Please Note: Farmigo staff will be celebrating the Independence Day holiday so we will be closed on July 4th and July 5th. A member of the team will monitor the inbox for support@farmigo.com for any urgent emails, so please put “URGENT” at the beginning of the subject line for your email if it is something that warrants pulling them away from their local, free-range chicken dog!
Your delivery schedules are integrated into almost every aspect of your Farmigo system. Some extra consideration is recommended before making any changes to your delivery schedules in order to account for the holidays. When thinking through how to manage deliveries around the upcoming holiday, you may be considering the following scenarios: |
- Any deliveries normally scheduled for that delivery day are cancelled
- Any deliveries normally scheduled for that delivery day will be moved to the day before or the day after.
I’ve outlined below (read more) some best practices for managing these scenarios in your Farmigo system, using the July 4th holiday as an example. Please note that some of the recommended actions may be time-sensitive.
Canceling a Delivery
Let’s say that you have a group of members that are normally scheduled to receive deliveries on Thursday. You’ve decided that you will not be making any deliveries on Thursday, July 4th.
In this case, you may take the following steps to remove the July 4th delivery date from all of your schedules:
We recommend removing previously-scheduled dates from your delivery schedules at least one week in advance or up to 2 weeks or one month in advance in the case of biweekly and monthly deliveries. This ensures that no members are able to place store orders for that date and that members do not receive any automatic email alerts that may be triggered by that date.
In this case, you may take the following steps to remove the July 4th delivery date from all of your schedules:
- Click on the Settings link at the top of your dashboard.
- From under the Schedules tab, make sure that the July 4th is NOT highlighted in blue. If it is highlighted in blue, click on the date so that it turns white and save changes.
- Repeat step 2 for each schedule. You may review you other schedules by selecting them from the Schedules drop-down menu.
We recommend removing previously-scheduled dates from your delivery schedules at least one week in advance or up to 2 weeks or one month in advance in the case of biweekly and monthly deliveries. This ensures that no members are able to place store orders for that date and that members do not receive any automatic email alerts that may be triggered by that date.
“The following dates cannot be deleted: [2013-07-04] Please remove active orders for these dates first” - If you attempt to deselect a delivery date and this error message appears, this means that members have already placed orders at your web store for that date. If you still want to remove the date from the schedule, go to the Orders manager in your dashboard and delete all store orders scheduled for delivery on that date; then refresh the dashboard and attempt to deselect the date from the delivery schedules again. Please note that before you delete any orders, you may want to click the Export button in the upper right corner of the Orders manager so that you have a record of what has been deleted. When deleting orders, we also recommend that you email the member to notify them of the change and issue a refund if necessary.
Seasonal CSAs - Please Note: If your members have subscribed to a finite season with a set number of deliveries, removing a delivery date from a schedule will change the amount owed by the member for the season. If you want deselect the July 4th delivery date, consider adding an extra Thursday delivery to the end of the season for all delivery schedules. Then members will be scheduled for the same number of deliveries. If you want to discuss alternative ways of managing this, please email support@farmigo.com.
Seasonal CSAs - Please Note: If your members have subscribed to a finite season with a set number of deliveries, removing a delivery date from a schedule will change the amount owed by the member for the season. If you want deselect the July 4th delivery date, consider adding an extra Thursday delivery to the end of the season for all delivery schedules. Then members will be scheduled for the same number of deliveries. If you want to discuss alternative ways of managing this, please email support@farmigo.com.
Rescheduling a Delivery
Let’s say that you have members that are assigned Thursday locations. But instead of delivering their shares on Thursday, July 4th, you would like to deliver their orders on Wednesday, July 3rd.
There are two ways in which moving a delivery day may be managed. The method that you may want to employ depends on timing and web store orders. The following indicators should help you identify which method you would like to employ; then you may read to learn more about how each method works.
There are two ways in which moving a delivery day may be managed. The method that you may want to employ depends on timing and web store orders. The following indicators should help you identify which method you would like to employ; then you may read to learn more about how each method works.
- Choose Method 1 if no store orders have been placed yet for the delivery date that you want to switch to another day
- Choose Method 2 if store orders have already been placed for the delivery date that you want to switch to another day
Method 1: Change the Route Delivery Day
If NO store orders have been placed yet for July 4th, you may take the following steps to change the delivery day for the Thursday routes to Wednesday so that member’s are scheduled to receive their delivery on July 3rd instead.
Following Method 1 ensures that any automatic email alerts are sent are the correct time and that any payments due the night of delivery occur on the actual date of delivery.
- Make sure that Wednesday, July 3rd IS selected and Thursday, July 4th is NOT selected in the relevant delivery schedules: Click on the Settings link at the top of your dashboard, make sure that Wednesday, July 3rd is highlighted in blue for all relevant schedules. Likewise, make sure that Thursday, July 4 is NOT highlighted in blue for all relevant schedules; it should have a white background.
- Make sure that Member Access Hours are set as desired for the Wednesday delivery day: Click on the Settings link at the top of your dashboard and click the Store tab. Select July 3rd from the date picker for Member Access Hours, which control member access to the store and when they can make changes to their account for that delivery date. If you need to change member access hours, email support@farmigo.com.
- On the day after the previous Thursday delivery has been recorded in Farmigo, e.g. on Friday, June 28, change the Delivery Day assigned to all Thursday Routes to Wednesday: Go the Routes manager in the dashboard. Click on the Route title twice in order to open the Route editor. Change the Route’s assigned delivery day from Thursday to Wednesday. Take this step for each route that has been assigned a Thursday delivery day. ATTENTION! Note in a memorable place which routes were changed from Thursday to Wednesday because you will need to change them back.
- After the delivery is recorded for the temporary delivery day, e.g. on Thursday - July 4th or Friday-July 5th, change all Routes back to a Thursday delivery day that had been temporarily switched to a Wednesday delivery day.
Following Method 1 ensures that any automatic email alerts are sent are the correct time and that any payments due the night of delivery occur on the actual date of delivery.
Method 2: Keep Thursday Scheduled AND Inform Members of the Temporary Switch
If members have already placed orders for July 4th, we recommend leaving the July 4th delivery date selected in your delivery schedules and emailing member to let them know of the change in delivery date.
This means that members orders will be recorded on the night of July 4th even though they are receiving their deliveries on July 3rd. To manage this switch, you will want to review and be aware of the following items:
1. Member Access Hours: Click on the Settings link at the top of your dashboard and click the Store tab. Select July 4th from the date picker for Member Access Hours, which control member access to the store and when they can make changes to their account for that delivery date. If you need to change member access hours for that current week’s delivery to allow for time to prepare member orders for Wednesday instead of Thursday, email support@farmigo.com and a Farmigo Technical Advisor will change those hours for you. You will then want to remind us to change the member access hours back after July 4th.
2. Delivery Date Email Alerts: If you have set up any delivery date automatic email alerts from the Connect manager of your dashboard, please be aware that will be triggered according to the July 4th delivery date, not the July 3rd delivery date. We recommend changing the language of the email to reflect the change of delivery day for that week. Then you will want to remember to change the language back on or before Thursday, July 4th, before it is triggered for the next delivery date.
3. Delivery Holds: You will want to review the delivery holds for each member's file individually. If the member has placed a delivery hold for July 4th, this is already correctly reflected in your reports because the July 4th delivery date is still the scheduled date in the system. If the member has placed a delivery hold that ends on July 3rd, I recommend following up with them to see if they want to receive the delivery scheduled for July 4th on July 3rd. If they do not, change the end date for their hold period from July 3rd to July 4th.
I recommend taking the following steps to review all the accounts:
a. Go to the Subscriptions manager in the dashboard
b. Filter for Routes that are scheduled for Thursday deliveries
c. Click on the first member in the list and go to the Admin tab of the member file
d. Review the hold settings and click the right-pointing blue arrow in the upper right corner to flip to the next member in the list.
4. Payments: If your members are assigned payment plans that trigger automatic payment plans on the night of delivery, these payments will not be triggered on July 3rd. They will be triggered on the night of July 4th because that is the date that the system recognizes as the actual delivery date.
5. Delivery Reports: Because the delivery date scheduled in your Farmigo system has not changed, you will want to select July 4th when generating your delivery reports from the Reports manager in the dashboard.
This means that members orders will be recorded on the night of July 4th even though they are receiving their deliveries on July 3rd. To manage this switch, you will want to review and be aware of the following items:
1. Member Access Hours: Click on the Settings link at the top of your dashboard and click the Store tab. Select July 4th from the date picker for Member Access Hours, which control member access to the store and when they can make changes to their account for that delivery date. If you need to change member access hours for that current week’s delivery to allow for time to prepare member orders for Wednesday instead of Thursday, email support@farmigo.com and a Farmigo Technical Advisor will change those hours for you. You will then want to remind us to change the member access hours back after July 4th.
2. Delivery Date Email Alerts: If you have set up any delivery date automatic email alerts from the Connect manager of your dashboard, please be aware that will be triggered according to the July 4th delivery date, not the July 3rd delivery date. We recommend changing the language of the email to reflect the change of delivery day for that week. Then you will want to remember to change the language back on or before Thursday, July 4th, before it is triggered for the next delivery date.
3. Delivery Holds: You will want to review the delivery holds for each member's file individually. If the member has placed a delivery hold for July 4th, this is already correctly reflected in your reports because the July 4th delivery date is still the scheduled date in the system. If the member has placed a delivery hold that ends on July 3rd, I recommend following up with them to see if they want to receive the delivery scheduled for July 4th on July 3rd. If they do not, change the end date for their hold period from July 3rd to July 4th.
I recommend taking the following steps to review all the accounts:
a. Go to the Subscriptions manager in the dashboard
b. Filter for Routes that are scheduled for Thursday deliveries
c. Click on the first member in the list and go to the Admin tab of the member file
d. Review the hold settings and click the right-pointing blue arrow in the upper right corner to flip to the next member in the list.
4. Payments: If your members are assigned payment plans that trigger automatic payment plans on the night of delivery, these payments will not be triggered on July 3rd. They will be triggered on the night of July 4th because that is the date that the system recognizes as the actual delivery date.
5. Delivery Reports: Because the delivery date scheduled in your Farmigo system has not changed, you will want to select July 4th when generating your delivery reports from the Reports manager in the dashboard.
Questions?
This is a lot of information that is meant to address all types of Farmigo systems. If you have any specific questions, please do not hesitate to email support@farmigo.com.