Any menu in Repfabric that drops down is what we call a Subtable. All Subtables can be edited by an administrator in your instance. Those changes become true anytime someone in your instance opens their instance. In other words, you cannot just change a Subtable for your view only. It changes it for everyone in your company. 

The main areas where you can edit Subtables are companies, contacts, and opportunities. Below is a description and reason to consider customizing them. 

To access the Sub Tables, click Global Menu -> Settings -> Sub Tables.

EXAMPLE: To demonstrate how Subtables can be helpful, let’s talk about a report we might need to pull out of Repfabric. Subtables will help to further define or narrow your focus to a targeted list of customers.

You could export a list to be used for a specific mailing. We could also export a list of customers if a principal wants to do a ride along. We’d narrow it to distributors or customers, within driving distance, who also have an interest in their products. 

If you wanted to pull a list with those requirements, you would start at “Contacts” > click “Export” button and fill in desired filters.

To further outline the subtable purposes and functions, each one is described below. 

Activity Journal Canned Notes

This is a place where you can create pre-written statements to save sales reps time typing in call notes and create consistency. Defaults of “Covered our product line” or “Reviewed literature” are likely in your system already. These statements can be created for all manufacturers or can be custom created for individual manufacturers. If your manufacturer requires certain information in a report, you could make statements that you can report back to them, for example “uses competitor” or “Is interested in ___.” 

Activity Journal Call Type

This default is how you would define a contact with the customer. Is it a “sales call” or “sales call with manufacturer?” A “tradeshow” or a “lunch and learn?” At the end of the month, you can then provide a count on what types of behaviors were part of your sales effort for that line. This field allows for one choice from the drop-down list.

Activity Journal Manufacturers/Principals List

If you add a new Manufacturer/Principal, you will need to make that new manufacturer available in “Activity Journals.” Go to “Settings” > “Sub Tables” > “Activity Journal Manufacturer List” > and move the new manufacturer from the left side (does NOT show in AJ list) to the right side. For detailed information, go to “My Line is Not Showing in My Activity Journal”

PO Billboard

Need a manufacturer/customer relationship to be noted in detail as part of a Purchase Order? Use PO Billboard to create distinctive billboard messages that automatically populate when a certain combination of manufacturer/customer is selected as part of a PO.

Company Call Pattern

A call pattern is what is considered driving distance in one day. Could you make 6-8 sales calls in that one area on the same day? Orlando is an example. It is possible to drive the whole city in a day. It is not possible to drive and make 6-8 calls in one day. So that call pattern could be set as “Orlando (greater)” and “Orlando (surrounding).” Our rep would drive there, make all the greater calls on one day, stay the night, and finish the surrounding accounts the second day. Even if you sort companies by city, Orlando has so many smaller towns in the area some accounts could be missed. However, including all the accounts in that area by call pattern means they can be pulled all in one click to best prepare for the days’ events. As a hint, call pattern does appear in alphabetical order, so it is advisable to create them by state or province abbreviation first then city second. This field allows for one choice from the drop-down list.  

Company Category

This can be used to help segment what specific industry the account is in or type of business they conduct. It could be “industrial,” “government,” “military,” “commercial,” “private enterprise,” etc. This can be used however it is most helpful to your organization. This field allows for one choice from the drop-down list.

Company Class

Some samples of how to use this are already in your instance. It could be Roman numerals I, II, III. Others use a sort of grading reference A, B, C, D. Some list the revenue category or market value of the account (250K-500k). Again, this field can be customized as you see fit. This field allows for one choice from the drop-down list.  

Company Region

This can be used to help segment what specific region or area the account is located. You will most likely find your regions configured similar to various regions around the globe as the default. If you have different divisions of your company, you can use that in the “Region” field. You can create different regions based on however it is most helpful to your organization. This field allows for one choice from the drop-down list.

Company Type

The top group is in your RF by default. “Principal,” “Distributor,” “Customer,” and “External Account.” They can be “relabeled” to match the terms your industry uses. The second group are the custom types that you create.

Company types are very important, they tell you how a company will act.

“Principal/Manufacturer” is used for groupings in reports and has to be added to the list in an “Activity Journal” so you can make notes about which product line you spoke about. This type of company is visible to all Repfabric users and will sync to your email contacts (if your contact sync is turned ON).

“Distributor” can have a sales team assigned to it or not. This is determined in your “Application Settings.” If it is assigned a sales team, it will keep track of sales and commissions numbers under the sales team assigned to that distributor. If it does NOT have a sales team, the numbers will just show that the sales passed through a distributor.

“Customer” will ALWAYS have a sales team assigned to it to collect sales & commission numbers.

“External Account” one example could be a contract manufacturer overseas are external accounts. A company that is out of territory, you don’t want to pay comm on, and of course it doesn’t have a sales team assignment.

The typical sort of company types is manufacturer (or principal), principal old, customer, distributor, vendor, and manufacturer’s rep. Some companies like to further define their customer types. It could be local customer, regional customer or national customer. Any new company type can be tagged as a customer type. That means it needs to be assigned a sales team, only the members of that sales team will see this company record, the contacts associated with it and any opportunity with that account. It also means, commission splits can be assigned to that account. This allows for only one selection from the list. 

Click here to view the tutorial that explains “Company Type” and how they can be used.

Company Product Potential

As far as company-related subtables, this can be the most powerful. Think of your list of manufacturers (or better yet, the product families each of them offer). Adding those product groupings to the product potential subtable then lets you identify which customers are potential for buying X, Y, or Z. So when the manufacturer calls and says, “I’d like to do a ride along and demonstration our new fangled X” you can easily pull a target list to call and set appointments with. Pick customers or distributors with product potential X in the call pattern of _____. Within a minute your list is ready to go. No more hunting, pecking, guessing or leaving a key account behind. This allows multiple selections from the list. 

Company Industry

Similar to Company Category, Company Industry can be used to further delineate and drill down specific industries even more that the account is in or type of business they conduct. Examples include “plumbing” and “electrical” further delineating “industrial;” “state” and “city” further delineating “government;” “Army” and “Navy” further delineating “military;” “retail” and “wholesale” further delineating “commercial;” etc. This can be used however it is most helpful to your organization. This allows for multiple selections from the dropdown list. 

Contact Group

The interesting thing about contact group is that it parallels the categories in Outlook or the contact groups in GMAIL. If your Outlook or GMAIL account has the exact same listing of options, then the Sync+ will tag them the contacts the same once they sync into your email. For example, if you have newsletter and buyer as contact groups in Repfabric AND they are also category options in Outlook, then those colored tags will show in Outlook without you having to re-select that category. The trick is, every Outlook user in your company needs to write their category list to match the contact group list you have in Repfabric. Contact groups can list the job function like finance, engineering, or reasons you may want to contact them like safety (for recalls), engineering, buyer etc. This allows multiple selections from the list. 

Contact Product Interest

As far as contact-related subtables, this can be the most powerful. Think of your list of manufacturers (or better yet, the product families each of them offer). Adding those product groupings to the Contact Product Interest subtable then lets you identify which customers are potential for buying product X, product Y, or product Z. So when you use a mail blast program such as Autoklose, Mail Chimp or Constant Contact, you can easily pull a target list to plug into a campaign and send emails. Pick specific contacts with specific customers or distributors with product interest X. Within a minute your list is ready to go. No more hunting, pecking, guessing or leaving a key contact behind. This allows multiple selections from the list. 

Job Category

If your instance is utilizing our site-specific Job Tracking feature, this can be used to help segment what specific industry the site-specific job site is in or type of business they conduct. It could be educational, industrial, government, military, commercial, private enterprise, etc. This can be used however it is most helpful to your organization. This allows for only one selection from the dropdown list.

Job Stage

Just as every opportunity will go through various stages as the sale process progresses (see below), so will every site-specific Job, such as a hotel construction project or an all-purpose sports arena. Perhaps a Job has stages such as “Design In,” “Design Completed,” “Bid Requested” or “Bid Submitted.” Every Job may be different and can have different stages as they proceed. You have to the ability to modify your Job Stages as it is most helpful to your organization.

Opportunity Stage 

Every opportunity will go through various stages as the sale process progresses. Perhaps an opportunity begins with a “Lead” or as a “Target.” We have provided you with a series of default stages for your opportunities, including “Quote Requested,” “Quote Submitted,” “Sample Requested,” “Won,” and “Lost.” However, every business model is different and, sometimes, even different manufacturers/principals can have different stages on how they work with you on an opportunity. Since you may have a wide variety of ways your sales teams handle your opportunities, you have to the ability to modify your opportunity stages to match, either in general for all or even by individual manufacturers/principals.

Opportunity Status

This is field is like a billboard, it displays information. You will not have to change it. The Opportunity Status is linked to each Opportunity Stage. If a sales team member chooses “Quote Requested,” what is required of that stage? The quote from your manufacturer is more than likely what will need to be put together. Therefore, the status would be “Manufacturer Info Required.” When the quote is submitted to the customer and the stage is changed to “Quote Submitted,’ the status would be “Customer Info Required” since you now need to get the feedback from the customer regarding the quote. If you have an email linked to the Opportunity, and the customer is the last to respond, it will change to “Needs Review.” This is to let you know that you might want to review the communications regarding this opportunity.

You can also select “Needs Review” from the drop down menu for each status you create. This is a permanent status based in coding, and cannot be changed.

Opportunity Stage Group

This grouping is mainly used for reporting or viewing opportunities on screen. If you have different “Opportunity Activity Stages” i.e. ‘Quote requested’, ‘Quote submitted’, and ‘Quote approved’, you might want to have a Stage Group for “Quotes.”

Opportunity Types

An example of this is in the plumbing sector. At the end of a quarter or year, the owner of the company could want to determine what portion of the opportunities were commercial and what were residential. This list can be used for any variety of definitions on the type of opportunity it is.  This allows for only one selection from the list. 

Opportunity Lead Source

Some rep firms want to recognize partners who make quality referrals. Other firms hold their reps accountable for X number of self-generated leads per month or quarter. In those cases, they build this sub table to include factory lead, web lead, self-generated, and other referral. Using the Reporting tool, when the opportunities are exported to a spreadsheet, you can count how many came through from which source. This allows for only one selection from the list. 

Opportunity Close Reason

When you close an opportunity, you can have reasons for closing available in a drop down menu (Or a user can type the reason in, also). This will save time and also create continuity among your closed opportunities, if needed. This can be used however it is useful for your instance.

Opportunity Failed Reason

When you close an opportunity as “Lost” you may want an additional field to document the details of why the deal was “Lost.”

Opportunity Line Item Status

If you use line items in an Opportunity, you can change the status of each line item individually. 

For one-on-one help or questions about subtables please email support@repfabric.com  

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