Getting Started with BIZ

History: PLIC.BIZ has been in development for YEARS! Our team started with tools and techniques utilized in the medtech industry (with, if you can believe it, even more constraints than we have in school & volume photography). We created alliances with a variety of tech companies, licensed exclusive programming, hired ninja coders, hammered the snot out of everything during a rigorous pilot trial… That means our core technology is proven!

THEN we worked for three solid years with a number of guinea pig photo companies (ranging in size, geography, and use load) in order to create the high-volume photography industry FIRST CRM & OPERATIONS portal! Based on all our experiences, we honed the tools and packaged template workflows so that you have a gnarly starting point.

We’re not done. PLIC BIZ will always evolve. As long as there’s new technology, new demands, new ideas, we’ll keep growing. Your license means that you get to use our tools, leverage our experiences & expertise, and capitalize on our continued investments in the form of updates and customization counseling. That also means that your insights matter. If you think of anything cool, let us know. If you discover hiccups, let us know.

Basics: PLIC BIZ is a CRM w/ Operational Extensions tailored for Volume Photographers. What’s that mean? “CRM” Stands for Customer Relationship Management. This is where you collect information about your accounts, manage sales, coordinate contracts, launch projects, communicate with contacts, track tasks, etc. The BIZ CRM consists of three primary sections – Organizations (Accounts/Clients), Projects, and Customer Service Tickets.

“Operational Extensions” are the various modules that integrate with the CRM and allow you to utilize the BIZ system for virtually all aspects of your operations – from managing your team to managing the entire life-cycle of your accounts and their respective projects.

The rest of this manual will help you understand each piece and how they integrate with each other.

Customize: Before you log in, you’ll want to make sure to schedule a session with a BIZ WIZ (our ridiculous name for BIZ experts… and also an inside joke about the PLIC Potty) along with one or more of your core users/admins. During your first session, you’ll review the BIZ system modules, capabilities, and standard configurations. THEN you’ll come up with your customization strategy / homework.

Note – it may take a number of sessions to get the BIZ system configured the way you want it. We’re talking about form fields so you can capture information the way you need it, project grids, workflow adaptations, etc. Make sure you build in plenty of lead time before rolling BIZ out to your team. See “Launch Sequence” (in this Getting Started section) for more information.

Train: In order to be successful, we recommend that you schedule a training session between a BIZ WIZ, your core user(s) who helped customize the system, and the rest of your team.

You may even want to create some tutorials or an on-boarding workflow so your team members know what BIZ is, how it works, and how YOU plan to use it!

Notes:

• Chrome is our preferred browser (though we also use Safari a fair amount). One of our operational extensions (the communication module) requires Chrome for some of its functionality – the video chat. If you plan to use video chat, then use Chrome.
• PLIC BIZ is a web app. It’s 100% online. Your secure login page is https://plic.biz. We suggest that you bookmark this page.
• PLIC BIZ is accessible from your phone (via the browser) but it is not intended to be a mobile app or responsive site. So your sales team can definitely use it on the road but we recommend that your primary access be from a traditional / larger display. We’re working on a progressive web app next gen system though. That’ll improve your mobile experience.
• Just like all our other products, contact our PLIC team for any support issue. We have folks that can help with the basics AND, if your specific issue is more impressive, we’ll connect you with a BIZ WIZ. Just click the intercom PLIC molar at the bottom of your browser to get in touch.
• BIZ is integrated with your PLIC account in a couple significant ways. First – through support and accounting. Second – when you create an active organization in the CRM, it will show up in your synchronized PLIC.io account. This means that you’re always better off creating your accounts in the CRM.
  • • In order to finalize the wiring, you’ll need to work with a BIZ WIZ to connect your BIZ account to your PLIC.io account by signing in during a virtual session.
    • We’re always working on deeper levels of integrations. The trick is that everyone uses their CRM differently. We’ll keep you posted though. We expect huge strides in the upcoming months.