The new group management functions in The Claymore Project version MM12 move collaborative tourism and hospitality marketing forward by leaps and bounds.
With the new Channel Manager group, membership and destination website administrators can avoid some of the pitfalls (and time) of managing, and keeping up to date, a group website:
Website administrators can now with a single click control the information that is shown on the destination or membership website.
Members have direct access through The Claymore Project database to update their business information, image galleries, Google Map, links and now publish automatically live information from their Facebook, Twitter or Blog accounts. The entry below is taken from Holiday Southern Scotland and features information input directly by the owners of Cosses Guest House
Site administrators using Channel Manager can then add and remove members or entries at will.
This now means that destination websites can, through Channel Manager, quickly switch on new members and have their information available within minutes.
Is that not how collaborative projects should work? Well that's The Claymore Project Channel Manager in a nutshell
With the increasing use of The Claymore Project database by destination management organisations, product groups, marketing organisations and membership bodies, it became increasingly clear that new tools were required for group site administrators to manage whose content was appearing on their site.
That lead directly to the creation of the Channel Manager function within The Claymore Project and creating almost by accident what some may call a DMS or Destination Management System.
We hadn't even hear the term four years ago!
The Channel Manager allows the group or destiantion site administrator the ability to:
The Channel Manager will be featured in the administrator's main log in area and give control of all of the following functions with the single user name and password. The user interface is extremely clean and simple
The administrator can now add a new member or an affiliate from The Channel Manager – by adding the business from the Channel Manager this new user will automatically be added to the list of users featured on each site and the user name and password automatically emailed to the user to give access to updating their own entry. This is a major benefit for membership organisations and collaborative projects.
The administrator now has the ability to upload new members and affiliates to their own active list of content providers. This again is useful for administrators who can add a new member or product providers instantly to their list of users who feature on the website.
Group or channel administrators can now decide how long an affiliate or member should be shown on the website.. This is ideal for websites which depend on management of members’ expiry dates and can ensure that no single user can be shown beyond the expiry period. It is an optional field and if not required can be left blank. Also ideal for short term promotional purposes where the administrator gives test access or for a fixed period of time.
Due to the commitment of The Claymore Project development team to Data Protection it has often been a bug bear of administrators that password information must be sent directly from The Claymore Project team. We have recognised the time element involved here and automated the process to ensure that the Channel administrator can now request a password reminder or change to be sent directly to the user speeding up the process greatly but still maintaining password integrity.