Tour de Force Glossary of Terms

Records and Items of Tour de Force

Records

Account - An Account record contains information about a company with which you do business. One or more individual people will be linked to this account as contacts.

Contacts - Contacts are records for the individual people that work for an organization entered into Tour de Force as an Account record. The contact record contains information specific to that person such as mailing address, direct phone number and email address. Activity items that relate directly to the contact are link to the contact and viewable from contact screen. These activity items can also be viewed from the account screen that the contact is linked to.

Contracts - The Tour de Force Contract form gives users the ability to enter in specific information regarding a case, or support issue. Users can also add Activities to Contract records, as well as assign Tasks for the issues. Contract records are useful for case management for products sold to customers, and partnerships with vendors and other business relationships.

Opportunities - Opportunity items are sales opportunities related to accounts. They help users track all aspects of the deal and contain information such as the monetary value, close date, product category, notes, influencers, and tasks along with user defined fields.

Support - Support items are records that allow users to manage support issues for accounts. They contain information such as due date, person assigned, issue description, resolution, and user defined fields. If enabled, the system will send reminder email messages to alert the user of an approaching deadline.

Literature – Literature items are records that allow users to manage documents or some type of literature that is created by a company.  Literature records can be used for a variety of purposes; from keeping track of sales literature, brochures, or even technical bulletins. 

Tour de Force Items

Activity - Activity items are a record of all sales, or value-based, activities associated with accounts, contacts, and opportunities. They contain information such as date, duration, product category, notes, and user defined fields.

Appointments - Appointments are a historical record of a scheduled meeting with an account contact. When a user creates a contact linked appointment within Tour de Force a historical copy of the appointment is stored in the Account Package appointments folder. The original appointment record is stored on the user's Outlook calendar as a standard Outlook appointment.

Assets – Asset items are a new feature added to Tour de Force Platinum. Asset items are used to track company owned assets such as trade show items and laptops. Account records are always the Parent Item of the Asset item, regardless of what form the Asset item was created from.

Tickets – Ticket items are a new, unique feature added in Tour de Force Platinum. Unlike other records and items in Tour de Force, Ticket items are wholly dependent upon the organization using the Ticket items. One company may use Ticket items for IT issues while another company may use Ticket items to track customer support issues. Another unique aspect about Ticket items is that the Parent Item for the Ticket item is always the Account Package and not the record the Ticket item was created from.

Documents - Documents are files that relate to an Account or Contact record and are stored in the company shared folder. This is a copy of the source file rather than just a link to the source file.

Email - Email items are messages that have been sent or received from an associated Contact record. When the logging feature is enabled, the messages are linked to the Contact record and logged for future reference. Email items can be viewed from the Tour de Force Account and Contact forms.

Expenses - Expense items are a record of expenditures associated with servicing a contact from an account. Expenses can easily be analyzed by region, territory, account, or individual contact.

Forecasts – Forecast items in Tour de Force are subsets of Opportunity records. Forecasting and sales goal planning are separate items in Tour de Force.

Notes - Notes are freeform notes that can be linked to Account, Contact, and Opportunity records.

Quotes – Quote items contain several line items that are used to generate an invoice that can be sent to a customer.

Tasks - Task items are records of future tasks to be completed by a user for a linked account, contact, or opportunity. If enabled, the system will send reminder email messages to alert the user of an approaching deadline

 Account Packages - An Account Package is a set of folders that contain accounts, appointments, contacts, documents, email, expenses, notes, opportunities, sales activity, support and task records. Account Packages are usually created for each sales territory. All the customer information and activity for that territory is stored in the respective subfolders.

Account Root - Account Roots contain one or more Account Packages along with a shared templates folder. Usually Account Roots are created for each sales branch or region.

Administration Console – The Administration Console contains all the administrative utilities associated with Tour de Force such as User Permissions and the Screen Designer. The Administration Console can only be accessed by Administrative users.

Advanced Analytics – The Advanced Analytics module was created to provide users with the ability to generate different types of reports to view sales data and other various types of data.  These reports are either generated by Tour de Force, or companies can submit requests to have reports generated for them.  The Advanced Analytics module is located under the Analysis section of the Info Center, and like most modules in Tour de Force, requires user permission to view and access.

Analysis – The Analysis screen provides an informative snap shot of company performance based on Account Package, Account Root, or the salesperson level. The Analysis screen can also be used to view the top or bottom Account records for the items currently selected. The Analysis screen is in the Info Center.

Auto Updater – The Auto Updater utility automatically updates Tour de Force to the most recent version available. Before the Auto Updater can be used, the utility must be set up in the Administration Console by an Administrative user or Tour de Force Environment Consultant.

Breadcrumbs – The breadcrumbs bar acts as a navigation bar on Tour de Force Record and Item forms. The breadcrumb bar shows the path of how the record or item was accessed and is also used to quickly access Parent Items for the record or item currently opened. The Quick Events menu can also be opened on the breadcrumbs bar.

BI Summary – The BI Summary allows users to view and analyze sales data at multiple tiers, or levels, in an organization. In order to access the BI Summary, and to get information related to Account records, the BI Module must be installed and the Business Code field on the Tour de Force Account form must be the ID of the customer in the business system. The BI Summary is in the Info Center.

Email Logging – Email Logging is used to track emails in Tour de Force from Outlook or another email service that supports Journaling. Email Logging is configured in the Administration Console and can be configured to prevent certain email domains from being archived into Tour de Force.

Gap Analysis – The Gap Analysis is used to identify sales gaps in an organization for the products that the organization sells. The purpose of identifying the gaps is to create a mailing or marketing piece, and the Gap Analysis helps identify what Account records or Contact records the marketing or mailing campaign needs to target.

Global Search - Global Search is a function in Tour de Force that allows users to quickly search for Tour de Force Account and Contact records. Users can search within an Account Package or across all Account Packages by entering part of the Account or Contact record name.

Global Views – Global Views are typically used to display company related information to all users. While Global Views can be viewed by all users only, Administrative users of Tour de Force can create and edit Global Views.

Job Manager – The Job Manager utility is designed to give users the ability to process or run jobs to perform specific actions or functions in Tour de Force.  The current processes that can be run in the Job Manager utility are: Sync New Contacts, Sync TDF Tasks, Sync TDF Appointments, Move Local Attachments to the company shared folder, Scan Inbox and Sent Items for messages logged in Tour de Force. These jobs run as background programs and do not have a significant effect on performance.

Local Views – Local Views are typically created by users that have specific information that needs to be accessed on a regular basis, such as information related to the user’s sales territory. Local Views can be created by all users, but unlike Global Views, the Local View can only be accessed on the user’s computer who created the Local View.

Mailbox Sync – The Mailbox Sync utility is used to sync information created from Outlook, such as contacts, appointments, and tasks to Tour de Force. This sync process is a quick way to create Contact records in Tour de Force from contacts created in Outlook.

Info Center – The Info Center is an optional module that gives all users, especially salespeople and sales managers, the ability to analyze and evaluate their territory or a group of territories proficiently. The Info Center is also used to access various features of Tour de Force such as the BI Summary and the Analysis screen.

Parent Items – Parent Items in Tour de Force are typically the records that various items such as Activities and Appointments are created from. If an Activity item is created from an Account record, then the Account record becomes the Parent Item of the Activity item. Only records, Account, Contact, Contract, Opportunity Support, and Literature can be a Parent Item.

Permissions – Permissions are used in Tour de Force to restrict users from viewing certain information or accessing specific modules such as the Events Manager and Sales Planning module. User permissions are set in the Administration Console.

Phone Logging – Phone Logging allows organizations to track phone calls at an Account record level. The Phone Logging service needs to be used with a phone service that supports logging and needs to be enabled in the BI Connector.

Quick Events – The Quick Events menu is a menu that accessible on most grids in Tour de Force. Right-clicking on one of the supported grids displays a menu that allows users to view Tour de Force Records or Items, perform a specific action for the row selected, view Attachments, or perform Other actions. The Quick Events menu is a quick and easy way to view and create items in Tour de Force.

RUDF - RUDF is short for Related User Defined Field. Many of the Tour de Force screens include RUDFs. These are fields that are centrally defined when Tour de Force is configured. RUDFs are directly related to UDFs, RUDFs values are based on the UDF values that are defined.

Sales Planning Module –The Sales Planning Module is used by Sales Managers and salespeople to set up sales goals for the coming fiscal year as well as view any previous goals set up in earlier years. There are four high levels of planning: Account Root, Account Package, Account, and Salesperson. There are several lower level types of planning: Product Group, Vendor, and any Alternates set up.

Tour de Force Event Manager – The Tour de Force Events Manager is an optional module that gives organizations the ability to create and manage any type of event that a company hosts or attends. Organizations can also analyze the ROI of any event that the company attends or hosts such as trade shows, training events, and advertising campaigns.

Tour de Force Mailer – The Tour de Force Mailer is an optional module that gives users the ability to create direct mail or email campaigns using information related and linked to the Account and Contact records set up in Tour de Force.

Tour de Force Web – Tour de Force Web is a browser-based version of Tour de Force that is usable on most PDA devices. Tour de Force Web needs to be configured before use by an Administrative user. The setup of Tour de Force Web is typically a guided process by the Tour de Force Support team.

UDF - UDF is short for User Defined Field. Many of the Tour de Force screens include UDFs. These are fields that are centrally defined when Tour de Force is configured. They allow you to collect information from users that are specific to the way you do business. For most UDFs, you can change both the label displayed on the screen and the values that are available to the user in the pick list.

Views – Views in Tour de Force are used to display information related to the user currently viewing the grid selection. There are two different view types in Tour de Force: Global Views and Local Views. What a user can see in a view is heavily based on the permissions set for the user. Views are typically created use the Grid Manager.

 Miscellaneous Terms

Administrative user – An Administrative user of Tour de Force is typically a user who has access to the Administration Console and most other admin controls in Tour de Force such as creating global views and global drafts.

Company Shared Folder – The company shared folder is a folder created by Tour de Force where the documents and attachments added to Tour de Force are stored. The company shared folder can be put anywhere that is accessible by all computers.

Microsoft SQL – Microsoft SQL is the relational database server used for Tour de Force.

Normal user – A normal user of Tour de Force is the typical user and only has permissions to use the client version of Tour de Force. User Permissions are used to restrict what a normal user can do in Tour de Force.

Terminal Server – A server that has a lot of users connecting to it for an office or desktop session that has a virtual desktop for those users to run applications on.  

Exchange Sync – The service looks at Contacts, Tasks, and Appointments and syncs any changes on either the Outlook client side or the Tour de Force side. A service must be configured on the Tour de Force Administration Console for this to run.  This is typically done by a Tour de Force Environment Consultant.

Web Sync – The Web Sync service is a service that runs from the Tour de Force Administration Console and runs in the background every couple of seconds.  The Web Sync service is checking for changes to Appointments and Tasks between Tour de Force Web and the user’s Outlook client.  

Contact Sync – The Contact sync is a useful tool that helps users keep contacts on their smart phone and Outlook, up-to-date with the latest information entered into Tour de Force.