates throughout the directory of retail outlets.

Automatic recognition

If the address of the outlet was recorded from the company's ERP, you can try to perform automatic recognition.
It is performed by pressing the button Recognize in Outlet Card on Address tab.
If everything went well, one (then it will be considered recognized) or several (in this case, you will need to select the correct one) addresses suitable for the request will be displayed in the block under the map.
Multiple addresses to choose from may be offered if the address being sent for recognition is inaccurate or if the recognition system could not accurately determine it.

Manual input

To the right of the Recognize button is Manual input button .
Clicking it allows you to enter any data regarding the address and coordinates manually by filling in the required fields manually.
After entering the address, you can once again start the process of refined recognition of coordinates using the button . 
It is recommended to use this mode if automatic recognition is not possible or the existing address is not recognized correctly in automatic mode.

Coordinates by Visits

This method works only if agents have already made visits to the point of sale and statistics have accumulated in the system.
Data is taken for a maximum of the last 10 visits (if less, the coordinates will be less accurate), coordinates are recorded for them at the time of the start of the visit and the end.
The arithmetic averages (in longitude and latitude) are calculated from the collected coordinate values - they will be the coordinates for visits.
The method works well with manual address input when recognition is not possible automatically.
Performed by pressing the button Manual input, and then Coordinates from Visits.

Setting marker on map manually

It is possible to specify the coordinates by selecting the desired location directly on the map.
To do this, click Manual input, then Set by map, and click on the map to set the marker of the outlet.
After installing the marker, the Recognize coordinates button for the point of sale is pressed .
The address will be recognized for the marker of the place selected on the map.

Additional attributes

Tab where the created additional attributes and it's values for retail outlets are displayed.
In Value column displays the selected value of the additional attribute for the viewed outlet.

Classifiers

Tab where the created classifiers and it's values for that retail outlet are displayed.

Notes at Point of Sale

Notes functionality is designed to manage customer relationships. 
Notes can be added by a field employee in the mobile app, or by an office employee in ST-Mobi.com, or someone in ERP.
These are publicly available notes that an office employee can see in the Outlet Card in office and a mobile employee in the Retail Outlet Card in mobile while working on route.

An office user has posibility to manage notes:

• add new ones,
• edit existing,
• or delete them .

SKU Scopes

Functionality of the SKU Scopes in the Outlet Card allows you to view which assortment matrices applied to the selected outlet.
On this tab, for the first will be displayed the selection of employees and skus, then the matrices that includes it would presented for that Outlet.

Contact persons

Point of Sale Contact Persons - a list of persons indicating the name, surname, phone number and e-mail address with which sales representatives can be contacted as part of working with this Point of Sale.
Each Outlet can have one or more Contact Persons, one of them can be selected as the Main Contact.

Photos of Outlet

Photos of a Retail Outlet can be displayed in this tab.
To work with this functionality, an Additional attribute of Retail Outlets with the Photo data type is required and needed to be create in ST-Mobi.com.
In Mobile Application this functionality is available from ST-Mobile Trade version 4.5.1 and higher.
After Additional attribute with the Photo type is created, it will be possible to upload photos in the Photos tab of the Outlet.
You can do it by dragging the images to the Upload (dotted) area on the Photos tab, or using the Add photo button. 
Photos of the outlet can also be added through the Mobile Application by field staff.
To do this, the employee must be allowed to change /create outlets and an additional attribute with the type Photo must have a purpose For data collection.

Saving card changes

All changes made to the client's card, including address and coordinate recognition, must be saved, otherwise the data will be lost when the card window will be closed.
Performe it by pressing Save button in the lower right corner of the card.

Managing Types of Outlets

In the directory of Retail Outlets, it is possible to manage the Types of Retail Outlets:

• create new ones,
• edit existing ones,
• or delete unnecessary ones.  

To go to outlets type management section, use the button  at the top of the outlet directory page.
The section looks like this:

Attributes of list of outlets types

Creating new type of retail outlets

Using the button  you can create a new entry in the directory of types of outlets.
Clicking on it opens a modal window in which you need to specify the code of the new type of outlets and its name, and then save it using the appropriate button.

Editing and deleting the type of outlets

To edit the type of outlets manually, use the pencil button on the right side of the line .
By clicking on it, the window of the outlet type card opens (as when creating it), in which you can change the name or code of the outlet type.  
To delete the types of outlets, use the delete button  to the right of the edit button.

Additional features of the list of types of outlets

Export to Excel	Export directory data to an Excel file.
Export empty template to Excel	Export in Excel format an empty template containing all columns displayed in the table, intended for filling in and subsequent data import.
Export template with data to Excel	Export in Excel format of a template containing all columns displayed in the table and all the directory data visible at the time of exporting. Intended for information editing and subsequent import it back.
Import from an Excel template	Upload data from Excel template to the directory, exported before by using the Export Excel Template buttons (empty or with data). Important: template downloaded from the directory should be imported only in that direcotory!

Mass recognition of addresses and coordinates 

In addition to point recognition, there is the possibility of mass recognition of addresses and coordinates throughout the directory of retail outlets.
Only the recognized coordinates and addresses of customers are used when displaying visits in the GPS report or when viewing territories and visit plans.
Without recognizing the coordinates of retail outlets, it is impossible to set up a ban on starting a visit outside the outlet and much more.

To switch to the mass automatic recognition mode, press the button . 
By default, the interface looks the same as the list of outlets, except that this screen displays only outlets without recognized addresses.

Starting the process

To start the automatic recognition procedure, click Recognize.
It should be understood that the recognition process sequentially passes through all records displayed on the current page, the process does not extend to other pages.

Errors and user attention

In the event that the system could not automatically recognize the address, the line with the point of sale is highlighted:

• Red - if the coordinates could not be recognized at all.
• Orange - if the recognition service returned more than one suitable option.

In those cases, the user's attention is required.
In the case of a recognition error, you can try to determine the coordinates manually.
If there are several address options, you will need to select the one which is the best for initial address.

Manual adjustment

In the event that the system failed to recognize or the recognition was performed incorrectly, you need to click on the button  to the right of the entry with the point of sale.
In the window that appears, you must either select the correct address from the list of suggested ones, or enter it manually.
After that, you need to click the button Recognize.
You can also specify a point on the map, then click Save at the bottom of the window.

Saving results of mass recognition

Be careful, all the results of automatic recognition of addresses and coordinates are saved only after clicking the Save button at the top of the recognition page.

Additional features of mass recognition