Free Event and Contact Management

Guide to Contact and Event Management

Introduction

This guide concentrates on two free internet products, which allow you to manage you contacts (using Google’s Contact system under GMAIL) and how to manage an invite system for you Events that appears to work with a large numbers of contacts, unlike the Goggle calendar.This is not a manual on how to use these products, merely a guide on what to do

Google / Gmail contacts

You need to log into to Gmail (www.gmail.com), you can use your existing email address, or create an account.

Using the current product that you have get the contacts into a format that resembles a CSV file, follow the Google guide lines, and you will get great results. Note that it allows only one contact per email address, so make sure you have no duplicates.

Once you have got you Contacts in the recommended format the in Gmail. Then:

• click on Contacts


• click Import


• I would recommend you import it into a new group, for ease of access next time
  


• It will then import, and tell you which contacts had duplicate email addresses

If you then go and check your contacts you will then see that the details are there. It may be a bit free form, but so is the search, To add details, click on any contact, then click “More Information” and you can see there is an other field which is free format, you can add any details there.

Zoji contact manager

Zoji, is used instead of Google Calendar, for two reasons:

1. Google Calendar invites are to rich in HTML, so some people cannot read them, they are designed for gmail users.
2. Google Calendar limits are not clear but I found that it is limited to 250 invites

You need to register for Zoji too (www.zoji.com). I would suggest you register as the organization you are BNWC (Business Network with a Conscience) is a good example, then you can always give access to your partners.

Once you have registered and all that go to Create Event. Notice that you can do a lot of formatting so take your time on your first invite / Event, since you can copy it for the next events.

• Click Events -> Create


• Select an invitation style you like


• This will take you to the invite details, you can paste your invite from another editor here and edit it, fill in the form. If you need pictures in your invite they need to be on a website already. Go to the website with the image and then select the URL of that image and then in Zoji enter the URL


• Under the Who section, select Import contacts, then enter in the details you use to access gmail. Notice that in Gmail, you do not need to add “@gmail.com” but here you do.


• The at the bottom click send, and wow you have sent invites

As people respond or read the invite you will be able to see this.

If you are having problems sending to a large number of people please tell me, as I have to ask Zoji to enable your account to do this automatically