FAQs

• Finstral Contacts is an application designed by Finstral to process and track incoming enquiries from end customers and prospective customers. The application accompanies all enquiries by prospective customers, from the recording of the enquiry to its conclusion or rejection, and thus ensures that nothing is forgotten and that there is transparency at all times over all sales processes. 
• The Finstral Contacts system saves you time when processing enquiries.
• By providing it as a software-as-a-service solution in your browser, it is always up to date and your data is stored on multiply-secured European servers. 
• Finstral Contacts is not an industry-independent standard software for enquiry management, but rather a system developed specifically for the requirements of window and entry door sales with a particular focus on its ease of use.
• Finstral Contacts is part of the Finstral Cloud, a collection of digital tools designed to support dealers and installers of window. You can access Finstral Contacts and all other services in the Finstral Cloud via https://finstral.cloud/. Finstral is constantly optimising and expanding its range.
• There are two main views: the enquiry list, and the detailed view for an individual enquiry. Every step of an enquiry is accompanied by simply designed forms so that, for every action, everything is always thought of.
• Finstral Contacts always focuses on the next step. Instead of thinking only about the finish line - closing the sale - Finstral Contacts helps you to focus on the next activity that will make it possible to achieve a good order outcome in the first place. Once you complete an activity, Finstral Contacts will remind you to plan the next one.
• Click on the Finstral Contacts logo at the top left to return to the start screen (enquiry list).

Go to Login

• First log in to Finstral Contacts.
• Click on “Create new enquiry” on the right-hand side of the enquiry list.
• Fill in the mandatory fields for the contact (left-hand side, white background) and the enquiry (right-hand side, blue background) and confirm this. 
• If you insert an e-mail address that already exists in Finstral Contacts, all other fields are automatically added from the existing contact. Attention: if you then make new entries in these fields, the existing contact will be overwritten.
• The newly created enquiry can be found at the top of the list of all enquiries, because this is always initially sorted by enquiry number.
• A new contact can only be created together with an enquiry, never individually (exception: linking contacts).
• As the creator or processor, you can delete a created enquiry if no further action has taken place. Deletion is only intended in case you have created the enquiry by mistake. If, for example, the prospective customer is no longer interested or Finstral decides against pursuing the enquiry, click on “Cancel enquiry” instead.

Go to New enquiries

• The list is structured in a table with the following columns:
  • 1st column: enquiry type (icon)
  • 2nd column: enquiry ID and address of the building project including name of the building project
  • 3rd column: country where building address is located
  • 4th column: enquiry contact
  • 5th column: status
  • 6th column: responsible person
  • 7th column: due date
  • 8th column: recommended next action or further action options via a drop-down list
• Meaning of the filters above the enquiry list:
• Your/All enquiries: You can either select the filter “Your enquiries” or “All enquiries”. The respective filter can be set via a “toggle button” and gives you a specific view of the enquiries:
  • Your enquiries: includes all enquiries that exclusively concern you.
  • All enquiries: includes all enquiries that concern your team in general.
• Open/Completed enquiries: in addition, you can select either the filter “Open enquiries” or “Completed enquiries” by ticking the corresponding filter.
  • Open enquiries: enquiries that are currently being processed (by you, if you have simultaneously selected the filter “Your enquiries”; or in the team, if you have simultaneously selected the filter “All enquiries”).
  • Completed enquiries: enquiries that have been completed (by you, if you have simultaneously selected the filter “Your enquiries”; or in the team, if you simultaneously have selected the filter “All enquiries”).
• The meaning of the coloured dots in the “Due date” column:
  • Red: enquiries that are (over)due; to be processed urgently
  • Orange: enquiries that are due soon; to be processed promptly
  • Green: enquiries that are not yet due; to be processed in the future
• The list is by default sorted by enquiry number (“Construction project” column). The list can be sorted in the order of the other columns by clicking on the respective headings.

Go to Overview of all enquiries

• The left-hand area (highlighted in white) contains the contact details of the prospective customer. The right-hand area (highlighted in blue) contains the data on the enquiry or enquiries made by this contact.
• Each tab belongs to an enquiry. Each enquiry is marked with an icon for the enquiry type and an automatically generated ID. 
• The enquiry history is documented in the middle of each tab. In addition, notes can be entered or files (max. 20 MB per note) uploaded at any time. One building address/commission that deviates from the contact address can be noted per enquiry. The enquiry can also be linked to a contact or to several contacts (e.g. planners).
• In each tab, the action options for the enquiry are shown on the right-hand side: the recommended action appears on a dark blue background. Other possible actions are less strongly highlighted and appear on a light blue background. The current status of the enquiry and the due date are repeated via the actions. Among the actions are alternative actions for downloading/deleting the enquiry, depending on authorisation.

Go to Detailed view of a contact with his/her enquiry(ies)

• By clicking on the avatar in the top right corner, you can view your status and existing rights and edit your profile settings.
• You can edit your profile as follows:
  • notifications (daily summary, message when an enquiry is assigned, e-mailing of created appointments)
  • Profile picture, contact details, language
  • Absence (N.B.: if you enter an absence here, no enquiry can be assigned to you)

Go to The Finstral Contacts profile

• You can click on “Link enquiry” in the detailed view of the enquiry to link an enquiry with another contact person. This mainly occurs when a private client is planning a building project together with an architect, and sends an enquiry to Finstral. 
• You can search for the contact to be linked in the existing contacts or create a new contact.
• For data protection reasons, only one contact type - either commercial or planner - can be linked.

Go to Further actions for advanced users

• Click on an enquiry to go to the detailed view. 
• Click on the three dots in the browser bar at the top right to access the browser settings. Select “Print” (you can also use the key combination Ctrl + P).
• You go to print view, where you can select your preferred printer and print the document (printing as a PDF is also possible).

Go to Download and Print

There are two possibilities:

• You are not responsible for the enquiry. The “next step” column in the enquiry list is not clickable (black text) and there are no action options in the detailed view. The person responsible is shown in the detailed view on the right-hand side.
• The enquiry was anonymised after six months (applies to all enquiry types except “Offer” or “Complaint”).

Go to Detailed view of a contact with his/her enquiry(ies)

You have to complete various steps.

For enquiries of the “Offer” type, the following actions are required:

1. Arrange an advisory appointment (documentation of advisory appointment)
2. Agree on submission of the offer (documentation of submission of offer)
3. If necessary, arrange a negotiation date and then place the order (positive) or cancel the enquiry (negative) (feedback from potential customer)

The “Place order” action closes the enquiry positively in the event of an offer. Processing in Finstral Contacts is completed and the order is placed. The enquiry is registered as becoming an order. Everything else (ordering to Finstral) is then done in Finstral Composer.

The above steps can only be performed by certain user roles.

Go to Processing of enquiries

Finstral Contacts offers a duplicate check to avoid unnecessary duplicate contact information in the system.

The system automatically detects if a new incoming contact and its enquiry have the same e-mail address stored and proposes the “Check duplicate” action. There are three options for this action:

1. Keep the existing contact (and merge enquiries with this contact)
2. Select the new contact (and merge enquiries with this contact)
3. Create a separate contact and insert a separate e-mail address

Go to Check for duplicates

In the detailed view of the enquiry, select the menu item “Put on hold” or “Put offer on hold”. You can move the due date to a specific date and the enquiry will once more be marked green in the enquiry list.

Go to More actions

This is a safety warning, but in this case it is not critical.

There is an option in your profile to set a third notification “Appointments via e-mail” with “Receive”. As soon as you schedule an appointment in Finstral Contacts, the system will send you an e-mail with an .ics file. After double-clicking on this file, you can add the appointment to your Outlook calendar with all the relevant information (contact name, address, time, etc.).

Go to The Finstral Contacts profile

First enter the known e-mail address of the contact in the “Create new enquiry” screen. On the basis of the e-mail address, Finstral Contacts registers that this contact is already in the database. The contact details are now automatically completed. You can then fill in the enquiry section on the right (highlighted in blue) to save another enquiry for an existing contact. You will then see several tabs (several enquiries) for this contact in the detailed view.

Clicking on the e-mail address of a contact in the detailed view opens the e-mail program set by the Finstral Contacts user (e.g. Outlook) and displays an e-mail template with a predefined text, subject and e-mail address of the recipient (end customer). You can of course change this template before sending it. In this way you can quickly inform the end customer by e-mail regarding the processing of an enquiry or the forwarding of his/her enquiry to dealer partners/planning consultants. This function currently only exists for Finstral business units.

Finstral Contacts has been made available as a service to dealer partners and many of them are now working with the application. A few dealer partners do not (yet) work with Finstral Contacts and are therefore “external” users. You must therefore select “Assign enquiry” for forwarding enquiries, which will recognise whether a dealer partner is an internal or external user. If a partner is not yet working with the application, the corresponding contact manager (field 13 in FinCRM) will receive an e-mail from Finstral Contacts with the contact and enquiry details.

There are two options when forwarding enquiries:

1. Search for dealer partners

An interface to FinCRM has been set up to facilitate the search for dealer partners and their contact details when forwarding enquiries externally. The search for the dealer can be carried out by e-mail address, client reference no. or dealer partner name.

2. Manual entry of an e-mail address of your choice

Forwarding to another e-mail address is still possible provided it does not affect a dealer partner or Finstral Contacts user.

Go to Assign and reject enquiries

If you accidentally click on “Cancel enquiry”, you can cancel the cancellation by clicking on “Reopen enquiry” to reactivate the last active enquiry status.

Go to Cancel or reopen an enquiry

First, check whether the content is really the same enquiry or whether it concerns two different enquiries or enquiry types by the same contact. If it is the same enquiry that has merely been received via several channels, you can close one of the enquiries using “Cancel enquiry” with “Duplicate” as a reason, then process the other enquiry. 

Go to Cancel or reopen an enquiry

Yes, this is always possible by clicking on the drop-down menu in the header of the detailed view “Offers and orders”. Here you can either see an offer linked in Composer (and change it as appropriate in Composer) or add an offer manually. It is necessary to click on “Submit offer” in order to adjust the offer status to “Offer submitted”.

Go to Processing of enquiries

Reporting is currently focused on offer enquiries and their closure rate. There are views of the closure rates per responsible person and per country, plus an overview of the enquiry statuses. Reporting is currently only visible to management, heads of strategic business units and sales managers. It is currently only available for Finstral business units.

Go to Reporting

If an offer and several (higher-value) alternative offers (e.g. regarding material, etc.) have been created for a prospective customer, you can link/manually add these in the same Contacts enquiry.

However, if there are several offers (e.g. one offer for windows and one for an entry door) for a prospective customer, Contacts allows you to link/manually add a separate enquiry for each offer.

Procedure to create another enquiry for the same contact:

1. Copy the contact’s e-mail address (CTRL + C).
2. Go to the enquiry list and click on “Create new enquiry”.
3. Paste the copied e-mail address first into the contact details of the input screen (left-hand side with white background). The remaining contact details are filled in automatically, as Contacts recognises that this contact already exists. 
4. Enter the required data for the new enquiry (right-hand side, with blue background) and save the enquiry.
5. You now have several enquiry tabs (or IDs) for the same contact. So, if you need several offers for the prospective customer, you can link/add the second offer with the second enquiry ID.

Go to Processing of enquiries

1. Copy the enquiry ID of the Contacts enquiry (CTRL +C).
2. Insert the enquiry ID from Contacts into the “Contacts ID” field (old description “VAT no.”) in the header data (“Order data”) of the offer/order in the Composer (CTRL + V) and click on “Save”. Contacts is updated hourly with the offer/order total and number from the Composer.
3. You can also change or delete the ID in this Composer field. This means that the information in Contacts will be changed or deleted accordingly. 
4. Several offers can be stored per enquiry. Contacts only ever accepts one main offer and counts the other linked offers as “Alternatives”. You can exchange the alternative offer for the current offer in the drop-down menu of the Contacts detailed view by clicking on “Make alternative offer”. Only the main offer counts in the reporting, not the alternatives.
5. It is possible to save several orders per enquiry. Contacts accepts all orders and the total of all orders will be saved in the reporting.

Go to Processing of enquiries

Für einen Verweis auf eine Contacts-Anfrage in einer E-Mail oder in einem anderen Dokument eignet sich am besten die Zusendung der URL. Letztere ist zum Beispiel hilfreich bei Support-Anfragen. So weiß der Usersupport direkt per Klick, um welche Anfrage es sich handelt.

Beispiel der URL: https://contacts.finstral.cloud/details/76710

A name can be assigned to the project for each enquiry of a contact, which makes it possible to differentiate between several enquiries for the same contact.

It is possible that your Finstral Contacts will be automatically translated by the browser, which is why you may see incorrect terms that we do not use in our system. 

Take these steps to deactivate this function: 

• Click on the “Translate” icon in the URL bar. 
• Click on the 3 dots. 
• Activate the selection “Never translate this website”. 

Or you can deactivate it directly in the browser: 

• Click on the three-dot menu at the top right and select “Settings”. 
• Click on the menu item “Languages” on the left. 
• Navigate to the “Google Translator” section and deactivate “Use Google Translator”. 

From now on you will see the correct translations that we have entered.