COVID-19 is a growing global health threat and efforts to prevent the spreading of the Coronavirus has taken its toll on businesses, resulting in a vast amount of global meetings, events and trips being suddenly amended, postponed or cancelled. This is something that may impact you as you handle the organisation of these projects and need to update projects accordingly and inform necessary stakeholders. Therefore, we have compiled some tips below on how to best handle common scenarios in Qondor in the event that your business is affected by the consequences of the outbreak.

​Possible scenarios:

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📋 It is a good idea to be aware and plan ahead by searching for projects that may be or are affected.

Use Project search to find relevant projects:

💡 View this interactive, web based dashboard for an update of affected locations. The dashboard tracks the global status of COVID-19, including location and number of confirmed COVID-19 cases for all affected countries. (Developed by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.)
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📋 Ensure that the relevant contact details for customer contact persons and participants for these projects are updated in Qondor. You don't want any missing details if you need to suddenly contact them!
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You can view and edit participant information in Participants or by going to their booking. Learn how to update participants here.
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📋 Put together a text template with information and steps on how to proceed for participants involved in an ongoing project in the event of an outbreak, so that you can quickly communicate the necessary information if the need arises.
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PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) - the world's largest, recognised network of business events strategists include resources for building a crisis communications plan, and an event planning guide including takeaways from WHO's planning guide and more.

IMEX (The Worldwide Exhibition for Incentive Travel, Meetings and Events) have put together reliable resources on their page, with updates on Coronavirus so you can keep up to date on the outbreak's impact.
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Decide the best form of contact: telephone, email or SMS.

1. You may want to contact customer contact persons by telephone in the case of agreed suppliers no longer being available, for example, if a hotel goes into isolation. View these details from Project search and hover over the contact card to view their details.

​2. You may want to send an email at once to inform all participants if an event or trip has been cancelled.

Go to Participants, select the participants you want to send the email too. You may choose to segment by Status: "attending" or "invited".
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3. You may need to send SMS for an instant form of communication to participants if for example, a flight is cancelled.

You can do this in the same way as above, but instead click SMS. 

If only a segment of booked participants have booked the same flight, then you can create a list displaying which participants have booked that particular flight. Go to Lists --> Create Dynamic List of participants --> Select first name, last name, booking reference under standard fields and the "flight" under product. Select Show participants in selected elements only under options. View the list, Then click to send SMS from here.

If you do not have a SMS package set up for your office, we can enable this. Learn more about our available SMS packages here and contact us via support@qondor.com to get set up.
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4. You will need to inform suppliers in the case that an event or trip is cancelled or to rearrange services for another date.
​In Project, you can go to Suppliers --> select all suppliers and click email to send an email to all suppliers at once.
Click edit to select a different contact person from the dropdown.

💡 View all communications for your project in the Communication center.
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A likely case could be the need for an emergency response to a suspected outbreak at an ongoing event. You will need to be prepared to act quick to inform customers and all participants involved. 

1. Use the Emergency contact method in Qondor, to quickly identify and inform affected customers.

Check and select the highlighted options (shown in the screenshot below) in Project search to quickly identify affected customers, the contact person and view their details instantly. Choose to send an emergency email or SMS.

2. Use Participant search to quickly search for and identify who is in a location right now or is going to a location in the future. A manual count of the rows will provide you with an estimate of how many participants are present.

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In the case that a project is cancelled, you should follow your internal routines and consult with your Superuser if you are unsure. The status of the project can be changed from Project Ledger. We can recommend the following actions to secure better reporting:
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You can also update any already Cancelled or Finished projects in Qondor due to COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease) as described above.

​Cancelled projects with participants and bookings involved.
​If a project is cancelled with bookings registered, then all approved bookings will remain as active bookings. If these bookings are left as approved, then reports will show incorrectly. To ensure that cancelled projects and reports are reflected accurately, all bookings should be cancelled individually. 

Cancel bookings
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💡 Send an email to all booked participants first. You can segment by "attending". Then cancel each booking. As you will have already sent an email to inform participants, you can then select "just cancel booking" on each booking making this process quicker.

If there is no need to have reports accurate, then the project can just be cancelled and the bookings can be left as they are.
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​Cancelled bookings with payment to be paid or refunded
​Balances on cancelled bookings will update based on the rules for the booking. If refund rules are set, then the amount will be refunded as per the rule. 

If there is an outstanding balance to be paid then the Project manager can send a payment reminder to participants. 

If a payment has been made at the time of a booking, and the payment needs to be refunded then the refund can be registered in Qondor. Make sure to refund the payment via your payment service provider.

Credit card refunds:

Register a DIBS credit card refund
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​Register a Stripe credit card refund

Credit a booking invoice specification with no refund rules

N.B. If your office has an invoicing integration, then please refer to your Superuser on how to do this, as it is only possible for those who generate invoices from Qondor to credit invoices directly in Qondor.

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When a project is postponed to a later date, we strongly recommend updating project data to reflect the change both internally and to customers and participants. 

We have compiled some tips on what to consider when a project is postponed and where data in Qondor should be updated.
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Log any important changes in Project details. Use internal remarks to record any information about the project, and record updates in regards to suppliers or the customer.

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Qondor Help Center has plenty of helpful resources but if you don't find the answer you are looking for or are unsure of how to deal with an affected project in Qondor, feel free to contact us for advice: support@qondor.com