Off-territory meetings occur when you need to use your budget for a meeting that is outside of your territory area. This most commonly happens when you cover a meeting for a colleague.

Important: Off-territory meetings should not be linked to a location unless you are using a regional or national budget.

From the main menu select Meetings, Add Meeting

The meeting record will open

In the Where is the meeting going to be? section, ignore the Location Name field

Click in the Venue Name field and type the name of the meeting location

Click in the Geography Unit field and from the drop-down list, select the geography closest to the meeting venue.

Important: The Geography field is mandatory, so you will not be able to save the meeting record without completing it. The listed areas cannot match the location as they are all within your territory.

Complete all other mandatory fields and click the Save button before moving onto the Costs page.

Because the geography selected is within your territory, you will be able to use your territory budget.

You may have created a meeting that didn’t go ahead and would like to remove it from your diary

There are two ways of deleting a meeting and which you choose depends on the reason why it didn’t go ahead.

The meeting was planned, approved and then subsequently cancelled

1. From the meeting record scroll to the bottom of the General (first) page
2. Untick the Active checkbox

The meeting will be removed from the diary and will not appear in reports. It can, however, still be found via a Data Explorer Meeting search to include inactive meetings.

The meeting was entered in error

From the meeting record click the Delete Meeting action

Important: The Delete Meeting action is only available whilst the meeting is under your control, i.e. the status is created, authorised, declined, withdrawn or re-opened. Submitted and closed meetings cannot be edited or deleted.

Amending data on the meeting records can be carried out at various stages of the meeting process.

Meeting records are continuously being changed until the meeting is completed and the record closed. However, at certain points during the meeting process all or some of the fields are locked. Because of this you should carefully check all meeting details before the meeting is closed.

Created meetings

Any available field can be edited. Remember to save the changes as you make them. Depending on your set-up Meeting Information fields may only become available once the meeting date has passed.

Submitted meetings

The meeting record is locked until the meeting has been approved or declined. It cannot be edited.

Withdrawn meetings

Any available field can be edited and the meeting resubmitted. The meeting can also be deleted.

Authorised meetings

The meeting record should be edited to add costs, payments and attendees.

Declined meetings

Any available field can be edited and the meeting resubmitted. It can also be deleted.

Closed meetings

The meeting has been checked carefully and no further edits are possible.

Re-opened meetings

The meeting date, time and products detailed cannot be changed. All other fields can be edited and attendees can be added or deleted.

The best time to edit the meeting budget is when the status is Created or Withdrawn

To change the budget value click the pencil icon
To change the budget itself click the add icon and select another budget from the drop-down list

Once the meeting has been authorised or re-opened:

If costs have already been added, then they’ll need to be removed before the budget can be changed

Click the X button next to the cost to remove it

If payments have already been added, then they’ll need to be removed before the budget can be changed

Highlight the payment and click the Delete Payment button to remove it

If your set-up allows for multiple budgets:

Click the Add icon on the Budgets line and add a new budget if necessary, allocating the estimated costs to it.

Important: Editing the budget will mean that the meeting has to go through the authorisation process again

Highlight the payment allocated to the incorrect budget and click the Edit Payment button
In the payment screen, select the correct budget from the drop-down list
Click the Save and Exit button to return to the meeting costs screen Once all the payments have been allocated to the correct budget, and the incorrect budget shows actual costs of zero, click the X button to the right of the budget line to remove it.

The status of a meeting indicates whether it can be edited or not

The meeting status can be found around half way down the General page. It updates as the meeting moves through the submission, authorisation, and completion to close process.

Created – saved but not yet submitted for authorisation

Submitted – submitted for approval. Depending on your set-up, meetings with an estimated cost under a certain limit may be automatically approved by the system. Submitted meetings cannot be edited until they have been approved to declined

Withdrawn – changes the meeting status from submitted to created for further editing. The meeting must be re-submitted after changes are made. Depending on your system set-up this option may not be available

Authorised – estimated costs have been approved by the authorising manager. The meeting record can be edited to add costs, payments and attendees prior to closing

Declined – the meeting has been rejected by the authorising manager. The meeting can be edited and re-submitted if necessary

Closed – the meeting has been finalised and no further edits are possible

Re-opened – the meeting has been re-opened for editing. Note that the date, time and products detailed cannot be edited.

Important: You may need to remind your manager to authorise the meeting in order for you to complete and close the record.

Occasionally you may need to record a meeting at a location which is not on your territory and thus not immediately visible in actisCRM.

Important: You cannot use territory budgets for national/off-territory meetings. It may be necessary to access a shared budget at regional or central level depending where the meeting is held.

There are two ways to set up an off-territory meeting:

1. Click Advanced Search link on the page header
   
2. Click Locations
3. Type all or part of the location name in the search bar
4. Click National search
5. Click the Go button to open the location list
6. Select and open the required location and click the Book Meeting action
7. Complete, submit and close the meeting record in the same way as you would for an on-territory meeting.

OR

1. From the menu, select Meetings, Add Meeting to open a blank meeting record
2. Click the Add/Edit Location button
   
3. In the location list, ensure the National Search checkbox is ticked
   
4. Type all or part of the location name in the search bar and click the Select Location button to add the location to the meeting record
5. Complete, submit and close the meeting record in the same way as you would for an on-territory meeting.

Whether meetings can be reopened depends on your set-up and how your calls are recorded for reporting.

If your system set-up allows you to re-open the meeting yourself:

1. Open the meeting
2. Click the Re-open Meeting action

If your system set-up does not allow you to reopen the meeting yourself, you will need to to ask you manager to re-open the meeting for you.

The meeting status will change to Re-opened and can be edited before you close it again.

Important: Re-opening and editing a closed meeting record can affect call rates and reporting, For this reason, it’s best avoided.

Editing a re-opened meeting

1. Open the meeting
2. Amend any of the fields on any of the meeting pages except for the date, time and products.
3. Click the Close action once you’re sure all details are correct

Important: Do not edit the estimated cost. Doing so means the meeting must go through the authorisation process again. There should never be a need to edit the estimated cost after the meeting has been approved as your actual costs can exceed the estimate.

Occasionally meetings may need to be transferred to another employee that works the same area.

Only the meeting owner can transfer a meeting and the person receiving the meeting must be at the same employee level as the owner, i.e. a subordinate cannot transfer a meeting to a manager.

1. Open the meeting and next to the meeting owner’s name click the Transfer button
2. The Reassign window will open
3. Reassign to: Select from the drop-down options
4. Budget: Select from the drop-down options
5. Click the Reassign Meeting button
6. The meeting will transfer to your colleague and will be removed from your meetings list and diary.

Leavers should ensure all meetings are completed or transferred before their termination date.

The meeting status can be Created, Submitted or Authorised. Closed or Declined meetings cannot be transferred.

Once the meeting has been concluded, the meeting record must be closed. This process will ensure that all expenditure is properly accounted for and that contacts are recorded correctly for reporting purposes.

1. From the meeting record click Close Meeting on the Action tab.
2. A warning will appear as a reminder that a contact will be recorded against all attendees, and that once the meeting is closed no further changes will be permitted.
3. Click the OK button to proceed or click the Cancel button to stop the close process so that further changes can be made to the meeting record.
4. The meeting status will change to Closed.

Meetings that exceed the cost authorisation limit must be approved by a manager.

1. Open the meetings list and click the Submitted button in the Legend to limit the list to those meetings that require authorisation only
2. In the Parameters section of the Action tab, select Requiring Authorisation from the drop-down list. The list will be limited to those meetings which fall within authorisation limits
3. If necessary, click in the Display Meeting With field and select a suitable view from the drop-down list available.
4. Select the meeting from the filtered list and click Open Meeting on the Actions tab.
5. Check the meeting details, working through the records on the Navigation tab.
6. If the meeting satisfies requirements click Authorise Meeting on the Actions tab.
7. If the meeting does not satisfy requirements, click Decline Meeting on the Actions tab and then click in the Manager’s Comments field and type a reason for the decision.
8. The meeting status will change.

A declined meeting can be edited and resubmitted.