Welcome to the Circulation User Manual. This user guide was created with the intention of providing documentation for anyone who uses Circulation on a regular basis. Because the majority of users would have access to the features that are covered in this document, it was created with the intent that any user of Circulation could read it.

From the outside, the publishing business might appear to be simple and straightforward. For the average newspaper subscriber, sending a check in the mail reliably produces a paper on the doorstep every morning. Beyond this apparent ease, however, lies an extensive process involving such diverse things as routers and General Ledger entries, complaints and account invoices, bundle tops, and subscriber renewal notices.

The power of Circulation is that it can manage all of these things within one system. At its most basic level, it links accounting functions (the subscriber’s payment) with distribution functions (delivering the paper every morning), but Circulation can also accommodate the subtle complexities that are unique to the publishing business.

This introduction is a snapshot of Circulation at a very high level.

Like all computer applications, Circulation takes in information, processes it, and winds up with new and useful information. This input/output model is illustrated below. In the case of Circulation, the input information comes from:

• Setup (where routes, carriers, and many other things are set up)

• Customer and Route Services (where subscription starts, stops, complaints, route draw changes, and other transactions are entered)

• Account and subscriber payments, which are entered into the system

• Postal directories, which are used mostly with mail distribution

Output is in the form of printed documents or files. In Circulation, some of the more important output items are:

• Bundle tops, which allow the newspaper bundles to be loaded and distributed correctly, and tell the carrier about changes on the route

• Truck manifests, which tell the truck drivers which bundles to drop off at which routes

• Mail labels, which allow mail subscriptions to be distributed

• Account (i.e., carrier) bills

• Subscriber renewal notices

• Reports that are useful to managers and other newspaper personnel

• General ledger information, which can be interfaced with your general ledger system

Once Circulation has done its job, the output can be used by accounting and distribution personnel to accurately run the circulation of the newspaper.

To better understand Circulation, read the following sections. They are written from the perspective of a single subscriber—what does Circulation do to ensure that the paper arrives every morning on the doorstep?

Setup

Before the subscriber even orders the paper, a number of things must already be set up in Circulation:

• Some address elements, such as cities and dwelling types, must be set up beforehand. Examples of dwelling types include “household,” “apartment,” and “business.” Before shipping, Circulation presets many address items, such as state, Zip code, and country.

• Circulation differentiates between an address and an occupant (a person living at an address). Some occupant elements must be set up, such as the occupant type. For example, you could have three occupant types: “regular,” “student,” and “senior,” and assign rates based on them.

• General ledger accounts must be identified so that Circulation can export information (such as payments and account draw charges) to the GL.

• Business Rules must be set up. These settings help you tailor Circulation to fit your business.

• Publishers belonging to the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) submit circulation figures every three months for verification by AAM. Advertisers review these circulation statistics. Circulation creates reports that assist in submitting information to the AAM. For this reason, AAM zones must be defined, as do the columns of the AAM reports. For example, if you wanted to report your youth carriers separately from your adult carriers, you would need to set up columns for both.

• Information about your publication must be entered into the system, including publishing calendars and delivery schedules. For example, your publication might deliver seven days a week, but have a Mon-Fri delivery schedule for subscribers who receive the paper only on weekdays.

• Routes and carriers must be defined, as must trucks, truck sequences, departure orders, drop orders, and drop locations. The Route Distribution section below describes how these items function.

• Routers (route boundaries) might be set up so that new subscribers can automatically be assigned a route.

• Mail label groups (discussed below in the Mail Distribution section) must be set up.

• Subscription rates must be set up, based on subscription type, occupant type, location, and payment type. Rates are set up by linking these “rules” with “rate codes” (amounts and payment lengths). See the example below.

• Account rates must also be set up, based on route, delivery schedule, and many other conditions. Like subscription rating, account rating involves linking rules and rate codes.

• Additional account charges and credits, such as a charge for insurance or a credit for mileage, must also be set up.

• Formats must be set up for the various reports, including the distribution documents (bundle tops, truck manifests, etc.).

• Internal settings may be established, such as security codes.

These items are defined in Setup and are documented in the Circulation Setup Manual.

Customer Service

When ordering a subscription, the customer’s address and name will be found in (or added to) the Circulation database, a subscription will be started, and the customer will be assigned to a route or mail label group, if necessary. If you set up route boundaries for your newspaper, subscribers will automatically be assigned to routes or mail label groups based on their address.

If the subscriber later reports a missing paper, address change, or other issue, a Customer Service associate can handle that as well. Customer Service associates often handle carrier calls (draw changes, shortages, etc.) in addition to subscriber calls.

In the case of a shortage or complaint, the publisher may need to dispatch extra papers. Complaints and shortages tagged for dispatch will appear in the Dispatching module. The dispatchers will work from this module.

All of this information is entered into Circulation through the Customer Service and Route Service modules. Circulation then uses the data to create draws, reports, and accounting records. Activities performed in the Customer Service and Route Service modules are summarized in the following table.

Route Distribution

Once the subscriber has been started (either immediately as a “start and bill” or after a payment has been made), the distribution side of Circulation takes over. Distribution activities are performed in the Publishing module.

Circulation looks on each day a newspaper is published as a “publishing day” with its own “publishing run.” First, the date and publication of the publishing run are defined. Then, all subscriber payments that have been entered since the last publishing day are processed using Subscriber Payment Processing (in the Accounting module). The expire dates of subscribers who made payments are adjusted accordingly. Next, Transaction Processing is performed: Circulation processes all of the starts, stops, draw changes, and other transactions entered in Customer and Route Services. Circulation can now determine which subscribers should receive this newspaper on this date.

Once Circulation knows who should receive the publication, documents are produced to co-ordinate the distribution. These documents can be of two kinds: mail and route. Let’s say that our subscriber lives in town, and so the newspaper will be delivered by route. The following actions will occur:

• Bundle tops will be produced for each carrier, dealer, and rack.

• Bundle tops tell the distribution personnel how many papers to stack in a bundle and how many bundles go to each route. Bundle tops also include the truck on which the bundles should be loaded. Circulation determines this information from the truck sequence, which tells which truck will drop off which routes on a given day.

• Bundle tops are printed in truck departure order so that distribution personnel can load the early departing trucks first. Within each truck, bundle tops are printed in drop order, which allows bundles to be placed onto the truck in the order in which they will be dropped off.

• Once the trucks are loaded, the drivers take over. Drivers use a document called a truck manifest that lists the routes they must drop (i.e., supply), in drop order. The manifest also lists the draw and drop location for each route. When the driver reaches a route’s drop location, he or she finds the bundles for that route (by looking at the bundle tops) and either drops them off for the carrier or dealer, or puts them in the rack.

• For dealers and racks, this is the end of the line. Carrier-delivered papers, however, require one more step. The carrier picks up the bundles at the drop location and examines the bottom of the bundle top—this is where any starts, stops, messages, or other pertinent information will be printed.

• On the first day that our subscriber receives the paper, the carrier will be informed of the new start via the bundle top, and the paper will begin appearing every morning on the doorstep.

Mail Distribution

Let’s say our subscriber moves out of town but still wants to get the paper—he would then become a mail subscriber. Mail distribution can be included in the same publishing run as route distribution, or it can be run on its own. Instead of bundle tops and truck manifests, Circulation prints mail labels that can be applied to the papers for mailing and a postal report (which may be required by the post office).

Mail labels are printed in label group order. A label group is a group of mail subscribers whose papers are distributed together. For example, all subscribers in one label group might be sent to a certain post office or use a certain truck. Label groups can also be used to differentiate between 1st and Periodical class subscribers.

Within each label group, you may choose to print labels in Zip code order, user-defined order, or PostWare presort order. To mail Periodical class, you should use PostWare (a software product that is integrated into Circulation).

After the newspaper has been distributed, the publishing run can be officially ended. Draw records for the run can then be used in AAM reporting, and a new publishing run can start.

Subscriber Accounting

A few days after our subscriber calls Customer Service, he may receive an initial renewal notice (known as an invoice) for the subscription. This notice is printed using the Renewal Notices option in Accounting, and the cost of the subscription is calculated using the subscription rates defined in Setup. When our subscriber makes the payment, it will likely be entered in Batch Payments with all of the other payments received that day or week. When these subscriber payments are processed (using Payment Processing) the expire dates of the paying subscribers are extended.

Shortly before the subscription runs out, another renewal notice will be sent. If our subscriber is late in paying for a new subscription, the publisher may elect to continue delivering papers for a certain period of time, known as a grace period. These papers are not yet paid for, but when the payment does arrive, part of it will be deducted to cover the grace amount. If the subscriber does not make another payment, the delivery will eventually be stopped, and the grace amount will be “written off.” On the other hand, if the subscriber discontinues the subscription with a positive balance, he may receive a refund.

Account - Carrier/Dealer Accounting

Meanwhile, our subscriber’s carrier is being paid for the delivery of the paper every morning. Most newspapers view their carriers as independent contractors, who are charged a wholesale value for the papers and then, in turn, receive the retail amount from the subscriber.

In one arrangement called “office pay,” the newspaper receives subscriber payments. Account rating determines how much carriers should be charged for draw and how much they should be credited for delivery. The newspaper will then send the carrier a check for the difference. Account rates are typically independent from subscriber rates; a newspaper could have a promotional “1/2 off” rate for new office pay subscribers, but the carrier would receive the normal amount for delivery.

Another arrangement between carriers and the publisher is the “carrier collect” method, in which the carrier is actually collecting money from subscribers and paying the newspaper. Circulation determines (through account rating) how much these carriers should be charged for draw; it is up to the carrier to collect the retail amount from the subscribers on the route. In this scenario, subscribers do not have expire dates and do not require renewal notices—the carrier sets the amount and duration of the subscription. Carrier collect invoices can, however, be printed to help the carrier.

Dealers and racks are similar to carrier collect accounts, in that they are billed for their draw but collect money from the customers themselves.

Each carrier, dealer, and rack belongs to a bill source, and this controls when the bills are printed. For example, home delivery carriers might belong to bill source A, and be billed on the second Thursday of each month. Dealers might belong to bill source B, and be billed on the last day of each month.

Bills are printed during an account billing run, in which a publication and bill source are selected and processed. during an account billing run:

• Draw charges are calculated for each account.

• Any returned newspapers or draw adjustments are taken into account. Draw adjustments usually occur when dealers order extra papers after a publishing run has been completed.

• Delivery credits are applied, in the case of office pay carriers.

• Non-draw charges and credits (for example, an insurance charge, or a credit for mileage) are calculated.

After the account billing has processed, invoices can be printed. Accounts that have credits exceeding charges (routes with mostly office pay subscribers) can be interfaced with the newspaper’s Accounts Payable system, which will produce the carrier checks.

Some time after the account bills are sent out, payments will arrive from the accounts who owe money. The payments will be entered in a batch and accepted—typically, all of the account payments received during a day will be in the same payment batch.

Account billing, returns, draw adjustments, and payment options are all accessed in the Accounting module.

The General Ledger

The expenses of the publisher are managed through the general ledger. Circulation does not act as the general ledger itself, but you can send Circulation records to your general ledger software via a text (ASCII) file generated by the Export GL option.

The Circulation processes that have the most effect on the GL are subscriber payments (office pay), account draw charges, and account payments. Because subscribers pay in advance for a subscription, the payment is initially treated as unearned revenue. Later, when the Unearned Revenue report is run, the portion of the subscription that has been delivered (the earned revenue) is transferred to a Subscriber Revenue account. From the point of view of the publisher, the subscription money is now in the hands of the office pay carriers.

During account billing, the money is debited from an account called Delivery Expense (which may or may not be the same account as Subscriber Revenue) and credited to Accounts Receivable. Part of this accounts receivable money is credited to Accounts Payable (office pay carriers are issued checks) and part of it is credited to Account Revenue (account draw charges—the newspaper’s cut).

There are, of course, no carrier collect subscriber payments. The carriers make the payments themselves, and the amount is credited to accounts receivable. It then goes into revenue along with the office pay draw charges.

If we look at what has happened to our subscriber’s check to the paper, it has been assigned to his (office pay) carrier. The publisher has then taken a portion of this for its own revenue and issued a check to the carrier for the remainder.

Reports

While our subscriber is at home happily reading the paper, his name and subscription information will be appearing, along with thousands of other subscribers, on a myriad of Circulation reports. Subscribers who owe grace show up on the Grace Due report, subscribers who have incorrect or unusual rates show up on the Subscription Rate report, and so on.

Some reports, such as the Daily Post Office Report and the AAM Paragraph 3 by Town report, play critical roles in the operation of the Circulation departments. Other reports, such as Churn and Market Penetration reporting, are used as tools with which newspaper personnel can plan how to better run and expand their circulation.

Targeted Marketing

One day, our subscriber might open the door to find something else with the paper—a shopper or a free box of cereal. This is the result of Targeted Marketing, where a publisher mails or has its carriers (or an alternate delivery force) deliver non-publication products to targeted subscribers. Already having the information and personnel necessary, many publishers actively seek out targeted marketing opportunities from local businesses, thereby adding an extra source of income.

Let’s say a local pet store wants a flyer distributed to all dog owners, and they ask you to deliver it for them. In the interest of your carriers, you have always asked each new subscriber whether they have a dog (the demographic question would be defined in Setup). To deliver the flyer, you would go to Targeted Marketing, select all subscribers who answered “yes” to the dog demographic, and print bundle tops, route lists, or other documents necessary for distribution.

Companion Applications

Typically, demographics are not kept by the publisher, but are instead imported into Circulation from an outside source. This can be done using List MatchPlus, which is a companion application developed by Newscycle Solutions. Another companion application, InsertPlus, can be used to manage the inserting process.

Circulation can also interface address, occupant, demographic and subscriber data using Newscycle Advertising, MediaPlus Advertising, and AudienceReach. A companion application called Household Management is required for this integration.

Before we leave our 1000 foot overview and parachute into the landscape of Circulation, let’s take a final look at the system. The following diagram shows all of the major areas, with arrows indicating where data from one area influences another.

The topics covered in this section are as listed below:

The majority of Circulation modules use graphical interfaces, which can be navigated by using menus and menu options or by clicking buttons at the top of the window. A few accounting and utility options, as well as some setup options, are available only in the older character interface—see the Introduction to the Circulation Setup manual for information on navigating the character interface.

Buttons that are displayed in full color may be selected, while those that are greyed-out are currently inactive. For example, the Stop button in Customer Service will be inactive unless the subscriber displayed in the window has a current subscription.

To select an option, click on the button with your mouse or use the keypress alternative. For example, to initiate a New Start transaction, you could click the New Start button or press Alt-N. You can discover the Alt key combination for each option by placing the mouse pointer over it until the description appears.

The Alt key combinations for Customer Service are shown below.

The Alt key combinations for Route Service are shown below.

After selecting an option, you can begin entering information in the window that appears. You can advance from field to field by pointing and clicking with the mouse or by pressing the Tab key. You can navigate backward through the fields by pressing Shift-Tab. After entering information in the fields, click OK to save the information.

If you just want to view information, click the appropriate tab in the lower part of the window.

Types of Input Fields

You will use five basic types of input fields when working with Graphical Circulation:

1. Checkboxes. These are simple “yes/no” controls. Check the box to answer “yes”; deselect it to answer “no”.

2. Text-entry fields. These fields can be open (you can enter anything), integer (you must enter a whole number), or decimal (you must enter a decimal). When these fields are described in the documentation, the length of the field is also included. For example, Last Name is “open (30)”, because you can enter anything in the field, up to 30 characters.

4. Combo boxes, such as Product. These are similar to lookup fields, except you only need to click on the field to open the list of valid entries. You can either click on the field and choose from the list of valid items that appears, or enter one or more unique characters to identify the item. The latter method is much more economical. For example, when entering a street type, rather than clicking on the combo box and scrolling to “St”, it is easier to just type “st”.

Field and Window-Level Validation

As you move from field to field in Circulation, most of your entries are validated. This means they are checked to ensure they meet certain criteria (for example, that phone numbers conform to the proper format or that new subscriptions start on a future date). If an entry fails validation, you will receive a message when you attempt to navigate out of the field. In some cases, you will be unable continue until you make a valid entry. For example, if you enter an invalid credit card number for an auto-pay subscriber, you will be unable to continue the transaction until you obtain a valid credit card number or select a different means of payment.

When you click OK to submit the information in a window, Circulation validates all of the entries again. If an invalid entry is found, you will again receive a message.

About Help Buttons

Some windows have Help buttons. When you click a Help button, online documentation is displayed in a browser (either the browser you have open, or your computer’s default browser). The online documentation is context-sensitive, which means that if you click the Help button when doing a start, for example, documentation for starts will be displayed in the browser.

You can access general online documentation from the Help menu at the top of the application window.

Sign-On Defaults

You can specify some default settings for your Customer Service or Route Service session by selecting Sign-On Defaults from the File menu. These defaults are good for the current session only. If you log out and then log back in, the defaults will no longer be active.

The following table explains the sign-on fields.

Save and Find

Select Save and Find to save certain field entries for a report, and to saves time during data entry. This is also required if you run several options at once in a batch mode.

To illustrate these options, let’s say we want to save the field values for the Route Delivery List report. We enter the fields as normal, but instead of clicking Continue, we click Save. The Find/Save/Delete dialog box appears, and we enter a file name, such as “Delivery” for these settings.

The next time we run the report, we click Find (rather than Add) and enter the file name. Our previous entries default in the fields. We can override these entries, if we choose, or we just click OK and then Continue to print the report—a much faster process now that the fields are defaulted.

Using Input Parameters

An added feature in Save is the ability to prompt for certain fields. To continue with the example above, let’s say that we want to prompt for the product whenever we run the Route Delivery List report (the rest of the fields should be defaulted). With the Product field active, we press Ctrl-P to display the Input (Parameter Name) dialog box and enter a parameter name for this field, such as “Which product?”.

The next time we select Find and retrieve these parameters, all the fields will default as usual, but we will be prompted for Product. Click Modify, enter a value, and then click OK to populate the field.

Additional Date Parameters

In addition to TODAY +/- x, the following date parameters can also be used:

1. FIRST DAY THIS WEEK +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

2. LAST DAY THIS WEEK +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

3. FIRST DAY LAST WEEK +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

4. LAST DAY LAST WEEK +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

5. FIRST DAY THIS MONTH +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

6. LAST DAY THIS MONTH +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

7. FIRST DAY LAST MONTH +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

8. LAST DAY LAST MONTH +/- X DAY/WEEK +/- Y DAY/WEEK

(where X and Y are numbers; both are optional), and

1. FIRST DAY THIS FISCAL PERIOD-<CompanyID>

2. LAST DAY THIS FISCAL PERIOD-<CompanyID>

3. FIRST DAY LAST FISCAL PERIOD-<CompanyID>

4. LAST DAY LAST FISCAL PERIOD-<CompanyID>

(The actual CompanyID is passed in after the dash. CompanyGLCompany setup is used to locate the GL Company.)

Exiting a Graphical Interface

To exit a graphical interface, select Exit from the File menu or click on the “X” in the top-right corner of the window.

Several options in the graphical Circulation interfaces allow you to personalize your view of the application. You can design your own read-only versions of tabs, rearrange standard tabs, and “dock” often-used tabs for quick reference. You can also change the labels of fields and other components to accommodate a local language or variance in industry terminology. You can save your personalized view and use it, or return to the standard view, any time you want.

The following table lists the personalization topics covered in this introduction.

Creating Personalized Tabs

A personalized tab contains read-only copies of standard tables, fields, and other components. You can add any components you wish to your personalized tabs.

To create a personalized tab:

1. Right-click on the background of any standard tab to display the context menu.

2. Select Add Personalized Tab. The Enter Tab Name dialog box is displayed.

3. Give your personalized tab a unique name.
4. Click OK. A new, empty tab is created.

Adding Components to a Personalized Tab

After creating a personalized tab, you need to add components (tables, fields, etc.) to it individually. Components on a personalized tab are read-only; for example, you cannot change a field entry. They are dynamic, however. If you change an entry in the original field, your personalized copy will be updated to reflect the change.

In the following example, we will add some components from the Subscription tab to our personalized tab.

Adding a Table

You can add a copy of an entire table or selected columns of a table to a personalized tab.

To do so:

1. Locate the table you want to copy.

2. Right-click on any cell of the table cell to show the context menu.

3. Select Add To Personalized Tab if you want a copy of the entire table, or Add Columns to Custom if you want only one or more columns of the table.

• In our example, we need only the Product and Account columns, so we select Add Columns to Custom and then the name of our personalized tab.

• Next, we need to choose the columns from the dialog box that appears and click OK.

• When we go back to view our personalized tab, we can see that the columns have been added.

Adding a Panel

A panel is a collection of related components grouped together under a heading. Individual components must be assigned to a panel on a personalized tab.

To add a panel:

1. Right-click on the background of the personalized tab to show the context menu.

2. Select Add Panel.

3. Enter a name for the panel and click OK. The following example shows a new panel called Publication Info.

Adding Components to a Panel

You can add a read-only copy of any of the following components to a panel on a personalized tab:

1. Text field

2. Text area

3. Date field

4. Check box

5. Combo box

To add a component to a panel:

1. Right-click in the component you want to add (not on the label) to show the context menu. Note: To add a combo box, right-click on the arrow instead of the field. For check boxes, you can click on either the check box or the label.

2. Select Add To Personalized Tab, the name of the personalized tab, and the name of the panel where the component should be placed. You can also choose to add the component to a new panel.

The following example shows that the Publication field has been added to the personalized tab.

The following example shows the tab with even more fields added.

Removing a Component

To remove a component from a personalized tab:

1. Right-click on the component (not the label) to display the context menu.

2. Select Remove to remove the component.

Re-ordering Components in a Panel

To re-order components:

1. Right-click on a component you want to move.

2. Select Move Up or Move Down. The following example shows that the Status and Rate fields have been re-ordered.

Renaming or Removing a Panel

To rename or remove a panel, right click on the panel name and select the appropriate option:

1. To rename the panel, select Change Title and enter a new name.

2. To remove the panel, select Remove Panel and confirm your choice. All of the panel’s components will be removed.

Docking and Undocking Tabs

To “dock” a tab means to move it from its standard location to the side of the application window for easy reference at any time. Unlike a personalized tab, a docked tab is not a copy; it is the actual tab, and can be modified. In this example, we will dock the Complaints sub-tab of the Occupant tab, so that we can reference an occupant’s complaint history quickly.

To dock a tab:

1. Right-click on the tab you want to dock. For main tabs, you can right-click either on the tab name or the background of the tab. For sub-tabs, you must right-click on the tab name.

2. Select Dock Tab from the context menu.
3. The Complaints tab is removed from the Occupant tab and docked on the right side of the window.

Viewing Docked Tabs

To view a docked tab, you can:

1. Click on the docked tab to open it and keep it open. The tab will stay open until you click somewhere on the window besides the open tab.

2. Hover over it with your mouse pointer. The tab contents will appear. When you move the mouse pointer away from the docked tab, its contents will be hidden. Note that in order to use the hover feature, you must select Preferences from the Help menu at the top of the module and check the Auto Show Dockable Frame field.

Options for a Docked Tab

The buttons on the upper-right corner of the docked tab window give you several options for displaying or hiding a docked tab. The following table describes these buttons.

Moving Tabs

You have the ability to move tabs in order to rearrange them. To move a tab:

1. Right-click on the tab you want to move to show the context.
2. Select Move Tab.

3. Right-click on the tab in front of the position where you want to move the tab.
4. Select Paste Tab to paste the tab in its new location.

Opening a Table in a New Window

You have the ability to open a standard table (i.e., not a personalized table) in a new window. To do this, right-click in any cell of the table and select Open in New Window. A copy of the table will appear in a new window that you can resize and place anywhere on your window. To close the window, click the X in the upper-right corner.

Saving and Opening Your Personalized View

Unless you save your personalized view, all of your personal changes (custom tabs, docked tabs, window size and position) will be lost when you exit the system. To save your personalized view, select Personalization | Save View from the Help menu. Then, in the dialog box that appears, enter a name for your view and click OK.

The next time you log in to the application, you can open your personal view by selecting Help | Personalization | Personalized Views and selecting your view.

Custom Labels

You have the option to rename components (fields, check boxes, etc.) in Circulation. This can be useful, for example, if your primary language is not English, or if your newspaper uses a different term (e.g., “product”, “publication”, or “deliverable”).

To change a label:

1. Right-click on a component label and select Personalize. The Change Label dialog box appears.
2. Enter a different term or a translation in the New Value field.

3. Select the user or group of users this change will affect:

4. Current User—This change affects only the current user.

5. Current Group—This change affects only

6. All Users—This change affects all Circulation users.

7. Other User—This change affects only the user selected in the combo box.

8. Select the scope of the change:

9. This Instance Only—This change affects only the current instance of this module.

10. All Instances in Current Module—This change affects all open instances of this module.

11. All Instances, All Modules—This change affects all instances and all Circulation modules.

12. Click OK.

My Reports or Group Reports

On all of the Report Viewer tabs, you have the option of viewing only the reports that you have generated, or all reports in the security group (such as the “ALL” group used for spool security):

• To view only the reports you have generated, select the My Reports radio button.

• To view all reports generated by everyone in the security group, select the Group Reports radio button.

Sorting Columns

All of the columns in any Report Viewer tab can be sorted in ascending/descending order. To sort or re-sort a column, simply click on the column heading. To reverse the order, click the column heading again. This feature can be useful if, for example, you want to sort by filename or user.

Filtering

The reports listed in any Report Viewer tab can be filtered. To apply a filter to the reports listed:

1. Right-click on the column you want to filter to display the context menu.

2. Select one of the following:

   • Program—To filter only the required Program, choose the desired Program name from the Program list.

   • Date—Choose a date (or dates) to view the reports generated on that day (or days).

   • Time—Select a time (or multiple times) to view the reports that were created at that time.

   • User—Select a user (or users) to view the reports generated by that user (s).

3. Enter the text that the column must match or include in order to be shown. Then, click OK. The tab will then show only those reports that contain the filter text.

The Monofonto Type Face

An optimized, true-type font file, MONOFONT.TTF , is available for use with the Report Viewer. This font minimizes the necessity to scroll horizontally through reports.

This font is loaded into the /dti/Java folder upon installation, from where it can be installed on user PCs by a system administrator or other person. This font must be installed on each PC individually. You can also use your browser’s text size settings to view reports in a smaller or larger type face.

Several features in the graphical applications allow you to view single-copy outlets, routes, and campaign results using internet-based mapping.

Business Rules

The Mapping section of Business Rules controls this feature. See the Setup Manual for descriptions of these Business Rules.

Security

The following Transaction Security items control which users are able to view maps in Circulation:

• MapCSAddress—View the Customer Service address map.

• MapCSSingleCopy—View the Customer Service single copy locator.

• MapRSRouteList—View the Route Service delivery list map.

• MapRSSingleCopy—View the Route Service single copy map.

• MapTMCampaign—View the Targeted Marketing campaign results map.

Mapping Properties

An option in Graphical Setup (Miscellaneous | Mapping Properties) allows you to register the API keys needed to use the various mapping services. See the Setup Manual for details.

Mapping in Customer Service

In Customer Service, you can map a selected delivery address and locate single copy outlets for a subscriber. After finding a subscriber, a Maps button appears on the button bar. Click this button to access the Map Delivery Address or Find Single Copy Locations options.

Map Delivery Address

When you select Map Delivery Address, a map of the subscriber’s delivery address appears in your default browser. Close the browser when you have finished.

Find Single Copy Locations

When you select Find Single Copy Locations, a tab opens for the entry of the product for which you are searching, as well as address information. Also specify the distance from the address within which to locate single copy outlets.

Enter only as much address information as necessary to find single copy locations (e.g., you can enter only the Zip code). Click OK to view the map.

The zoom and navigation tools you can use with the map will vary depending on the system you have set up.

You can view detailed address information (and phone numbers) by hovering the mouse pointer over the single copy locations. In addition, the single copy locations are listed below the map. You can zoom in/out on a single location, as well as center the map on a specific location by clicking the corresponding Marker link.

Mapping in Route Service

In Route Service, you have the option to map selected home-delivery routes and single copy addresses. In addition, the Find Single Copy Locations option is also available (described in the previous section).

After finding a route, a Maps button appears on the button bar. Click this button to access the Map Delivery Addresses, Map Single Copy Address and Find Single Copy Locations options.

Map Delivery Addresses

The Map Delivery Addresses option can be helpful in determining exactly where to find an occupant’s delivery address. In addition to a map of the route, the addresses on the route and the delivery schedules of the subscribers are also shown.

You can view detailed information (address, account number, status, etc.) by hovering the mouse pointer over a delivery address. In addition, each address on the route is listed below the map. You can zoom in/out on a single location, as well as center the map on a specific location by clicking the corresponding Marker link.

Map Single Copy Address

The Map Single Copy Address option will map the address associated with a single copy address.

Mapping in Dispatching

In Dispatching, you have the option of generating a map to show the address for subscription-related or delivery address-related dispatching activity. This can be useful to show the exact location where an item needs to be dispatched.

To generate a map, highlight the dispatch item on the Dispatch tab and click Map. A map of the address will appear in a browser window.

Mapping in Targeted Marketing

In Targeted Marketing, you can view a map of campaign results from the Canvass Board. After retrieving addresses for a campaign and week, click the Map Campaign Results button to view the results in a map.

The Customer Service module is where Customer Service representatives spend most of their time. This module is where you view customer information and enter transactions such as starts, stops, moves, etc.

Topics covered in this section are as listed below:

Contact types and reasons must be set up prior to creating contacts in Customer Service. See Contact Type and Contact Reason in the Setup Manual for more information.

Once a contact is entered, it can be displayed in the Transactions tab by highlighting the contact in the Contacts tab. In the case of an e-mail contact, if the template is flagged to archive e-mail, the Show Document button will be active. Click this button to view the e-mail that was sent in a browser window.

Alerts draw attention to follow-up activities in Customer Service, such as outstanding tasks, opportunities to collect subscriber e-mail addresses, and up-sell situations. For example, a Customer Service associate may be prompted to ask a subscriber for an e-mail address if one is not found in his/her record.

Alerts are generated automatically from level 1 tasks defined in the Task Management module. They can also be set up individually using the Distribution | Notification option in the Graphical Setup module (see Notification in the Setup Manual).

Documents such as renewal notices can be associated with a customer. These documents can be viewed via the Documents tab. PDF, CSV, HTML, DOC and other document types are supported.

To view a document, click on the file name in the File column.

Note that:

• Documents must be added using the Documents option (refer to the Setup Manual).

• Only documents with file names that incorporate the subscriber’s ID display. For example if the document is set up with a subscription ID token in the file name, such as “renewals.pdf”, and the subscriber’s ID is 5100, the document “renewals5100.pdf” would display for the subscriber, if it existed.

• To initially display documents, click the Refresh Documents button.

When you click OK, Circulation will display address, occupant, and subscription information that matches the search.

Transactions, subscriptions, and other information is listed on the tabs in the upper-right corner of the window. Additional information is accessed on the tabs in the lower part of the window. Each tab is discussed individually in the next section.

If more than one address or occupant matches the search criteria (or if a subscriber has more than one subscription), the Search Results window lists them separately—select an item in the list by double-clicking on it. Also note that you can click Recall to default the search criteria entered for the previous Find.

Also, a docked tab called “Past Searches” contains a list of previous Finds. You can repeat a past search by double-clicking an item in the list. A checkbox can be used as needed to keep track of past searches.

A Note About Email Icons

The Email combo box contains all email addresses for a customer. A green checkmark icon beside an e-mail address indicates that it is current. A red exclamation point indicates that it is outdated. Whether an email address is considered current or outdated is determined by the Business Rule, How many days after last use do Email addresses become outdated?. If the number of days since the e-mail address was last used exceeds the number of days entered here, the e-mail address is considered outdated.

E-mail addresses are entered on the Occupant tab.

A Note about the Transactions Tab

The Transactions tab in the upper-right corner of the window lists all of the transactions associated with a customer. Each transaction status (e.g., processed, unprocessed, backdated, overdue, future) is indicated with a colored icon.

A Note About the Subscriptions Tab

The Subscriptions tab in the upper-right corner of the window displays all products that are available to the selected subscriber. Colored icons indicate the current status of subscriptions: active subscriptions are indicated with a green sphere, perm stopped subscriptions with a red sphere, and temp stopped subscriptions with yellow sphere.

The View/Print Options and the Report Viewer can both be used to view, print and save reports. They are described in the following sections.

View/Print Options

Viewing, printing, and saving options are displayed in the View & Print Options window.

Access this window by clicking the View/Print button on the report window, before you click Continue to process the report. The fields in the View & Print Options window are described in the following table.

If you have the Print checkbox selected, the report will be sent to the printer identified in the Printer field. If you have the View checkbox selected, the report appears in your default browser window once processing is complete. Use your browser’s controls to modify the text size if desired, and scroll through the report to view it.

File name variables

The following variables can be used in file names. Add variables in brackets (<>). For example, if report settings for bundle tops are set up to name the file “BUNDLE.<C>,” and bundle tops are run on April 1 2022, the resulting file name will be “BUNDLE.040122.”

Customers often call to get information about their account; for example, the number of days left in their subscription or their balance. Customer Service associates also find this information useful when trying to solve a service or billing problem with a subscriber. This information is displayed on the tabs in the lower part of the window. Only the tabs relevant to a particular customer will be active. These tabs are described and discussed individually below.

Circulation can be set up to use internet-based mapping features. In Customer Service, you can generate a map showing an occupant’s address and also locate all of the single copy locations within a specified distance from an entered address. The two options are Map Delivery Address and Find Single Copy Locations.

Map Delivery Address

When you select Map Delivery Address, a map of the occupant’s address appears in your default browser. Close the browser when you have finished.

Find Single Copy Locations

• When you select Find Single Copy Locations, a tab opens for the entry of the product for which you are searching, as well as address information. Also specify the distance from the address within which to locate single copy outlets.

• Enter only as much address information as necessary to find single copy locations (e.g., you can enter only the Zip code). Click OK to view the map.

• You can view detailed address information (and phone numbers) by hovering the mouse pointer over the single copy locations. In addition, the single copy locations are listed below the map. You can zoom in/out on a single location, as well as center the map on a specific location by clicking the corresponding Marker link.

The Subscription tab contains a variety of information about a customer’s subscription, including:

• The publication to which he/she is subscribed.

• The subscription status (e.g., Active, Perm Stopped, Temp Stopped, Vac-Online).

• The billing method (Office Pay, Carrier Collect, Paid Comp, Unpaid Comp). Auto-renew credit card and bank draft subscribers can have different labels (such as “auto renew card” and “auto renew bank”) as defined by Business Rules.

• The current rate.

• The start and expire date of the subscription.

• The delivery schedule, which determines which days the subscriber receives the paper.

• The route, route type and carrier delivering the newspaper (if route delivered) or the label group (if mail delivered).

• The district and carrier, if route delivered.

• The delivery method (route or mail) for each day.

• The current balance and tax remaining in the subscription, the current discount amount remaining (discounts are amortized throughout the length of the subscription) and number of papers (copies) left in the subscription.

• The Messages tab, containing messages that apply to this subscriber.

• The Auto Pay tab, if the subscriber automatically renews using a credit card or bank account.

• The Billing Info tab, containing the subscriber’s bill-to address, if it is different from the delivery address. Renewal delivery information is also displayed here.

• The Mail-To tab, which will contain the subscriber’s mail-to address if one exists.

• The Gift Subscribers tab, which lists any gift subscriptions paid for by this occupant (i.e., all of the subscribers for which this occupant is the bill-to occupant).

• Additional addresses, delivery directions, delivery instructions, and delivery placement, if applicable, in their own tab.

• The Multiple Routes tab if the subscription is delivered by multiple routes.

• The Deadlines tab, which indicates the time by which the route should be delivered on each day of the week, as well as the cutoff time for dispatched shortages.

• The Carriers tab, showing all carriers associated with a selected subscription.

• The Combined Payments tab, showing a summary of all payments made on a combo subscription (active only for combo subscriptions).

The Report Viewer is opened automatically when you launch the Reporting module, or any other module that allows you to produce reports (Route Service, Publishing, etc.). By default, the Report Viewer is minimized to the bottom of the window until you click on the tab to view it.

Running Reports Tab

The Running Reports tab shows all reports currently being generated, either by the individual user or by the user group, depending on the option selected.

The user, report title, spool name and status are displayed. The status can be:

1. Started—The report has been initiated.

2. Processing—The report is currently being processed.

3. Completed—The report is complete.

4. Viewing—The report is complete and is being viewed in a browser window.

5. Canceled—The report has been canceled (by highlighting the report and clicking the Cancel Report button).

The other buttons in this window are the Cancel, Clear, and Process Status buttons:

1. Cancel Report—If you click Cancel Report, the Transaction Processing of the selected Report will be cancelled.

2. Clear—If you click Clear, all reports will be removed from this list. You cannot remove selected reports from the list.

3. Process Status—If you click Process Status during Transaction Processing, some information about the process will be displayed, such as what subscription and transaction is currently being processed and when the processing of that transaction started.

Completed Reports Tab

The Completed Reports tab lists reports that have been generated during your current session (i.e., since you launched the application), either by you or by all users in your group.

Options on this tab include:

• Print—Allows you to print a report. Highlight a report to select it and click Print. The Printer Selection dialog box appears. Select a printer and enter the number of copies. Then click OK.

• Rename—Allows you to rename a report or save a copy of the report with a different name. Highlight a report to select it and click Rename. The Rename Selection dialog box appears. Enter a new name for the report and indicate whether the old report should be overwritten. Then click OK.

• Clear—Clears all of the currently displayed reports from the list. Note that you cannot remove individual reports. If you click Clear, all reports will be removed.

Deferred Reports Tab

The Deferred Reports tab shows all reports that have been deferred (by selecting deferred in the When field of the View/Print Options window). To generate a deferred report, double-click it.

Saved Reports Tab

The Saved Reports tab lists all reports that have been saved. Use this tab when you want to view, print, or rename a report that has been saved.

Options on this tab include:

• Refresh—Allows you to regenerate the list of saved reports.

• Print—Allows you to print the reports. Highlight a report to select it and click Print. The Printer Selection dialog box appears. Select a printer and enter the number of copies. Then click OK.

• Rename—Allows you to rename a report or save a copy of the report with a different name. Highlight a report to select it and click Rename. The Rename Selection dialog box appears. Enter a new name for the report and indicate whether the old report should be overwritten. Then click OK.

• PDF—Allows you to export the selected report in PDF format. The exported file will be shown in a browser, and the user will be able to save a copy to their computer.

If you need information about a customer’s address, click on the Address tab. You also modify and delete addresses here, as well as view complaints, AAM zones, routes, and other information associated with an address. This tab is described in the Address section.

It is sometimes useful to view a subscription’s rates historically. For example, a subscriber may call in to complain about a rate increase. By viewing the subscriber’s rate changes, you can see that they were moved, for example, from a “1/2 off” rate, to a “1/3 off” rate, to a standard rate. Rate changes are displayed on the Rate Chgs tab.

The Rates tab shows the subscriber’s current rate, available rates, and the different rate terms. For example, the following example shows a 1-week term, a 4-week term, and a 13-week term.

The Show On Renewal and Show On Invoice columns indicate whether the term will appear on the subscriber’s renewal notice or invoice: it may always appear, never appear, or appear only if the subscriber previously paid with this term.

If your rates vary by day of week, double-clicking on a rate term will display rate amounts or percentages by day of week. Yearly, quarterly, and monthly terms will have percentages for each day of the week, while day terms will have amounts. Weekly terms can have either amounts or percentages, depending on how the term is defined. Click Find to view rate terms for a different rate.

For combo subscriptions, the amounts by day for each component of the combo are shown when you expand the Amounts By Day. As well, when you expand the Tax By Day, any applicable taxes for any component product are shown.

Price Quotes

Customers sometimes ask for price quotes; for example, how much they can buy for a given amount of money. To get a quote, click on the Price Quote tab. You can find a quote for a certain number of days, or for a certain amount. For example, the customer might be in town for 40 days, or only want to spend 30.00.

This feature shows potential rates and terms—it does not start or renew subscriptions. The rate and term quoted can be printed on the subscriber’s invoice or renewal (if you click the Create Quote button), but this is the only effect of the operation.

The following table describes the fields on this tab.

Available Rates

The Rates tab can also display rates available to a subscriber (on the Available Rates sub-tab). It uses address, occupant, and subscription information (if available) to find valid rates, based on the subscriber rating rules. This is useful when customers ask what rates and terms are available. To display the rates available to a subscriber, click the Get Rates button, enter the product, delivery schedule and delivery placement (or keep the defaults), and click OK. The available rates are then displayed.

Rewards programs are promotional offers that give consumers credits for purchasing a product. The credits may be air miles, points, or other incentives. Subscribers can be signed up for a rewards program on the Rewards tab. Payments will generate rewards for programs to which the subscriber belongs. See the Offer Code section of the Setup Manual for more information on rewards.

Setting Up a Rewards Program

To add a subscriber to a program:

• Find the subscriber.

• On the Rewards tab, click Add.

• Select the rewards program and enter the subscriber’s account number in the program.

• Click OK to add the subscriber to the program.

Displaying Rewards Information

The subscriber’s current rewards, if they exist, will be displayed on the Rewards tab, in the Reward History area. Each transaction that generated a reward (typically a payment or auto renew) will be shown.

Manually Adding a Reward

Although they are typically generated by payments, rewards can also be added manually on the Rewards tab in Customer Service. This is useful for reward adjustments, or when transferring rewards from some other product or program.

To manually add a reward:

1. Find the subscriber and click the Add Reward button on the Rewards tab. Note that menu security can be defined for this button.
2. Enter reward information in the fields described in the table below.

   Field

   Type

   What should be entered

   PRODUCT

   setup

   Enter the publication for which you are adding a reward. Only publications that this subscriber receives may be selected.

   REWARD DATE

   date

   Enter the date of the reward.

   SOURCE, REASON

   setup

   Specify a source and reason code for the reward. Only reason codes set up in advance for reward transactions may be selected.

   REWARD PROGRAM

   setup

   Select the reward program for which the subscriber is receiving a reward.

   OFFER CODE

   setup

   Select the offer code for this reward. Only offer codes defined for the subscriber’s rate terms or marked as the “goodwill” offer code in Business Rules may be selected.

   REWARD

   integer (5)

   Enter the reward amount. The amount must be between the minimum and maximum manual reward amounts specified in Business Rules.

   REMARKS

   unlimited

   Enter any remarks that are pertinent to this transaction.

3. Click OK to add the reward. A reward transaction will be created, and will be processed by transaction processing on the reward date.

The Merch tab shows the merchandise associated with a subscription and the current status. Users with the proper security (Transaction Security item “CSMMerchDate”) will be able to modify the fulfillment date of processed transactions.

Most Customer Service activities involve subscription transactions. Subscription transactions are initiated by clicking the applicable button on the top of the window. Before any transaction can be initiated, an occupant and/or address must first be retrieved from the database using Find. Only then will transaction options be available. Note that most transactions require a customer with a subscription.

Most transactions entered in Customer Service will not be processed until transaction processing is completed during the publishing run. The exceptions are the payment options (payments, NSF payments, and cancel payments), which are processed in Payment Processing, and refund write-offs and grace write-offs, which are processed immediately after entry.

About E-mail Confirmations

When certain transactions are entered in Customer Service, such as starts, temp stops, restarts or payments, a confirmation e-mail can be sent to the subscriber. In addition, a contact record will be created for the e-mail, allowing past e-mail confirmations to be viewed in Customer Service (if the e-mail template is set up to archive).

A confirmation e-mail will be sent if the Send Email Confirmation field is flagged when entering the transaction. Send Email Confirmation will only open if:

• The subscriber has an e-mail address specified.

• The reason code selected has Send Email Confirmation set to “y”.

The field will default as checked if Default Send Email is checked for the template in Website setup. Otherwise it will default as unchecked.

If the Send Email Confirmation field is checked, the e-mail will be sent to the subscriber when the transaction is entered.

When an e-mail confirmation can be sent and the subscriber who qualifies for multiple websites, Customer Service displays the Select a Website window after the reason code is entered. The window lists the available websites, allowing the user to select the website whose properties and template should be used for the e-mail.

This may happen if a product is linked to multiple websites, or (in the case of the New Password e-mail) the occupant subscribes to multiple publications.

Once the e-mail is sent, a contact record will be created. If the e-mail template is set up to archive e-mail (Archive Email is checked), you can click the Show Document button when viewing the contact transaction to display the e-mail.

The Financial tab contains four sub-tabs.

1. Adjust Days

2. Fiscal Activity

3. Fees

4. Vacation Credits

Adjust Days

• The Adjust Days sub-tab shows the history of expiration dates for this subscription, along with the reasons why the dates were changed. Starts, stops, payments, refunds, expire changes, and complaints are all examples of transactions that can adjust the expiration date. These changes are known as adjustment days. Details about an adjustment, such as taxes, tips, and bonus day premium amounts, can be displayed by clicking the plus icon to the left of a transaction.

Fiscal Activity

• On the Fiscal Activity sub-tab, you can view all of the invoice activity (revenue and grace-owed records) for this subscriber in a specified date range. You can click on a record to see details in the Fiscal Activity Details section of the tab.

Fees

1. • The following table describes the fields on this sub-tab.

     Field

     What it means

     Fee Type

     Indicates the type of fee, whether Activation, Printed Statement, or Other.

     Fee Code

     Name of the fee

     Description

     Details of the Fee Code

     Fee Date

     The date when the fee was applied

     Amount

     The fee that was charged

     Remaining Amount

     The amount that is still yet to be paid

     Status

     Indicates the current status of the fee, whether Paid, Waived, Written Off, or Unpaid

     Reason

     Indicates the reason for the status of the fee. This only applies to Waived and Written Off statuses.

     Date

     The date the fee was waived or written off.

2. Below are the options available under Fees sub-tab:

   • Show All Fees—When you click the button, the fees with all statuses will be displayed. By default, only fees with an unpaid status will appear.
   • Show Only Unpaid Fees—When you click the Show All Fees button, it will change to Show Only Unpaid Fees. Click the button to view only the unpaid fees.
   • Write Off Selected Fee—Fees can only be written off for an unpaid fee if the subscription has a processed start transaction.

     1. Select the fee to be written off from the table and click the "Write Off Selected Fee" button.

     2. Select a Source (optional) and a Write Off Reason from the respective drop-down menus, then click OK.
     3. After a fee is written off, the status of the fee is reflected as written off on the fee tab. In addition, a FeeWriteOff transaction will be displayed in the transaction window.

     Note: This is applicable to both Activation and Printed Bill Fees.

   • Printed Bill Fee—To opt out of the Printed Bill fees, click this button.

     1. Click the Modify button.
     2. Select the "Opt out of Printed Bill Fee" checkbox and then choose the "Opt out Reason" from the drop-down menu.

     3. Click OK.

3. Processing a payment towards Fees:

   • When processing a payment, the payment for Fees will be made only after the Grace Amount, if any, has been applied.

   • If the payment is entirely applied to the Fees, the status will be shown as Paid.
   • Or else, the status will remain Unpaid, and the remaining amount to be paid will be shown in the table's Remaining Amount column.

Vacation Credits

1. Subscribers who do not want to get the vacation credit can update the details in this sub-tab.

2. This sub-tab will be enabled only if the Business Rule—Can subscribers opt out of vacation credit rules? (General section) has been set to Yes.

3. Select Modify.

   1. Select the "Opt Out Of Vacation Credit Rules" checkbox and enter the Remarks (optional). Click Submit.
   2. A Note transaction is created as a record of this activity when a subscriber opts out of vacation credit rules or opts back in to vacation credit rules. The Note transaction will appear on the Transactions tab.
   3. To delete or modify the transaction's details, click either the Delete or Modify buttons at the bottom of the Note transaction.

The Miscellaneous tab is a composite of six different categories of information, which are described below.

Tax Authority

A tax authority is a geographical tax area, such as “MN” for Minnesota state taxes. If a tax authority is set up in a city, county, state, and/or country in which the subscriber resides, that tax will be applied to the cost of the subscription, unless an exemption is entered. Tax authorities and exemption reason codes must be defined in Setup. The Tax Authority panel shows tax authorities and the tax exemption reasons (if any) that apply to a subscriber. Tax exemptions are entered during new starts and billing changes.

Recent Transactions

This panel displays the last start, restart, and complaint for this subscription. The start and restarts are listed with their source and reason codes. The complaint is listed with its complaint code, and the total number of complaints called in for this subscription is shown.

TM Products Delivered

This tab lists of all Targeted Marketing (TM) products delivered to this address. TM products can include grocery store flyers, shoppers, and other commercial items. A TM product is delivered only to certain addresses, targeted by the product’s selection criteria. The selection criteria might include Zip, demographic answers, publication received, or other variables.

Inserts Delivered

If you have InsertPlus, a list of all inserts delivered to this customer, along with the delivery date, is displayed. If the insert has a version, the version also displays. The Runout column indicates whether the customer is in a runout zone for this insert (if the zone is a runout, the customer may or may not have received the insert in their paper). Burt Route Code 1 and Code 2 will display only if used in conjunction with the Burt Export and for sites that export alternate information. These fields will be suppressed for a subscriber who does not have inserts that utilize the Burt codes.

Only inserts for the current publishing date or earlier will be shown. A Business Rule in the InsertPlus section determines the number of days that are initially displayed. Click Selection to change the product or date range (inserts can be viewed for both publications and TM products).

Tax Impact

The Tax Impact query displays the tax on all relevant subscriber transactions, including payments and auto renews, within a date range. This option will be available only if the subscriber has had a payment or other transaction taxed. Click Selection to specify the date range, then click OK. The transactions that were taxed will appear.

Authentication Logins

This tab displays a list of iServices authentication logins for the subscriber within the last 30 days. A Selection button is available to modify the date range for which the user’s logins are listed.

Communication History

Communication history reflects the newsletters or alerts that have already been sent to customers. For example, a customer might call because they have not received their “Sports” newsletter. You can check the customer’s communication history to determine if the communication should have been sent. Initially history for the current date and past 30 days displays. You can change the date range by clicking the Selection button.

The Application Launcher provides quick access to the Newscycle applications. It is database-independent and stored externally in an XML configuration file. You can set up multiple groups of toolbars, each of which can contain multiple toolbars for different database sets. See Circulation FAQ #76 for information on setting up the Application Launcher.

Logging In

Enter your user name and password to log in. When you log in, the Application Launcher will automatically log you into to every toolbar for which you have permission (see the examples below). Also, when you click a toolbar button to start an application, you will be logged in automatically to that application.

A login window will be displayed instead if you do not have permission to use a particular toolbar. You’ll need to enter a valid user name and password to use this toolbar.

If you need to switch to a different group of toolbars (e.g., to a “test” or “production” toolbar), click the menu in the upper-left corner of the window and make a selection.

Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is an electronic authentication method in which a user is permitted access to an application or website only after providing two or more verification factors to the authentication system. As it is difficult for users to reliably authenticate themselves using just a username and password, especially if they have numerous accounts, and since many people reuse passwords across accounts and create passwords that lack complexity, MFA is a useful tool for preventing data theft by cybercriminals.

Naviga now supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) to provide increased login security for users connecting to Circulation application. For successful user authentication, users should follow the steps outlined in this section.

Graphical User Interface MFA User Authentication

This section guides the user through the steps for MFA user authentication in the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

The following use case describes user authentication using the MFA service provider, Auth0.

GUI User Authentication with Auth0

1. Set the following Business Rules to the values provided by the MFA service provider, Auth0.

   1. What is the URL of the redirect page that you use? (Login Section)

   2. What is the client ID for Auth0 application? (Login Section)

   3. What is the client secret key for Auth0 application? (Login Section)

   4. What is the domain URL for Auth0 application? (Login Section)

2. Open the latest ‘NCS CIRC Launch JNLP’ file.
3. Enter the user's email address and password registered with Auth0.
4. Click Continue.

5. A push notification is sent to your Auth0 mobile application. When you receive the notification, click “Approve” and you will be logged into Circulation application.
6. Users can also choose to click ‘ Manually Enter Code’ to log in by manually entering a passcode provided by the MFA service provider mobile application.
7. You will be logged into the Circulation application after the authentication is successful.

Character User Interface MFA User Authentication

In CHUI, multiple sessions can be logged in by users bypassing the MFA identity provider (MFA IdP: OKTA and Auth0) after the successful initial login for users through the MFA.

The time duration for which the user would not require MFA authentication for a new session can be specified in the Business Rule— How long is the MFA security bypassed after the initial login for a character-based application? (Login section). When the time limit is reached, the user can only start a new session by reauthenticating with MFA.

This section guides the user through the steps for MFA user authentication in the Character User Interface (CHUI).

The following use cases describes user authentication using the MFA service provider, Auth0.

CHUI User Authentication with Auth0

1. Set the following Business Rules to the values provided by the MFA service provider, Auth0.

   1. Which single sign on service provider do you use for character based application? (Login Section) should be set to “Auth0”

   2. What is the client ID for Auth0 application? (Login Section)

   3. What is the client secret key for Auth0 application? (Login Section)

   4. What is the domain URL for Auth0 application? (Login Section)

2. Open the Character User Interface (CHUI).

3. Enter the option to login to the CM (1) or the CMO (3) application.
4. The user authentication page will be displayed on the screen. Enter the “Password” for the account and then press the Enter button.
5. Once authorized, user can choose “PUSH” to receive a push notification to your MFA provider mobile application.
6. When you receive the push notification in your MFA provider mobile application, click “Approve”.

7. Then, in CHUI, press the Space button to confirm and advance to the application.
8. Users can also choose ‘OTP’ to log in by manually entering a passcode provided by the MFA service provider mobile application.
9. You will be logged into the Circulation application after the authentication is successful.

Minimizing the Application Launcher

To save space on your desktop, the Application Launcher can be minimized to a small toolbar that is always on top of other windows. This way, you can always access the Circulation applications easily.

1. To minimize the application launcher, click on the Naviga logo bar near the top of the window. The minimized Application Launcher looks like this:
2. To switch back to full size, click the Newscycle logo on the left, or click the arrow next to it and select Full Size Toolbar. The options on this menu also allow you to modify the size of the icons.
3. When minimized, the Application Launcher displays only a single toolbar. If you want to switch to a different toolbar, open the Choose Area menu on the right and make a selection.

Saving the Application Launcher Location

You can save the position of the Application Launcher on the screen by clicking the Save Location button at the top right corner of the Application Launcher window. After clicking Save Location, when the Application Launcher is opened again it will display in the saved position.

In order to start a subscription for a customer, the customer’s address must first be entered in the database. Personal information about the customer (such as phone numbers and credit status) must also be entered—this is known as occupant information.

The address and occupant records contain information about subscribers and non-subscribers. In separating address and occupant records, Circulation clearly distinguishes between an occupant and an address—people move, addresses do not. It is possible to have two different subscriptions for two occupants at the same house; for example, Jane Smith may receive a weekly publication, while Bill Smith subscribes to a daily.

Or, an occupant’s newspaper delivery address could be different from the mailing address. For example, Bob Jones’ mailing address is “Post Office Box 25”, but his newspaper delivery address is “1000 State Street”. The following table illustrates address and occupant records:

A subscriber must have an occupant record, but an occupant need not be a subscriber. An occupant becomes a subscriber when he or she subscribes to a publication.

An address and an occupant must be linked before they can be used as a unit for performing most subscriber transactions such as starts, moves, stops, etc. You will know that an occupant and address have been “linked” when they are both displayed when you click Find. Transaction and subscription history will be recorded for the “linked” address and occupant.

Adding an Address

When your system is set up, addresses from your previous system will likely be loaded into Circulation. Additional addresses can be added manually or through List MatchPlus, another Newscycle software product.

To avoid adding duplicate addresses, try to find an address using the Find option before adding it. Business Rules determine whether you allow duplicate addresses to be added and if a warning should be displayed if an address already exists. Business Rules also determine:

• Whether or not addresses are parsed into house number, street name, etc., or are displayed as Address lines 1 through 6.

• Whether or not addresses are cleansed and standardized using address-correction software.

• Whether the street name should be validated.

• Whether a PO route should be automatically assigned.

• The default dwelling type and status.

To add an address:

• Enter address information in the fields described below.

  Field

  Type

  What should be entered

  Street Address

  HOUSE #

  open (10)

  Enter the house number for this address, such as “103” for the address “103 Main Street”.

  MODIFIER

  open (3)

  Some house numbers have modifiers, like the “½” in the address “103 ½ Main St”. If the address has a modifier, enter it here.

  PREFIX

  predefined

  This field appears before Street to accommodate entry of prefix street directions, such as “N” in “1234 N Main St”.

  STREET

  open (28)

  Enter the street name for this address; for example, enter “Main” for the “103 Main Street” address. If the address has a PO box, enter the PO box here.

  TYPE

  setup

  Enter the street type, such as St, Rd, or Ave.

  SUFFIX

  predefined

  This field appears after TYPE to accommodate entry of suffix street directions, such as “N” in “1234 Main St N”.

  UNIT, UNIT # *

  setup, open (8)

  Enter the type of unit and the unit number, respectively. Examples of unit types are Apt, Lot, Room, Suite, and Bsmt. Thus, when UNIT and UNIT # are combined, they might read “Apt 20” or “Suite 200”. You may enter a unit number without a unit type.

  LEVEL TYPE, LEVEL #

  setup, open (8)

  Enter the type of level and level number, respectively. Examples of level types are Floor, Level, etc. Thus, when LEVEL TYPE and LEVEL # are combined, they might read, for example, “Floor 2”. See Level Designator in the Setup Manual for more information about setting up level types.

  ZIP

  open (10)

  Entry of a Zip code may be mandatory, depending on how the system was set up. You may enter the Zip in a variety of formats, including 5, 9, or 10 characters. Enter hyphens if you wish. Enter a space between the two groups of alphanumeric characters in Canadian or UK postal codes, for example, “RC3 3H8”. When the Zip is entered, several default values may display in the remaining fields (including the city, state/province, county, country, town of 25, and dwelling status).

  DELIVERY POINT

  open (3)

  This is the small, unnamed field to the right of Zip. It is a USPS addition to the Zip that is only used in printing bar codes. If you have Quadient address cleansing software, the delivery point will be automatically defaulted. If you do not have Quadient, you will most likely have no reason for entering a delivery point.

  COUNTY

  open (25)

  Enter the county in which the address is located. This field is not required.

  CITY

  open (28)

  Enter the city for this address, if not defaulted. A warning will appear if this city has not been set up in advance.

  STATE, COUNTRY

  setup, setup

  Enter state and country codes if the default codes do not appear or you wish to override the defaults.

  Secondary Address Info

  DUAL ADDRESS

  open (30)

  If the address you are supplied with actually contains two valid addresses (such as “100 Main St PO Box 450”), designate one of them as a “dual” address and enter it here. If Quadient comes across two valid addresses, it will designate the first address element as the primary address and default the second one here.

  BUILDING, COMPLEX

  open (20), open (20)

  Use these two fields to enter, respectively, the name of the complex and the name/number of the building within the complex. An example of a complex would be “Oak Park Apartments”. An example of a building would be “Building 212”.

  Details

  DIGITAL ADDRESS

  yes/no

  Indicate if this is a digital sales address that is only accessible by online delivery. If this box is checked, the other boxes in the Details area are disabled.

  ROUTE ACCESSIBLE

  yes/no

  Indicate if this address is accessible by circulation carriers for delivery of publications and products.

  MAIL ACCESSIBLE

  yes/no

  Indicate if this address is accessible by postal carriers for delivery of publications and products.

  SPECIAL ADDRESS

  yes/no

  Indicate if this is a “special” address, such as a military or foreign address, that cannot be entered using the fields on this tab—a pop-up window appears for entry of the special address. This window also appears if you click the Special button in the Options panel. Note that if you do enter a special address, the regular street address fields should be left blank.

  CLEANSE ADDRESS

  yes/no

  Indicate if this address should be cleansed by Quadient or QAS. You may not want to cleanse foreign or special addresses. See step 5 below for more information on Quadient.

  CAN DROP CREDIT

  yes/no

  Indicate if drop credits can be applied to this address. Drop credits are a means of paying carriers on a per-address basis, no matter how many products are delivered.

  PO Route

  TYPE, NUMBER, WALK SEQ

  predefined, open (2), open (7)

  The post office route is broken down into three parts: the route type, the route number, and the walk sequence. Circulation will fill in the PO route type and number automatically if you have Quadient. Walk sequences can be entered with a utility or imported via List Matching. If there are no default values, enter the postal route information, if known.

  Location

  TOWN OF 25

  setup

  Towns of 25 are geographical areas used for AAM (Alliance for Audited Media) reporting. Circulation may fill in this field automatically from the router or the Zip code.

  DWELLING

  setup

  A dwelling type (such as “Apt”, “House”, or “Business”) indicates what kind of building is at this address. A default dwelling type may display (this can be overridden).

  STATUS

  setup

  The dwelling status indicates the current condition of the address, such as “occupied”, “vacant”, or “under construction”. A default dwelling status (which can be overridden) may be displayed.

  DATE

  date

  Enter the date this dwelling status is effective. Today’s date will appear as the default, but you can override it.

  CENSUS TRACT/BLOCK# **

  decimal (10) decimal (3)

  If you know them, enter the census tract and block numbers for this address. This optional information is used by Targeted Marketing and InsertPlus.

  G-NAF PID

  open (14)

  Geocoded National Address File Address Persistent Identifier for the occupant's address. Applicable to Australian addresses.

  HIN

  open (11)

  House Index number for the occupant's address. Applicable to Australian addresses.

* When an address includes a box number on a rural or contract route, you can enter the box number in the Unit fields; as an example, for Rural Route 2 Box 59A: enter “RR 2” in Street Name, “Box” in Unit Type and “59A” in Unit. Post office boxes, general delivery, county roads and/or state roads should be entered in Street; for example, for a Post Office Box 29 address, you would enter “PO Box 29” in Street and not in the Unit fields.

** The United States and Canada are divided into census tracts for census-taking purposes. Each tract is divided into blocks. Each block may contain one or more households. Each household is given both a tract and block ID.

• You can enter delivery directions for this address by clicking on the Directions button under Options. Addresses may require these special directions (such as “third house on the left”) if the address is not easily found. Delivery directions appear on bundle tops whenever the subscriber has customer service transactions, and may appear on the Route List. In addition, delivery directions are displayed during the Dispatching process.

• Click OK to accept the address.

• Other options will now appear in the Options panel.

• Select Occupants to link the address to an occupant. You can find an occupant already in the database or add a new occupant, and you can add or find additional (mail) occupants. If an occupant who is a non-subscriber leaves an address, you can select Detach Occupant to detach the occupant from the address. If the occupant is a subscriber, you must instead perform a Move transaction.
• You can also add or modify the AAM Zone in which the address belongs (AAM Zones button), view complaints (Complaints button), and link routes to the address (Routes button). Usually, when an address is added a route is assigned to the address by the router. However, sometimes the router may not be able to assign a route, or you may not use routers. Or, you may click the Routes button to set the walk sequence (Delivery Sequence field) for the address on the route. Note that you can link multiple routes (typically from different publications) to an address—this is used mainly for Targeted Marketing. Routes linked to an address are entirely separate from routes linked to a subscription at the address.

Example—Adding an Address

If a customer calls and wants to begin a subscription, you will use Find and enter the customer’s name as the search criteria. If the customer is not in the database, and neither is the customer’s address, the address will need to be added to the database.

To add the new address, you click the Add Address button and enter the following information in the address fields:

• The customer (Nancy Jones) now lives at 951 Bayless Ave, Apt. 5. You enter this information in the House #, Street Name, Type, Unit Type, and Unit Number fields, respectively.

• In Zip, you enter the 5-digit Zip code (55114) for the address.

• In county you enter “Ramsey”.

• You enter the city name (St. Paul), the state (MN) and country (US) are defaulted from the Zip code.

• There is no dual address, building or complex.

• This address is out of town, so you uncheck Route Accessible and keep Mail Accessible checked. This is not a special address, so you keep Special Address unchecked. You use Quadient, so you leave Cleanse Address checked.

• Po Route is left blank. Quadient will supply this.

• Because this Zip code is outside of the newspaper market area, no Town of 25 defaults. You assign the “All Other” Town of 25, used for all subscriptions outside of the market area.

• Nancy Smith occupies an apartment, so in Dwelling Type, you enter “APT” and in Dwelling Status, you keep the default (“occupied”). Leave the current date as the dwelling status date.

After you enter this information, you click OK to enter the address into the database. Quadient displays the address you entered an its cleansed version—you accept the cleansed (working) address. Now you can add the customer’s personal information by clicking the Occupant button and adding the occupant.

About Quadient

Quadient is the standard address cleansing software for US addresses in Circulation. Quadient does not require software to be installed or updated locally. Instead, the address is sent to the Quadient ZIP Cleanse web service, along with a valid registration key. The address is then returned as cleansed or not cleansed (there is no suggestion list). Quadient manages all updates of software and directories on the server providing the ZIP Cleanse web service. Business Rules determine how Quadient standardizes address data—for example, whether invalid US city names are retained. See Address Cleansing in the Setup Manual for more information.

About QAS

QAS is used to verify the correct spelling and standard formatting of Canadian or Australian addresses while adding or modifying them in Circulation or iServices. As an address-correction or “cleansing” application, it serves the same purpose as Quadient. Both the regular and OnDemand (hosted) versions of QAS are integrated with Circulation.

If you use QAS, the Business Rule, What system do you use for Address Correction and Encoding software?, must be set to “QAS.” This rule is in the Address Cleansing section of Business Rules. You must also answer additional Business Rules in the same section that are specific to QAS.

Searching for an Address

When QAS is being used, the address entry window contains the QAS Address Search panel, shown below.

The first step in adding an address is to determine if it already exists in the system. The QAS Address Search panel allows three methods for doing this (the default will be “Typedown” or “SingleLine”, based on a Business Rule):

Typedown search

SingleLine search

When the initial matches are displayed, the search field will switch over to typedown functionality to help you search within the matches for a particular address. Double-click on an address to select it.

Example

As an illustration, let’s say the address you are looking for is in Bondi Beach, which you’ve already located using a single-line search. Clicking on the + sign next to BONDI BEACH NSW will show the streets within Bondi Beach, sorted alphabetically. Furthermore, clicking on the + sign next to a street name will show the addresses, or ranges of addresses, on that street.

Since the search is now automatically in typedown mode, you can begin typing letters of the street name to locate the specific street. Let’s say the street name is “Ormond,” so you type the letter “Or” and receive the matches shown below.

Next, you click the + next to Ormond Street and show the addresses.

A + symbol next to a match indicates a group of addresses. For example, expanding the “2” reveals that there is a “2 Ormond Street” as well as a range of addresses from “1/2 Ormond Street” through “10/2 Ormond Street.”

Since 3/2 Ormond Street is what you’re looking for, you double-click on that address to bring it into the address entry/modification window.

Adding an Occupant

From time to time, you will receive calls from customers who are not in the database (you cannot locate them using Find). When this happens, you must add the occupant to Circulation.

When adding an occupant, Business Rules determine the default credit status and the default occupant type.

To add an occupant:

• Enter information in the fields of the Occupant tab.

  Field

  Type

  What should be entered

  Name

  LAST

  open (30)

  Enter the occupant’s last name.

  Note: You can optionally configure Circulation to allow a first and last name that exceed the maximum number of characters (12 and 30, respectively). Contact Naviga Global Support for more information.

  SUFFIX

  setup

  If applicable, enter the occupant’s name suffix, such as Jr, PhD, II, etc.

  TITLE

  setup

  If applicable, enter the occupant’s title, such as Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr., or Rev.

  FIRST

  open (12)

  Enter the occupant’s first name.

  MI

  open (1)

  Optionally enter the occupant’s middle initial.

  OTHER

  open (30)

  This is an optional field where you can enter the company name, an attention line, etc. The Other Name will be printed on mailing labels.

  USAGE

  setup

  Enter a description of your entry in OTHER NAME, such as “business” or “attention line”. “Other Name” will print on mailing labels, but “Other Use” will not.”Other Use” may be used for RESULTS purposes.

  EMAIL

  open (100)

  Enter the primary e-mail for the occupant, if provided. Additional e-mails can be entered on the Contact tab.

  PHONE

  integer (10)

  Enter the area code and primary telephone number of the occupant. If there is a phone extension, enter it in the EXT field to the right. The phone number type (i.e. work, home, etc.) for the primary phone number is determined in phone number type setup. Other phone numbers can be entered on the Contact tab.

  UNLISTED

  yes/no

  If the primary phone number is unlisted, check this box. UNLISTED is used for reference purposes. If unlisted, the subscriber’s phone number will not be printed on bundle tops or route labels.

  ALLOW WEB ACCESS

  yes/no

  Check this field to grant the subscriber access to iServices Subscriber (if used). To reset the user’s password in iServices Subscriber, click the New Password button to the right of this field and answer “Yes” to the warning prompt that displays. This will send the subscriber an e-mail containing their new password, similar to the Forgot Password link in iServices. The content of the e-mail message is based on a template. The New Password button will be inactive if the Business Rule What type of email is supported? is set to “None,” or if the customer has a single sign on e-mail.

  Status

  OCCUPANT TYPE

  setup

  Enter an occupant type for this occupant, or accept the default. Occupant types are defined in Setup and are used to define occupants as “students”, “seniors”, “construction workers”, or other category. Occupant types can be used for rating and TM selection purposes.

  CREDIT STATUS

  setup

  Enter the occupant’s credit status or accept the default. This code determines the number of grace days, as well as what happens to a subscription when the grace period ends. The credit status may also control whether a start can be entered for an occupant. An occupant’s credit status may be automatically changed as the result of a stop or payment, based on Credit Status setup (see the Setup Manual). You can set up a task to be generated when the credit status changes, using an Event Type of “Audit”.

  REVIEW DATE

  date

  Enter the date of the occupant’s most recent credit review, if you do credit reviews. This field is for reference only. The default is today’s date.

• To enter a delivery request, click the Requests button in the Options area to display the Delivery Requests pop-up window. Delivery requests are special requests about how the customer wants the paper delivered, such as “put in back door” or “beware of the dog”. Delivery requests should not be confused with the delivery directions that can be entered with an address. The requests are printed on bundle tops whenever the subscriber has a customer service transaction, and are optionally printed on Route lists. In addition, delivery requests are displayed during the Dispatching process.

• Click OK to accept the occupant. You can now link the occupant to an address as well as enter more information in the Occupant sub-tabs.

Linking an Occupant to an Address

To link the occupant to an address, click the Address button—a window will open so you can link this occupant with an address. Under Change Primary/Home Address, select Find and find the occupant’s address, or (if the address is not in the database) select Add and add it. This will be the address to which the paper will be delivered. You may also link the occupant to a secondary address, used for mailing renewal notices and TM products. If you do not want the occupant linked to any address at all (you want to keep the occupant “free floating”), click Detach Occupant.

Credit Status Sub-tab

An occupant’s credit status determines how many grace days are allowed if the subscription expires without payment, among other things (see the Setup Manual for more information). Occupants are assigned a credit status when they are added, but the status can be changed by the system due to a late payment or modified by the Customer Service associate. You can modify a credit status or add a new credit status if the occupant does not yet have one defined for a product. A product of “*” indicates all products for which a credit status is not specifically defined.

Note: This tab will be active only if the Business Rule, Do you want to maintain an occupant’s credit status by product?, is set to “yes”. If it is set to “no”, there will be only one credit status per occupant, which you can change when modifying the occupant record.

Notes Sub-tab

On this tab, you can enter notes for private notes about occupants. These notes are not printed anywhere and are available for reference only. An example of a note might be “Caretaker of Oak Park Apartments” or “complains a lot”.

Complaints Sub-tab

This tab shows the complaints that have been entered for an occupant. To add a complaint, you must enter it as a transaction.

Example—Adding an Occupant

Suppose Nancy Jones calls to start a subscription. You look for her in the database but cannot find her (she just moved to town). You will have to add an occupant record, so you select Occupant and enter the occupant fields in the following manner.

• You enter the last and first name of the occupant. Nancy does not provide a middle initial, and no suffix follows her name, so you leave these fields blank. Also, this is a home subscription and there is no “other name”.

• You enter the home phone number (which is Nancy’s primary phone number). Her home phone number is unlisted, so you check Unlisted (it will not be printed on bundle tops, etc.).

• Nancy provides you with her e-mail, and you check Allow Web Access so that she can view and manage her subscription details via iServices Subscriber.

• Nancy does not fit any of your more specific occupant types (“Student”, “Veteran”, etc.) and so you keep the default occupant type, which at this newspaper is “Regular”.

• All new occupants receive the credit status of “Approved”. You do not do credit reviews, so you leave the current date in Review Date.

After entering this basic information, you click OK in the Options panel to accept the occupant. Now you can enter more information related to the occupant:

• You link Nancy’s occupant record to an address by clicking the Address button.

• Nancy gives you her work phone number as well. So you add this on the Contact tab (see below).

• Nancy doesn’t say anything about soliciting, but would like to receive your Books digital newsletter, so you add that in the Contact tab.

Entering Contact Information for Occupants

Adding Phone Numbers

To add additional phone numbers for an occupant, select the Phone label and click the Add icon. The Phone Detail fields, listed below, display on the right side of the Contact tab. After entering the phone number and related information, click OK to add the number for the occupant.

Adding E-Mail Addresses

To add an e-mail address for an occupant, select the Email label and click the Add icon. Then specify the e-mail (the address can be up to 100 characters) and the date range during which it is active. Check Primary if this is the primary e-mail for the occupant (the same rules apply as with primary phone numbers). Click OK to add the e-mail.

To modify an e-mail address or its start date or end date, click Modify.

To send an e-mail message to an occupant, click the icon in the lower-right corner of this tab.

Entering Newsletter Preferences

Customers can opt in to newsletters, alerts, and other communications you send by e-mail, mail or phone. For example, you may e-mail a weekly Arts newsletter highlighting arts and entertainment events for the coming weekend, and send weather alerts via phone. Customers can opt into (and out of ) newsletters themselves via iServices. You can also opt them in and out of newsletters, and change communication preferences, via the Contact tab in Customer Service.

Opt into a newsletter

• Select the communication item and enter the contact information. The fields are described in the table below.

  Field

  Type

  What to enter

  ITEM

  setup

  Select the communication item the customer is opting in to. Items must be defined in advance in Communication setup (see the Setup Manual). All items defined with a usage type of “Customer Service” and a product of “*”on the Usage tab will be available. Items defined with a usage type of “Customer Service” and a specific product will only be available if the customer subscribes (or has a former subscription for) that publication.

  METHOD

  predefined

  Indicate whether the customer should receive the newsletter or alert by mail (address), email, or phone. Only communication methods defined for the communication item will be available. If only one communication method is defined, it will default.

  METHOD TYPE

  predefined

  If the communication method is e-mail, specify whether to send HTML or text e-mail to the customer. This field only opens if both e-mail types are allowed for the communication item.

  METHOD DETAILS

  setup

  Select the e-mail, phone number or address that should be used for the newsletter or alert. For example, if the customer has two e-mail addresses defined in Circulation, you would select the one to use for the newsletter here. If the communication method is set up with Default Primary checked, the customer’s primary phone number or e-mail address will default.

  OPT OUT

  display

  This field is only open when an existing communication preference is modified.

• Click OK to opt the customer in to the selected newsletter or alert.

Opt out of a communication item

• In the Contact Information area on the left side of the Contact Tab, click the plus sign to the left of Communication Preferences, and highlight the communication item.

• Check the Opt Out field.

• Click OK to accept the opt out. The customer will no longer receive the communication.

Changing newsletter preferences

If the customer wishes to receive the newsletter at a different e-mail, phone number, or address, you can make the change by modifying the communication item as described above. Set the Method Details field to the e-mail, phone number or address that should be used.

Entering Solicitation Preferences

Occupants may request not to be solicited by phone, mail, or other means. This is important to newspapers who do telemarketing and promotional mailings—they want to make sure these occupants are not included in the delivery list, phone list, or other documents they use for solicitations.

In Circulation, this information is tracked with solicitation codes. For example, an occupant might have a “NoCall” solicitation code. In Targeted Marketing, when selecting occupants for a telemarketing phone campaign, occupants with a “NoCall” solicitation code can be excluded from the selection.

To add a solicitation code for an occupant, select the Solicitation label and click the Add icon. Enter solicitation information in the fields described in the table below. Then click OK to add the solicitation information.

Modifying Addresses and Occupants

If address or occupant information changes for a customer, the address or occupant record should be modified. To modify an address or occupant, first Find the customer in question. Then click on the Address or Occupant tab and select Modify. The fields will be the same as displayed during an add. Click OK when the update is complete.

Background record information about the subscription can be displayed by selecting Subscriber Info from the File menu. This option displays the customer’s address ID and occupant ID (both for delivery and billing). If a transaction is selected, the transaction’s transaction ID also displays. This information can be handy for troubleshooting issues with a particular subscription.

The Transactions tab is where you view detail about customer transactions, such as new starts and stops. You can also modify and delete transactions here, if the transaction has not yet been processed by transaction processing or, in the case of payments, subscriber payment processing. Refunds cannot be modified, because they are processed immediately. To view a transaction, select it in the Transactions tab in the upper right corner of the Customer Service module.

To display the payment amount breakdown, click the Details button next to the Payment Amount field. The Payment Amount Details will also display the amount processed towards Fees (Printed Bill and Activation Fees) and the premium amount.

System-Created Transactions

Expire transactions

These transactions indicate the date an office pay subscription ends, and are pushed back by payments or other adjustments. Once an expire transaction is processed, the subscription is expired, and the subscriber will be stopped or go into grace until another payment is received. Expire transactions can be modified if they have not yet been processed.

End Grace transactions

When an office pay subscription expires, newspapers often have a “grace” period where the paper will still be delivered, in the hope that the subscriber will eventually send a payment. If grace days are used, an End Grace transaction will be created by the system when the Expire transaction is processed. The End Grace transaction date will be the date the grace period ends—if the End Grace transaction still exists on this date, it will be processed and the subscription will be permanently stopped or turned over to carrier collect. End grace transactions can be modified if they have not yet been processed.

Grace Owed transactions

Grace Paid transactions

If a payment does arrive for a subscription that has ended its grace period, the grace-owed amount will be deducted from the payment—this will create a Grace Paid transaction. Grace Paid transactions are display-only—they cannot be modified.

Grace Export transactions

If you run renewal notices with Print Grace Owed set to “yes”, a Grace Export transaction will be created. The Export Grace button allows you to export a rebill transaction for this subscriber. When you click this button, the message “Grace information successfully exported” is displayed, and a rebill transaction is exported to a file located in the default exchange directory. A Business Rule, To which subdirectory under the ‘exchange’ directory should grace owed generated from customer service be exported? (Subscriber Billing section), is used to identify this directory. If the Grace Export run is subsequently undone, the rebill and grace export transactions will be removed. The format of the export file is the same as the grace export format

Renewal Notice

1st, 2nd, and 3rd Renewal or Invoice transactions, created when a renewal notice is issued to a subscriber. The information that was printed on the renewal notice or invoice is displayed. If you are viewing a 1st invoice, 1st renewal, or rebill transaction, and these transactions were exported, an Export Renewal button will be available to export a replacement. The location of the export is defined in Business Rules—To which subdirectory under the ‘exchange’ directory should renewals generated from customer service be exported?

When running Subscriber Renewal Notices, if a subscriber is selected for an Invoice/Renewal and qualifies for a Printed Bill fee, the Printed Bill fee is applied when the Invoice/Renewal transaction is created. When you select the Invoice/Renewal transaction, you can view the subscriber's Activation Fee and Printed Bill Fee.

HTML (dynamic) renewal notices

• If HTML (dynamic) renewal notices can be viewed in iServices, the same notice or invoice can be displayed from Customer Service by clicking the View Renewal button in the screen shown above. The notice will display in your default browser. If you have more than one website defined you will be prompted to select a website; the dynamic renewal notice template for that website will be used.
• Auto Pay transactions, created when a subscription is automatically renewed.

• MarketTerm transactions are created for subscriptions on a marketing term (see Subscription Rates in the Setup Manual). Each one represents the point at which a marketing term rate becomes effective. They contain information such as the rate code; number of days owed, paid, or remaining; the copy rate by day; and other information. The “CSSMarketTerm” transaction security item determines whether users can view MarketTerm transactions (by default, the transactions are set to not display).

• Auto Renew Statement transactions, created when an auto-renew statement is generated for the subscription (this is similar to a Renewal transaction).

• Expire Alert transactions created so that expire messages appear on distribution documents. There is no detail for these transactions other than their date, so they cannot be viewed.

• CollectXprt transactions are created when a subscriber is exported by the Collectech interface. Like Expire Alert, there is no detail for these transactions.

• PreviousDelivery transactions, created when a subscriber should receive a previous day’s paper.

• BonusDay transactions, created when a subscriber should receive a paper even though it is not a normal delivery day for the subscription (this happens most often on holidays). BonusDay transactions can be created as part of new starts, billing changes, and delivery schedule changes, or by the Bonus Day Utility. The source and reason code for the BonusDay transaction are determined by Business Rules.

• Suspend transactions, created when the subscriber’s route is suspended. This is really just a variation of a temp stop.

• Unsuspend transactions, created when the subscriber’s suspended route is reactivated. This is really just a variation of a restart.

• Suspended Start transactions, which are New Starts created in iServices Subscriber that need to be reviewed in Customer Service before they are processed.

A Restart allows you to restart a temporarily stopped subscription. You may need to enter a restart for a subscription that was temporarily stopped, if the restart date was not known at that time (if the date was entered with the stop transaction, it is not necessary to use this option).

Multiple restart dates can be entered for the same subscriber to correspond to multiple stop dates. Future restart dates can be modified, if required.

A warning message appears if you attempt to enter a restart for a date that has already been processed. You may not enter a restart for a subscription that has been permanently stopped; instead, you must enter a new start. You cannot enter a restart if the date entered causes the number of back-dating days to exceed the number allowed by Business Rules. Business Rules also determine whether a source code is required for a restart.

To enter a restart:

1. Find the subscriber that should be restarted.

3. Complete the following fields and click OK.

Subscribers sometimes wish to stop a subscription. A stop can be either temporary or permanent; the reason code determines the type of stop it is. Business Rules determine whether a source code is required for a stop.

Multiple stop and restart dates can be entered for the same subscriber, and you can modify future stop/restart dates. You can enter a permanent stop for a temporarily stopped subscription, but you may not enter a second temporary stop if a restart has not been entered for the first temporary stop.

When entering a temp stop (or a perm stop on a temp-stopped account) the subscriber may be forced to donate some or all of the stopped days, based on the vacation credit Business Rules in the General section (see General in the Setup manual) and the reason code used. When there is a forced donation, the message “The first XX calendar days for this temporary stop will not be credited to subscription XX” displays. The actual donation transaction record is created during Transaction Processing, so you will not see the number of days donated in the transaction until it has been processed.

If a stop is entered for a date that has already been processed, a warning message is displayed. A subscription may not be stopped on a date which exceeds the allowed number of back-dating days.

Processing a Permanent Stop,

1. When there are multiple unprocessed payments for the same subscriber with different dates in the system, the General Ledger (GL) batch date is set to the latest transaction date of the payments.

2. When there is a single unprocessed payment in the system, the GL batch date is set to the payment’s transaction date.

About Vacation Packs

Entering a Stop

To stop a subscription:

1. Find the subscriber whose subscription should be stopped.

3. Complete the following fields and click OK.

About Day Passes

A day pass is a low-cost, low-commitment alternative to a subscription, allowing access to the digital edition of a publication for a single day. Day passes are popular with casual readers who may not visit the publication website frequently, or read the print publication. Examples of day pass readers might be visitors to the area, researchers who need access to your content for a short period, and customers who occasionally read the publication but do not want to commit to a longer subscription. By offering a day pass plan, you can broaden your engagement with the community while earning extra revenue.

Day pass subscriptions are supported in Circulation. Unlike regular (term) subscriptions, day pass subscriptions do not have a start or stop. Instead, a day pass transaction is created containing one or more day passes.

Day passes transactions are typically interfaced via the Circulation API by the Digital Paymeter or a third party paywall. However, a day pass can be entered in Customer Service, in the case where the customer directly contacts the CSR.

Note that:

• Day passes only cover a single day (24-hour period). Multi-day or week passes are not supported. However, customers can purchase bundles of day passes (described below) which can be used on different individual days rather than a single time period.

• To purchase a day pass, a customer must have an e-mail and full address information. “Shadow” users and users with limited address information (e.g. only a ZIP Code) cannot purchase day passes.

• To purchase a day pass, a payment is required. Only credit card payments using the Hosted Payment Page can be made. Payments cannot be entered for day pass subscriptions outside of a day pass transaction, and transfers cannot be made to day pass subscribers.

• Day passes must be purchased in advance. Grace periods are not supported.

• Day passes cannot be auto renewed.

• Day passes have special rates with a subscriber type of “Day Pass” (see Subscription Rates in the Setup Manual). Day pass rates can have discounts defined for them, but cannot be reduced or promo rates.

• Day pass subscriptions are ignored by Publishing module options, most reports and utilities, and also by Targeted Marketing selection. However, campaigns can be set up to create day pass subscriptions, and day passes can be reported using the Day Pass Sales and Day Pass Usage reports.

• The Paymeter also uses iServices Authentication to determine whether the customer has an active day pass. Authentication is also called in order to record day pass usage (the subscriber actually accessing the digital edition) and digital access for AAM purposes. Alternately, day pass usage and digital access records can be imported via the Auth Import utility.

Business Rules and Setup

The following Business Rules govern day pass subscriptions:

• What is the delivery schedule used for day pass purchases? (Customer Services section).

  • Although day passes are valid on any day of the week, day pass subscriptions must have a delivery schedule for validation reasons. The delivery schedule specified for this Business Rule must be a delivery schedule set up with a subscriber type of “Day Pass”.

• When entering a make good day pass transaction, which subscription adjust code should be used? (Customer Services section).

  • If you will allow make goods for day pass subscriptions, the subscription adjustment code to use for the make good adjustment must be specified for this parameter.

• If a day pass is also valid for the next publishing day, should it count for both days in AAM history? (AAM section).

  • You can count a day pass as a single day (copy), but because it is a 24-hour period and readers can typically access the website on two different days, AAM allows a day pass to be counted as two copies.

• What is the default AAM price level for day pass draw? (AAM section).

  • If you use AAM price levels, the day pass will use the price level associated with the subscriber’s day pass rate. If no price level is specified at the rate level, this parameter determines the price level to use.

• What is the host name for Day Pass? and What is the URL path for Day Pass? (iServices & Mapping section).

  • The host name and URL to be used with the day pass e-mail template. The template is used to send e-mail to the subscriber after purchasing a day pass.

In addition to day pass rates, in order to offer day passes you must set Allow Day Pass to “y” in Publication setup and have at least one digital edition that allows day pass. The edition determines the AAM column for recording day pass draw, and the access window for a day pass subscription (24 hours or until the end of the next day).

You must also define at least one reason code with a transaction type of “DayPass”, and one “DayPassUsage” transaction type. (The day pass usage transaction is used to track the days used in a day pass bundle.)

Single Day Passes

A single day pass purchase uses a rate term of 1 day. The day pass begins as soon as the transaction is entered, and is active for 24 hours or until the end of the next day, based on Edition setup. Once the access period is over, the subscription is inactive. However, if the customer purchases another day pass for the same edition, the same subscription ID is used. This allows you to view all of a customer’s day pass history under one subscription.

Day Pass Bundles

Day pass bundles contain a predefined number of day passes paid for in advance; a bundle offers convenience to day pass customers who don't want to pay each time they wish to access your website.

In this case the day pass transaction has a term of greater than 1 day. The actual terms offered are defined in Rate Code setup—for example, your publication might offer day pass bundles of 3, 5, and 10 days.

When a customer purchases a day pass bundle, none of the day passes in the bundle are used initially. Days are used in a bundle based on digital access. If the customer logs in and there are no days currently active in the day pass bundle, iServices Authentication activates the next day pass usage transaction when it records digital access.

When a day pass is used, the value of the day will be subtracted from the subscriber’s balance, and they will have one less day pass remaining in the bundle. When the last day pass in a bundle is used, the subscription will become inactive.

How Day Passes are Valued

When a day pass subscription is purchased, the value of each day (or usage) is determined when the day pass transaction is entered, and this value does not change. For a single day pass there is only one usage, and the value is the one day rate term cost (including tax, if any). For day pass bundles, each day in the day pass has a value, which is used to determine the subscriber’s remaining balance and the amount earned during a period. The days are valued using the following method:

1. The total cost of the term is divided by the number of days to get the average day cost.

2. The average cost is truncated to two decimal places. For example, an average of .857 is truncated to .85.

3. Each day is assigned the truncated average.

4. The value of all the days is combined.

5. The combined value of the days is subtracted from the total cost of the term.

6. Any remainder is added to the first day.

Example: 7 days for 5.00

1. 5.00 / 7 = 0.714

2. 0.714 is truncated to 0.71

3. Days 1-7 are assigned a value of 0.71

4. 0.71 x 7 = 4.97

5. 5.00 - 4.97 = 0.03

6. Value of day 1 = 0.71 + 0.03 = 0.74

And so the days would have the following values:

Day 1 = 0.74 Day 2 = 0.71 Day 3 = 0.71 Day 4 = 0.71 Day 5 = 0.71 Day 6 = 0.71| Day 7 = 0.71 Total = 5.00

Entering a Day Pass Transaction

Follow the procedure below to enter a day pass transaction in Customer Service.

Enter a day pass in Customer Service

1. Find the occupant who is purchasing the day pass, or add the occupant to Circulation. Day passes can be entered for subscribers or non-subscribers, as long as the occupant has an address.

3. Select the product, edition, rate and other details for the day pass, in the fields described in the table below.
4. Once “Credit Card” is selected in the Payment Type field, the Hosted Order Page displays for credit card information. This is the same process as entering a regular credit card payment using the HOP.

5. Back on the Transaction tab, click OK to accept the day pass. This will create a processed day pass transaction (Transaction Processing does not need to be run to process the transaction). Payment, AAM and GL records will also be created. The payment will be placed in a batch named “DPYYMMDDxx”, where “YYMMDD” are the year, month and day respectively, and “xx” is a sequence number. This batch will already be flagged as accepted, and the payment will be marked as processed, so there are no further steps required to create the payment.

6. If this is a new e-mail address (or the New Password button was clicked), an e-mail message will be sent to the customer, including the password and links to the login screen for digital access (e.g. the Digital Paymeter login page) and iServices.

Viewing Day Pass Transactions

To view the activation window for an active day pass, or the number of days left in a day pass bundle, simply view the day pass transaction. If the Days is “1”, the subscription is for a single day pass, and the usage will display in the Usage Information area. If the transaction is for a day pass bundle, the number of days displays in the Days field, and one usage will display for each day used so far in the Usage Information area. The unused days and remaining balance in the bundle will also display, above the Usage area.

When viewing or entering a day pass transaction, you can click the New Password button if the customer needs a new password (for example, they forgot their password or did not receive one). This works the same way as the New Password button on the Occupant tab. It changes the password for all of the customer’s e-mails.

Entering a Make Good for a Day Pass

If a subscriber complains that they had an issue using their day pass (for example, the publication website was down, or they could not log in), you can issue them a new day pass without a payment. This is known as a “make good”. It is not recorded as a complaint in Circulation, but creates a payment adjustment for the value of the day pass.

In order to enter make goods, the Business Rule—When entering a make good day pass transaction, which subscription adjust code should be used? must be answered with a valid payment adjustment code, and you must have security permissions for the “DayPassMakeGood” item in Transaction Security.

Enter a day pass make good

1. In Customer Service, find the day pass subscriber.

2. Click the Day Pass icon and enter the fields in the same way as for a normal day pass, with the exception of the Payment Type field. Select “Make Good” in Payment Type.

3. Click OK to create the make good day pass. A new day pass transaction will be created for a single day, with an adjustment-only payment that equals the value of the day (there will be no tax). The GL transaction for the day pass will debit/credit the GL account specified with the payment adjustment code.

4. The subscriber will be e-mailed access info for the day pass, as with a normal day pass purchase. In the case of a make good, there will be no initial usage. The usage transaction will be created when the subscriber accesses the website, as with a day pass bundle.

Refunding a Day Pass Bundle

Subscribers with unused days in a day pass bundle can request a refund, if for some reason they will not use all of their days. Refunds for day pass bundles can be entered using the normal Refund transaction. In the case of a day pass refund:

• The refund amount will be the value of the remaining (unused) day passes in the subscription, and cannot be changed.

• If the subscriber has multiple day pass bundles with unused days in the subscription, all days will be combined for the refund.

• As with other refunds entered in Customer Service, the day pass refund will be placed in the active Customer Service refund batch, or in a new batch if none is active.

• Once the refund is entered, the day pass subscription will be inactive.

A new start transaction starts a subscription for an occupant who is permanently stopped or has no subscription history. It is perhaps the most involved transaction in Customer Service, and one that is carried out with frequency. Therefore, it is important to understand what is involved in entering a new start.

Business Rules Considerations

Business Rules determine how the router assigns carrier routes to a new start: whether you use routers, whether the full postal code is used in routing Canadian addresses, whether you can change a route assigned by the router and, if the router cannot assign a route, whether the delivery method will default to “mail” or the new start will be suspended.

Business Rules also determine whether a source code is required for a start and, if so, the default source code, the default delivery schedule and billing method, and whether carrier collect subscriptions should be rated.

If the subscriber has an available refund at the time of a start, Business Rules determine whether the available refund amount should be applied automatically to the new subscription. If this happens, transfer-in and transfer-out transactions are created for the subscriber (money is transferred from available refunds to the subscription).

Business Rules determine whether an operator may change a subscriber name while entering a start if the name is a carrier’s name, and whether the previous billing address and occupant be retained when entering a start for a former subscriber.

Business Rules determine whether a subscription may have multiple delivery addresses for different days of the week. For example, a subscriber might have the newspaper delivered to her office Monday through Friday, and he home on the weekend. If multiple addresses are used, Business Rules determine if subscription rating should be based on only the primary address.

Finally, Business Rules determine if “Balance Forward” is a valid billing method. A balance-forward bill includes the balance due from previous months, charges and credits since the last bill date, and the charge for the next billing period.

About Suspended Starts

Suspended starts are skipped during transaction processing and entered on the processing log. The log will include the subscription ID and date so the suspended start can be reviewed. You can suspend new starts until payment is received or until unrouteable addresses are assigned to a route.

Suspend Until Payment

You can suspend new starts until payment is received, depending on the subscriber’s credit status. For example, your newspaper may decide that subscribers with a credit status of “OK” (as opposed to “Good”) can initiate a new start transaction, but that the transaction will not be processed until they make a payment. To suspend until payment is received, setup is required via the Credit Status Publication Specific in both Publication Setup (Setup | Business | Products | Publication) and Credit Status Setup (Setup | Subscription | Occupant | Credit Status).

Suspend Unrouteable Address

You can also suspend new starts when the subscriber’s address is unrouteable. For example, if a subscriber lives in a new development area that has not yet been assigned a route, a new start can be created but suspended until a suitable route is identified by the newspaper staff.

The Business Rules, Should new starts that cannot be routed be rejected or suspended? (Import Sub Activity) and Should new starts that cannot be routed be suspended? (Customer Services), must be set properly in order to suspend starts for unrouteable addresses: the first Business Rule must be set to “suspended”, and the second Business Rule must be set to “yes”.

When a new start is entered for an unrouteable address, a task is created (with a task type of “Suspended Starts”) to notify the staff that a route must be identified before the new start can be processed. When accessing a subscription with a suspended new start:

• A pop-up alert is displayed in Customer Service with the following message: “This subscription’s start is suspended. Use modify to review and unsuspend it”.

• “Suspended start-unrouteable” is displayed in the Remarks field of the new start transaction. After routing the address, the Customer Service Representative deletes this remark, and the new start transaction will be processed.

To enter a suspended unrouteable start:

Begin entering the new start as normal. When the “Unable to determine route” message appears, do not press Enter or Tab to move past the Delivery method field. Instead, perform the following steps:

1. Click on the Start Date field and select the subscription start date.

2. Click on the Billing Method field and select office pay (or other appropriate billing method).

3. Click on the Zone field and select an appropriate AAM zone.

4. Click on the Deliv Sched field and select a delivery schedule for the subscription.

5. As needed:

   • Click the Bill-To button and add a billing name and address.

   • Click the Auto Pay button and add auto-renew information.

   • Enter any comments in the Remarks field.

6. Click OK to create subscription.

About Multiple Delivery Addresses

Subscribers can have different delivery addresses for different days of the week. For example, a subscriber might have the newspaper delivered to her office Monday through Friday, and her house on the weekend. Subscribers with multiple delivery addresses will have a single, “primary” address, and additional delivery addresses stored as “secondary” addresses.

This functionality is controlled by Business Rules in the Customer Services section:

• Do you allow a subscriber's delivery address to vary by weekday?

  • Secondary addresses can be entered for a subscription only if this Business Rule is set to “yes”.

• If multiple delivery addresses are allowed should the subscription rate be based on the primary address only?

  • This setting determines whether subscriber rating should take multiple delivery addresses into account when selecting a default rate.

During entry of the new start, click the Delivery button to define an additional address; the Delivery Address Maintenance window will open, listing all of the existing addresses for the subscription.

To define a secondary address, click Add or Find and either add or find the additional address. When you click OK, the address will appear in the Delivery Address Maintenance window. You can then select the days on which the subscription should be delivered to this address. If necessary, you can remove secondary addresses by highlighting the address and clicking Remove. You can also enter delivery directions by clicking Directions.

About Combos

A combo is a subscription that contains multiple publications or multiple delivery methods and uses a single rate. For example, a newspaper may want to combine a 6-day publication (Mon-Sat) with a Sunday-only publication to create a multiple-product subscription. Another example would be a bundled package that includes a print publication and an online publication. In both cases, a single bill is created for the subscription, and payments are allocated among the different publications.

About Third Party Starts

A third party subscription is one paid for by a business rather than a subscriber. For example, a business could buy a third party subscription for new residents as part of a “Welcome to the neighborhood” campaign. Third party starts can be generated in Targeted Marketing or by entering starts in Customer Service (but not both).

A Business Rule, Do you allow entry of new starts with a billing method of third party?, determines whether starts can be entered with a billing method of “Third Party”. If so, the subscription will have no rate, an expire date is required (the stop date for the subscription), and the subscription may not be flagged for previous delivery or bonus day papers.

Entering a New Start

To enter a new start:

1. Find an address or an occupant linked to an address using Find.

3. Enter new start information in the fields described below.

4. If you want to enter a mailing address, delivery requests, address directions, extra copies, tax exemptions, or a different AAM Zone for this subscription, click on the appropriate option at the bottom of the window.

5. Click OK to accept the new start.

The Auto Renew Window

If you select the Auto Pay check box during a new start, the Continuous Renewal Information Window will open. The table below describes the auto-renew fields.

Two types of auto renews are available: Credit Card and Bank Draft.

• Credit card auto renews automatically renew the subscription to a credit card account.

• Bank draft auto renews automatically renew the subscription by withdrawing money directly from a bank account.

Payment adjustments can be entered for either type of auto renew by clicking the Adjustments button. The adjustments will be part of the credit card or bank draft payment each time it auto renews.

In order to have auto-renew subscriptions for a publication, you must define auto-renew terms in publication setup.

Hosted Order Page

2. Enter the Account Number and Routing Number and select the Account Type and Ownership Type. The remaining fields, including First Name, Last Name, Email, Address, Address 2, City, State, and Zip Code, will be auto-filled.

3. Click ‘Save Payment Info’.

4. The saved details will be displayed under the “Bank Draft Info” section in ‘Continuous Renewal Information’ window.
5. The fields under the "Continuous Renewal Information" window are listed in the table below.

The Renewal Override Window

To make an office pay subscriber’s renewal delivery method mail or eBill (rather than route), click the Deliv Meth button to open the Renewal Override Window. Set Renewal Delivery Override to “Mail” or “eBill”, and enter a renewal override code (override codes must be set up in advance—see Renewal Override in the Setup manual).

If the renewal delivery method is eBill, you must also enter the eBill e-mail address. After they have been added, eBill e-mail addresses will be listed on the Occupant | e-mail subtab.

Additional New Start Options

After entering the new start information, you can enter some associated information, if applicable, before clicking OK:

AAM Column

• Select this option if this subscription needs to be isolated from the normal AAM Column for this subscription type and zone. One example would be for your “NIE” category. The AAM Column window will open, listing the assigned AAM column. To change the AAM column, click Modify and select the new AAM column from the AAM Column field. Then click OK. Do not change the AAM column for a “paid complimentary” or “unpaid complimentary” start.

Copies

• Select this option if more than one copy of the subscription should be delivered (or mailed) on any day of the week. The copies window will open, and you can enter the number of copies that should be delivered on each day of the week.

Delivery

• Select this option to:

  • Enter delivery requests or address directions for the subscription. Remember, delivery requests pertain to the occupant (“put paper in back door”) while delivery directions pertain to the address (“first house on left”).

Mail-To

• Select this option to find or add a mailing address for this subscription if the mailing address is different from the delivery address. The mailing address will default as the bill-to address, where renewal notices will be sent if they are mailed. The mailing address is also used for mail subscriptions if the delivery address is not mail-accessible.

Trials

1. Select this feature to add, remove, or modify a subscriber’s Trial Subscription.

2. On clicking the Trial button, a pop-up appears with the below input fields:

   • “In Trial?” checkbox,

   • “Trial Length” (text box to fill in the length of the trial)

   • “Trial Term” (dropdown with values: Day, Week, etc.).
3. Click ADD to add a subscriber’s Trial Subscription.

   • Click OK to save the Trial details.

4. Click MODIFY to change or remove a subscriber’s Trial Subscription.

   Note: If the In Trial, Trial Length, and Trial Term fields are populated in the CircAPI, CreateSubscription, the trial details in the Customer Service screen will be updated accordingly. Refer to the Circulation API User Manual.

5. To regulate the usage of this feature, Transaction Security has been added to the Trial button. The value is set to “Not Activated” by default.

   • If the Security field in Transaction Security is left blank, the feature will work, and the user will be able to create the Trial Subscription.

   • If the Security field is set to ‘Not Activated’, the feature will not function and will be greyed out on the Customer Service screen.

   • Transaction Security can be configured under: Character Setup > System > Security > Transaction Security > CSMTrial.
6. An alert will pop-up on the Customer Service screen if a CSR view a subscriber account information who is on Trial subscription.

Tax

• If this publication is normally taxed and the subscriber is exempt from the tax, enter tax exemption information here. The Tax Exemptions window will open for you to enter exempt reason codes for the appropriate tax authorities. A tax authority is a taxing entity, such as “MN” for Minnesota state taxes. The tax authorities and exemption reason codes must be defined in Setup.

Fees

1. Select this option to see the Activation and Printed Bill fees associated with the New Start Rate Code.

   • Activation Fees are determined by Rate Code. A fee cannot be applied to a customer who does not have a Rate Code and an associated Fee Code. There could also be a Fee Code that applies to all Rate Codes for a specific product.

   • Printed Bill Fees will apply to all rate codes in a certain product, unless the customer has set up Auto Pay. Customers who have Auto Pay will not see Printed Bill Fees.

   Note:

   • When a New Start is accepted, Printed Bill Fees are not created; instead, they are created when Subscriber Billing is processed.

2. To waive the associated fees, click the Modify button and select the reason for the waiver from the drop-down menu.

Example—Entering a New Start

Let us say that an occupant, Nancy Jones, would like to start receiving our newspaper. She would like to receive the paper seven days a week, and she would like the renewal notices sent to her work address. To enter this new start, we would locate Nancy’s occupant and/or address record in the database using Find. We would then click the New Start button and enter the following:

• In Product, we would enter our publication, the Daily Messenger (“DM”).

• Since Nancy called on her own, in Source we would enter “Customer”, our source code for customer call starts. This source does not have subsources.

• We have defined a reason code called “Newstart” that is to be entered for all regular starts.

• Our router assigns Nancy to route C6009, based on her address.

• Nancy will be getting the paper every day, and so we enter “DS”, our seven-day delivery schedule.

• Nancy will start immediately, so we leave the defaulted date (the date of the next publishing run) in Start Date.

• This newspaper does not offer merchandise to new subscribers. Also, since Nancy will get the paper seven days a week, there are no bonus days. But we can still leave Bonus Days selected.

• Nancy will be an office pay customer (she will send her payments to the newspaper) and receive an invoice and renewal notices. Nancy wants her invoice and renewal notices sent to her work, so we click Bill-To and find or add her work address.

• Because she is “start and bill” (hasn’t made a payment), Nancy’s expire date is the same as her start date.

• Nancy is in the “All Other” AAM Zone. She did not request any special delivery placement, so we will leave Placement blank, and we keep the occupant type (“Regular”) that was defaulted from her occupant record.

• The normal Daily-Sunday rate defaults as Nancy’s rate. We keep the default.

• Nancy does not want the previous Sunday’s paper delivered on her first day, so we leave Prev Delivery unselected.

• Now we can click OK to accept the new start.