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Agents now have a fully interactive community where they interact with other agents, ask questions, post blogs, and more. Find out how other agents are using TRAMS Back Office and ClientBase, plus learn about marketing techniques and conferences specifically designed for travel agents. Many of our support staff, trainers, and TCC’s are joining the AgentStream community to help answer some of your questions. Are you signed up? You can access AgentStream from www.agentstream.com to login. If you are not signed up yet, send an email to feedback@agentstream.com to get set up today!

Courtney Kavanagh joined the TRAMS Admin Department on a part-time basis until she graduated from high school in mid-June and then started working with us on a full-time basis. While attending school, Courtney held part-time jobs that provided her with valuable experience in customer service, data entry, as well as handling credit card and cash transactions. She also tutors elementary school children and has found that experience very rewarding. Courtney enjoys graphic arts and recently won a $2,000 scholarship with one of her designs.

Agnes Pickell joins the TRAMS Marketing Alliance team as a Marketing Manager. She says, “I come to TRAMS from banking and accounting background of almost 20 years, but I’ve spent the last two years in elementary education to be with my two children. We are a soccer family. My husband coaches our kids’ teams and we play on an adult soccer league ourselves. When we’re not running between soccer games, we spend as much time as we can together with family and great friends. I’m very excited to be a part of the TRAMS family. It’s a great new adventure for me!

Jason Mejias joins the TRAMS family as a Regional Sales Manager for MA, VT, NH, RI, ME, Upstate NY, WV, VA, DE, MD, D.C & the Caribbean. He spent 8 years with his family’s travel agency and the last two years as a TRAMS Certified Consultant. “After using the TRAMS products for so many years, then supporting the product, it’s an easy fit for me.” Jason says, “My passion in life is my music, I love to sing and play piano any chance that I get. I have been called a Wedding Singer one too many times!”

Maureen Jerge (pronounced Yurgee) has been in the Travel Industry for 24 years and is very excited to now be part of the TRAMS family in her role as TRAMS Marketing Alliance Marketing Manager. Maureen says, “I am married to my high school sweetheart and have 2 wonderful daughters. In addition to my family we have 1 spoiled Black Labrador Retriever. I enjoy camping with family and friends and also love to travel whenever I can.”

What’s New in TRAMS Training?

Recorded Trainings: In an effort to keep TRAMS Back Office and ClientBase Recorded Trainings current, we are continuing updating this convenient training tool. Check out what’s new!

Brand New TBO Recorded Trainings: Don’t have time to attend the one-hour live WebEx TBO classes? We are currently recording these classes, and dividing them into shorter recordings for your use any time 24/7. There is a new WebEx player for these recordings to download before you can access them, so make sure to download the player (one time installation). Check back often as more recordings are getting added on a weekly basis.

New ClientBase Online User? New Hosted ClientBase Browser User? Make sure to attend our Weekly WebEx Q&A sessions designed specifically to address your questions on your new program and provide training for you! It’s 11:00 am PDT every Friday. Can’t attend? Recorded Trainings can be found here.

TRAMS Certified Consultants: We’ve added some brand new TRAMS Certified Consultants (TCC’s). Want one-on-one training in your office or want to hire someone to do your bookkeeping remotely? The TRAMS Certified Consultant (TCC) Program is a network of independent contractors supporting and training TRAMS products. Some of them are agents, some are accountants, and others are industry consultants. In all cases, TRAMS, Inc. provides Certified Consultants with an extensive training curriculum and testing to assure you proficiency in all TRAMS products. Rates and payments are between you and the consultant. If you feel that a Certified Consultant may be right for your agency, click here for an up-to-date listing, in State order, of all certified TRAMS Certified Consultants.

Want to become a TRAMS Certified Consultant? Have you been working with TRAMS Back Office or ClientBase for years and feel proficient enough in the products to train other users? Become a certified TCC by emailing training@trams.com.

Many companies and individuals use the terms “Marketing” and “Sales” in weird and overlapping areas. Some use them to mean the same thing. Some bigger companies have whole division for marketing and another whole division for sales – yet still are confused what they both mean and the difference!

To me the distinction is very clear. Marketing is creating demand. That means creating awareness and generating leads. To create demand - get a potential client interested in working with you - that potential client needs to know about you, and then have an interested in what you have to offer.

Sales is the next step. When a potential client shows an interest, now you go about moving that interest to a closed deal. Sales is simply the process you go through from taking that “lead” to a completed sale.

In the past I have been asked about the old technique of giving a potential client a brochure and then waiting for them to call you back with questions or what they want to do – is that marketing or sales? My answer was easy for me, but tough for them. I think it is neither! And close ratios from those days show it. Surveys show that agencies using this antiquated business tactic close only 10 – 20% of the leads that they do get.

Marketing has become a very successful science. Using agency data to segment promotional campaigns, we have become very successful at marketing pertinent promotions to clients to drive them back to the agency – generating demand and leads.

Guerrilla Marketing states that 80% of sales are done after the 8th contact. Good agents have become very proficient at following through leads generated by marketing. “Contacts” are not just in person visits or phone conversations. Agents use email, faxes, website links, and phone messages as well as in person and phone conversation to rack up those eight contacts to close the deal.

Marketing and Sales done well have changed historical repeat rates dramatically. Rather than 20% of clients that booked one year coming back to the agency the next, we see 60 - 75% or more for those agencies with good marketing programs aligned with sales efforts.

If we train agents to create Reservation Cards in ClientBase every time they get a lead, then the agency can track the results of their marketing. Reports can be run showing who got what promotions or marketing campaigns and what leads were generated.

Additionally, the same system gives us details on our sales efforts including close ratios per sales person. By looking at what Res Cards were created by whom and when, and then which of those resulted in invoices, users can get the results and then use that information to train and direct their efforts. And this close ratio information is available not only by agent, but also by promotions, suppliers, product type, destination, etc.

Good Marketing and Sales are the key to business. Having the tools and proper usage of those tools enable us to document and see the difference. My personal greatest reward is talking to those agencies that have moved down this path and listening to their success stories.

The payment card industry (PCI) compliance and validation regulations spells out what security measures must be taken to protect the private information during any transaction occurring with the use of a paycard. The PCI Data Security Standard is used by all card brands to assure the security of the data gathered when transacting on behalf of a customer.

There are numerous regulations including encrypting the credit card numbers in the database. Encrypting this data makes it virtually impossible to decipher a credit card number without a decryption key which protects the credit card information in your database from fraudulent abuse.

In an effort to help protect your agency and your clients, and to comply with recent PCI regulations, the following enhancements will be introduced in our upcoming 3.4 release of ClientBase, due out in July. Providing you with tools that help your agency succeed is our number one goal, and although these enhancements may not be as “fun” as some of our other product enhancements, protecting your agency and your valuable data is part of that goal. Please let us know if you have any questions.

***Upon saving or editing Credit Card numbers, ClientBase now validates the card number. If the number is invalid, a prompt occurs "The credit card number entered appears to have a typographical error or it is not a valid credit card. Do you want to continue saving this record?" This prompt serves as a warning that there may have been a data entry error (typo).
Selecting YES saves the card As Is.
Selecting NO returns user to the card number field.
When editing an existing card number, validation does not occur unless the Card number field is modified. Validation occurs in Profile Cards Tab, Invoice Form of Payment Credit Card and CC Merchant, Invoice Booking Payment Credit Card and CC Merchant, Reservation Payment Due Date tab, Receipt Form of Payment CC Merchant FOP

Valid credit card numbers with spaces do not prompt
Valid credit card numbers with letters (VI1234123412341234) do not prompt
Valid credit card numbers with expiration date after a slash (CA5458004519231383 /1109) will not prompt (although we do not recommend entering the expiration date in the Card Number field.)

***Upon installation of both CBP 3.4 and TBO 3.01, Credit Numbers become encrypted and masked within the database. In an effort to protect your clients from credit card fraud, and to comply with recent PCI (Payment Card Industry) Compliance regulations, all credit card numbers within your database have been encrypted and masked. To a typical ClientBase User this encryption appears invisible, but it makes the extraction of this personal data much more difficult should your database be accessed in an unauthorized manner. Upon retrieving a Credit Number within the ClientBase application, the system will automatically decrypt the credit card number and display the full number as always. (Please note the User Permission enhancement below where users can be forced to only view the masked version of the Credit Card number.)

How It Works
After running the cbplusup.exe the credit card data that was stored in the Credit Card field pre-encryption now contains a masked version of the credit card number. A new field is also added to the database. The full credit card number is copied from the existing field to the new field and then encrypted.

A cleaning and masking routine will take place during the database update to standardize all of the credit card numbers so they can be properly masked for all applications utilizing the masked Credit Card field. Only valid credit card numbers will be cleaned and appear in the masked format.

Any non-numeric text at the beginning of the string up to the first digit is stripped out. AX 3782 078 234 0834/1008 becomes 3782 078 234 0834/1008.
All spaces are removed. 3782 078 234 0834/1008 becomes 37820782340834/1008.
The credit card string is truncated starting at the first non-numeric character, usually a slash, leaving only digits. 37820782340834/1008 becomes 37820782340834 .

Masked CC Number Field (CCNUMBER): Credit card number in masked format. Credit card numbers are standardized and validated. Valid credit cards are saved in its masked format and invalid credit cards are saved as is.
Encrypted CC Number Field (NUMBERENCRYPT): Encrypted full credit card number entry (all numbers whether valid or not are encrypted).
Hash CC Number Field (NUMBERHASH): Credit card number in hash format. This field is used for “faster searching of credit card number”. Valid credit cards hash the standardized format. Invalid credit cards hash the number as is.

Utilities Updated: Globalware Invoice Export Utility, IC Host Utility, XML Travel History Import, Australian “Enable Automatic XML Profile Export”,
Utilities Sunset (will no longer work after a database has been encrypted): XML Import, XML Export, CB2CBP conversion utility, CBT2CBP conversion utility
Utilities Not Affected: ASCII Profile Import, IB Backup, Ensemble Import, Ensemble Export, Virtuoso Utility, Virtuoso Segment Update

Use of Encryption Keys for Third Party or Custom Development:
A unique key will be generated for each agency that can be used in product development for non-TRAMS applications that need to read the full credit card number. The key can be obtained by the SYSDBA User only by going to Utilities|Credit Card Encryption Key and entering a password provided by the TRAMS support desk. A CCEncrypt.dll file is installed that allows access to the TRAMS database to view un-encrypted credit card numbers. Documentation for use is available upon request by e-mailing Customercare@trams.com. The intended audience is for the designers and developers of non-TRAMS applications that read credit card numbers directly from the TRAMS database.

***Enhanced the User Login Advanced permission settings|Other Permissions to include the ability to “Mask Credit Card Numbers”. This allows you to mask full credit card numbers from Users that don't have a need to view the complete number. ClientBase Plus version 3.04 and TRAMS Back Office version 3.01 both must be installed and the database must be encrypted for this setting to be activated. All existing Users default this setting to unchecked. Upon checking this Advanced permission and saving, the system prompts with a message: "By checking Mask Credit Card Numbers for this User, Credit entries will not be included in Merge to PNR and Live Connect, since the full Credit Number must result at the end of these features." Please keep this limitation in mind when deciding which Users should have the Credit Card numbers masked.

The following areas are updated if the current User Login is set to "Mask Credit Card Numbers":

Profile|Cards grid and Credit Card records mask the Credit Card Number and set to read only (in addition to Card Type)
Family Member|Cards grid and Credit Card records mask the Credit Card number and set to read only (in addition to Card Type)
Merge to PNR Selection Screen no longer includes any Credit Card data to select from
Live Connect Selection Screen no longer includes any Credit Card data to select from
Res Card Reservation Deposit FOP does not show the drop down list of CCs although a CC number can be hand entered. Upon saving the number will be masked.
Existing Res Card Reservations with a CC number, displays as masked although it can be edited and saved
Generate - Invoice feature does not include the drop down list of CCs although a CC number can be hand entered

***Updated the Help/About screen to identify the status of credit card encryption. “Credit Card Encryption Done” is either set to True or False depending on the status. In order for Credit Card Encryption to occur the database must be upgraded to ClientBase version 3.4 and TRAMS Back Office version 3.1.

***Added a prompt when doing a Live Connect to a provider's website that doesn't use HTTPS. This message warns about the lack of HTTPS and asks the user if they want to cancel, send all the information except the login/credit card or send all information including login/credit card.

***File | Export | Profile Cards Info now exports the Credit Card Numbers as masked by default.

We have a great group of people on the TRAMS support desk who are dedicated to helping our customers use the TRAMS software products. I asked each of the Support Desk Supervisors to submit a suggestion that I am confident you will find helpful. Thank you for being a TRAMS customer.

Sandy Cameron, a 9-year member of our support staff, is our accounting specialist and has the following tip for you when the Core Report and Trial Balance totals are not in agreement.

If the client core report does not agree with the trial balance figure, and you’ve narrowed down the time frame, run a payment analysis report and look for partial payments where a credit card has been used as well. Credit card payments will credit the invoice for the full amount of the invoice and update the general ledger as well.

Invoice total fare = $1000.00
Partial payment – cash/check = $ 500.00
Credit card final payment $ 500.00.

The partial payment of $500.00 cash/check will update the GL for $500.00 but once the $500.00 credit card payment is entered, it will credit client balances for the full $1000.00 and will cause a $500.00 discrepancy. To find these partial payments, run payment analysis for the date you are out of balance and for ALL Clients and look for the words “partial payment” in italics. Then look at the other payments associated with that invoice and if any are Credit Card, then you need to back out those payments.

Ramona Yanez - an 8-year member of our Support Staff, is currently focusing on keeping our customers syncing and offers the following if you want to change the time sync runs on the schedule task.
.

Go to Start|ControlPanel|Schedule Tasks
Select CBP sync task and right-click.
Click on Properties.
Then select the Schedule task.
Modify Start time and click OK.
Schedule task will then run at the new time entered.

Shirley Sweeney has been with our support desk for 11 years. She is one of our TRAMS Back Office instructors as well as answering your questions via e-mail or telephone. Shirley has a suggestion for making it easy to find a cleared payment date.

Have you ever wanted to find the payments that were not cleared as of a certain date, even if the payments shows cleared as of today’s date? For example, you want to know which payments were open as of 12/31/07, but show cleared in January 2008.

Go to Payments|Query| Payment.
In the date range enter 01/01/07 to 12/31/07
Next, click on the Advanced tab of the payment query.
Change the date cleared to 01/01/08 to the current date, and change the “Cleared Status” to Cleared.
Next click on query

Jeremiah Sellars is in his 6th year with the support team and handles the more challenging issues with the ClientBase and Sync programs. Below is his tip.

When using Inventory, make sure to always include an Expiration date. ClientBase will automatically, over time, stop showing your expired inventory unless it is specifically requested in a query. This will help keep your list of inventory tidy.

Frank Diaz is another of our support desk veterans in his 9th year. He is our Reports expert as well as capably answering both TRAMS Back Office and ClientBase questions. You’ll also find him teaching at TMU and Summer Camp. Below is his tip for setting up your check writer.

Are you looking for laser checks? I just spent 15 minutes on the internet looking for laser checks to use with the TRAMS Back Office software. I found a litany of companies that produce laser checks that will work with TRAMS Back Office. I found three part checks with the check on top and two stubs. I found three part checks with the check in the middle and a stub on top and bottom and yes, checks with the check on the bottom and the stubs on top. I found blank checks that you can design using the TRAMS Back Office Check Writer. Whatever the format, the TRAMS Back Office Check Writer is flexible enough to adjust to any check stock. I have found that a lot of our agencies use the standard check by “Deluxe” and checks by Moore Business Forms. Your bank may just have the check for you.

There are limitations. We can’t use the checks with tractor holes on the sides. We can’t use multi-ply stock and the form size must be 8 ½ by 11 inches. Most Laser type printers have feed trays designed for standard stock and most print drivers are set for forms that are eleven inches in length. Once you have your check stock, you need to adjust the Check Writer to print the data in the assigned locations on the check. You will want to print the amount, the date, the alpha amount and the pay to the order of on the check. Some checks do not come with check numbers and you will want to print the check numbers on the checks.

The stubs may vary depending on the type of payment. On a vendor payment you may want require the Date, Amount and “Payee name”. It may be necessary to print invoice numbers or passenger names on the stub. On payroll checks you will want the journal entries printed on the stub. But the decision on what data gets printed and where it’s printed is yours. It may be necessary to create several Check Writer setups for different situations. Use the Check Writer setup utility to adjust the data to the checks.

Go to Utilities|Setup|Checks, and enter a new setup or modify the default setup that comes with the system. elect the field names required and enter the coordinates where the data will be displayed. There are four fields that will require your attention: 1) Top – the distance from the top of the check stock. 2) Left – the distance from the left edge of the check stock. 3) Width – how wide a space is required to display the data. 4) Height - .18 inches times the number of lines to print. Use the following table to calculate the height requirement.

1 Line	.18
2 Lines	.36
3 Lines	.54
4 Lines	.72
5 Lines	.90

Visit our website for more information on where to purchase your laser checks. For additional assistance on setting up the Check Writer, contact the support desk at 310 641-8726 and press 1 for TRAMS Back Office support.

The promotional options are based upon the Primary Suppliers that you have chosen with your Marketing Manager or on your own when visiting this site. Primary Suppliers are those that have committed marketing funds to assist you in growing your business through special offers, email and direct mail communications to your clients, on your behalf. The promotions on the calendar are automatically sent to your targeted clients unless you opt out. Check your calendar often for new promotions and opportunities. You have two choices for the targeted list selected for each promotion:

TMA selects - TMA will use the supplier suggested query for the promotions on your calendar. Check frequently to ensure the timing is aligned with your current marketing plan. No further action is needed for this option.

Affiliate selects - You will be given a specific Marketing Code with a Marketing Partner ID and we ask that you mark the client profiles you want to receive the promotion. If no code is in your database, we will use the default supplier query. To get started and to optimize your Marketing Calendar please contact your Marketing Manager. For a listing of Marketing Managers by state, please visit http://www.trams.com/tma.

Certainly, the key to achieving your data’s full marketing potential is having a clean list to work from. Databases that do not have clean data will not have the capability to produce rewarding results. The reason is very simple. In order to reach your clients, TMA must have the following information: Client Name, Address, City, State, Zip, and Email address. It is recommend that you “clean” your database often by looking for errors, typos, misspelled words and emails, etc. Here are some queries level 3 queries to quickly view profiles with incorrect data:
Missing email addresses:
*** Profile Level 3 Filter Number 1 _____________________
    (Profile Type [Leisure,Corporate])
    AND (Profile Status Is Equal to Active)
    AND (Communication Filter Type: Does Have Communication Records with the following criteria)
            (Communication Type Is Equal to E-mail)
            AND (Communication Entry Is BLANK)

Email addresses that have no associated State:
*** Profile Level 3 Filter Number 1 _____________________
    (Profile Type [Leisure,Corporate])
    AND (State Is BLANK)
    AND (Profile Status Is Equal to Active)
    AND (Communication Filter Type: Does Have Communication Records with the following criteria)
            (Communication Type Is Equal to E-mail)
            AND (Communication Primary)
            AND (Communication Entry Contains "@")
            AND (Marketing Permission Is Equal to Y)

Missing Address Fields:
*** Profile Level 3 Filter Number 1 _____________________
    (Profile Type [Leisure,Corporate])
    AND (Address Line 1 Is BLANK)
    AND (Profile Status Is Equal to Active)

*** Profile Level 3 Filter Number 2 _____________________
    (Profile Type [Leisure,Corporate])
    AND (Zip Code Is BLANK)
    AND (Profile Status Is Equal to Active)

*** Profile Level 3 Filter Number 3 _____________________
    (Profile Type [Leisure,Corporate])
   AND (City Is BLANK)
    AND (Profile Status Is Equal to Active)

*** Profile Level 3 Filter Number 4 _____________________
    (Profile Type [Leisure,Corporate])
    AND (State Is BLANK)
    AND (Profile Status Is Equal to Active)

As we wrap up our beta testing on Trams Back Office (TBO) 3.01 and begin work on version 3.02, I thought I would share our internal workflow of a release cycle to help you all understand what is involved and how that equates to the releases you receive.

Product Management – That would be my role. As TBO Product Manager I prioritize the enhancements and new features that will be incorporated in each release. I started to transition into this position January 2008 in conjunction with managing Client Relations.

Specs – Layout and document specific details of a design to be incorporated into our applications. This helps us determine the amount of work that will be required.

Scripting – Automates testing by robotically performing various test scenarios in our applications to try to flush out any issues that need to be addressed prior to beta releases.

We conduct Development meetings on a regular basis (generally weekly), where Product Management, Product Development and QA come together to discuss adding specific new features and enhancements (most of which are submitted by our customers), spec out new features and enhancements and clear up any road blocks that will infringe on our release time line adherence.

All enhancements, new features and fixes are maintained in a database and we use an application that allows us to track the workflow of each item. All departments involved with development and testing use this tool.

1. New features and enhancements are discussed in development meetings.
2. When items are approved, Product Managers update the database with new features and enhancements and prioritize each item for a specific release. The QA teams enter issues on existing features.
3. Each item is assigned to a Developer.
4. Each Developer creates new code for each item and checks in the completed items to a central repository.
5. When QA is ready to test a new build, they submit a request to Development to compile the new code from the repository and post a new build.
6. Development posts the new build, and QA downloads the new build and tests each item. Product Managers also test new features and enhancements to ensure they are working as designed.
7. After all of the items scheduled for a particular release have been completed, QA begins another cycle of testing where each Tester runs routines across the entire application to try to flush out additional issues that need to be addressed prior to beta release. During this phase development is in “code freeze”. If new issues are discovered, only critical items get addressed and QA tests the area around what got fixed.
8. Scripts are also run at this time. They perform testing robotically and are generally geared around previous issues that were fixed to ensure they have not broken again in subsequent builds or releases.
9. QA then asks development to compile update files. These files contain all of the components that come together to make the program function properly. These files also get tested to ensure the most recent versions of the components have been included.
10. Once all testing has been completed, release notes are compiled to post with the beta release. These are the notes our Beta Testers read prior to downloading and installing new updates.
11. We notify our Beta Testers who download and use the new beta version and report any issues they may find to our QA Department.
12. QA enters the information into our tracking database and then assigns the item to that appropriate Developer.
13. Development fixes the issue, posts a new build, QA tests to ensure it’s working properly. They test all around that fix to also ensure this fix didn’t break something else.
14. QA requests new update files which are tested again and posted with the new release notes.

We are very conscious of turning out each subsequent beta release in a timely manner to try to minimize the impact of issues found by our Beta Testers. The contributions from our Beta Testers are highly valued throughout TRAMS, Inc.

The beta rounds take place until we have an interim where no more issues are being reported for a period of time. We then create setup files (full installation files) and post both the update and setup files and announce the General Release to all of our customers.

With the amount of effort and teamwork each release takes, we are very proud of our track record of releasing 2 to 3 releases every year.

We hope every customer reaps the benefits of our efforts through increased efficiencies to aid in streamlining your day to day business. We appreciate your business and will continue to strive to deliver cutting edge technology to your business.