The Spektrix Agency API is a powerful tool that allows you to give agents the ability to sell directly from your allocation, but sales made by agents show up on the system under the agency name, and not the customer...right?
Not at all! You can search for Agency API orders in the same way as any other order - you can search by customer name or address, or even the agent’s reference number, and easily identify which orders were made via agents.
NOTE: if you're not already using this functionality, see this article for more information on how to set up and manage the Agency API
Customer details for agency orders are available everywhere that you would expect to be able to find customer details. Here are a few examples:
Here you can see an example of this in the Order Search. You can see which orders were made via the Agency API by looking for the little green and orange icon, which denotes an agent order when you’re looking at a list of orders in Spektrix.
This time you can see how this looks when viewing the sales for an Instance, once again with the different icon to denote an Agency API order.
You can even see the customer’s details when viewing the seat history from the seating plan of an Instance.
Do Agency API orders get added to customers’ records, then?
No, they still show up on your system against the agent, not the customer. This functionality allows you to search for customers who have booked via an agent, but it doesn’t add those orders into customers’ records. The agent is your true customer, while the agent’s customer details are additional information that you receive from the agency.
Are there any caveats?
Just one - the ability to search for Agency API orders in the same way as normal orders is dependent on each API agent setting their API feed up correctly.
The Agency API was originally built in such a way as to send the customer’s name from each Agency API order in a single string (i.e. “William Shakespeare” as the name of the agent’s customer as opposed to William - first name - Shakespeare - last name -), which isn’t ideal if you want to search for a name in Spektrix. If an API agent is still using this method, you can search for API orders, but it’s not quite as easy.
To do this, you need to search using a wild card character. When you enter a customer’s name into the search box, just add the % character in before the surname, for example:
- If you want to search for Shakespeare then enter %Shakespeare
You may also need to use this method if you’re searching for an order made before June 2017, as all Agency API orders before that point used the original method.
Can I make an agent booking in the Sales Interface and capture this information?
Yes, you can. When you add a customer with access to the Agency API into an order, you’ll see a section for Details Supplied by Agent.
If you click Edit in this section you’ll see a popup with the option to fill in each piece of information.
This information will then show up against the order in exactly the same way as if it had been provided by an API agent.
Can I report on it too?
You sure can - there are four metrics available, in a metric group called Agent Details:
- Agent Customer First Name
- Agent Customer Last Name
- Agent Customer Address
- Agent Order Reference
You can find these metrics in any report which includes Customers in the output.
None of the Spektrix standard reports include any of these output fields, but if you would like a report to include one or more of them then just get in touch with the Spektrix Support team who will be able to advise on whether it’s possible.
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If you’ve got any further questions about searching for Agency API orders, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Spektrix Support team.