Event & Time Management: Overview

About events

Events are stored within your Pearl database and can be used for a number of things. Events can be:

  1. Tasks and Jobs set for you or another staff member (Personal events)
  2. Events that your company runs such as training days (Public events)
  3. Calls to or from your staff members
  4. Meetings
  5. Helpdesk tickets

These can be shown in list form as a todo list as well as on your calendar

To view your todo list

Visit Home -> My Tasks & Jobs from the main menu

To view the calendar

Click Home -> Calendar from the main menu

If you are using the Pearl Project Manager module, then you can also assign the event to a project.

Creating an Event

There are a number of ways to create events:

To create a “call” event for a client

(for example a reminder to call a customer):

  • Find the contact using the contacts quick search box at the top right of the screen
  • Hover over the “menu” link on the right of the screen and click “schedule call”

To create a task (to-do item) for yourself or another staff member

  • Click Home - New Activity from the main menu.
  • This will open a new window allowing you to create the task.
  • Alternatively you can hover over the “menu” link for a contact in the CRM screen and click “create task”

To create a helpdesk ticket:

  • Search for the client/customer using the contacts quick search box
  • Hover over the "menu" link and click "create ticket"
  • Tickets can also be created by the customer from within their account area on your Pearl website

To create a new job within a project

  • Click"Add job" from the orange project header, at the top of any page within that project
  • Open the side panel project menu, open the project and click the "Add job link"

Editing an Event

Use one of the following methods to edit an event:

  1. Find the event in the calendar and click the event title to edit it
  2. Show a list of events from the Home - My Activities menu item
  3. Search for the event by name or event ID using the events quick search box at the top of the screen.

Event team & contacts

Every event must have a manager (owner); this person will be able to edit the event information and add other people to the event. The owner is also responsible for ensuring that the event is completed.

You can assign additional people to an event either as extra staff or as clients. Clients, for example, would be the people signed up for a training event, and have read-only permissions on the event, or could also be customers of yours with whom you would like to collaborate with using the portal built in to your Pearl website.

Automatic event notification

Pearl can automatically email or SMS the event team members when the event changes.

To see the team for an event, open the event and click the contacts/notifications tab. Notifications will only be sent to the contacts that are set either as staff or client. There may be other contacts on the event that are neither staff nor client (such as other project team members that are not involved in this particular job).

Emails are sent only when the "notify" tickbox is ticked, and the event is saved.

An email will be sent to the contacts where the email box is ticked, and an SMS message will be sent to the contacts if the SMS box is ticked. SMS messages are sent only if you have SMS credits left on your account.

Notification format and information

The message that is sent to the contacts is defined using the Pearl template system. There are two default templates, one for general events and jobs, and the other for helpdesk tickets. To edit these templates, click Documents->System docs from the main menu.

Staff members will see all notes, and clients will only see public notes in their email notification.

Adding People to an Event

To add contacts to an event, open the event to edit it and then use the box at the right hand side of the “Contacts & Notifications” tab to find contacts. Choose the relevant contacts and click “add contacts”. Once the contacts are part of the event you will need to set their permissions (staff/client) and notification level. You can restrict the maximum number of users in an event using the box in the “Project” tab of the event edit screen.

By default when creating a job for a project, every member of the project is added to the event with all notifications turned off. When you assign an owner for an event, upon saving the event Pearl will make sure that the owner is set as an administrator for the event.

Event Groups

Events must be created in a calendar (also called an event group). Each different calendar or event group can be given a unique colour. To edit your event groups click Contacts->Setup->Event Statuses from the main menu.

Event groups should be given a visibility level; this is the scope of viewers that are allowed to see the event. Events with visibility set to “public” will also be shown on your website calendar.

Event Information

Event description

When editing or creating an event, you can enter a brief description of the event. This would typically be used for a specification on a job, for example. The description remains editable by the event creator, whilst the event notes are a non-editable history.

Event URL - information for public website viewers of the event

The event URL is used in the public calendar section of your website. More lengthy event information can be provided on an external website, or on one of your own website pages. If you want to link the event to an external website, enter the website URL in the event URL box. Otherwise, if you wish to provice extra information within your own Pearl website, create a category containing information and enter the URL of this category in the event URL box.

It is quite possible to link the event to a product in your system (such as a ticket for the event) by entering the URL of the product in this URL box. When a website visitor clicks the event in the calendar they will be taken to the product page.

Showing events on Your Website

Pearl will show all events in groups where group visibility is set to public on your website calendar. This calendar is available on your website using the following URL:

http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=calendar

Event Notes

If you are a user of the event you can add notes to it at any time. You can also upload files with the note which can later be downloaded by any member of the event. If you tick the “notify contacts” box when you upload the file, then all contacts on the event that are set to receive email notifications will get the file as an email attachment. Event clients only see “public” notes, and event staff see all notes.

Only public notes are visible when viewing events on the website portal for Helpdesk or Project Management.

Event statuses

A few select types of events (Tickets, Tasks and Jobs) can be set to any one of a number of configurable statuses. To edit the statuses, click Contacts - Setup - Event Statuses from the main menu. Each status can be assigned a colour.

Setup - Defaults also has some settings that allow you to choose the status at which new events are created, as well as the status that Pearl should set an event to when it is deemed “complete”.