Requoting Guide · 2017. 10. 2. · FlashBack searches by month then year. So if you select May and Nov for 2009 and 2010, FlashBack will search May 2009, May 2010, Nov. 2009, then

USER GUIDE

Requoting Guide

Revised

9/2/2015

All contents copyright © 2007-2015 by QuoteBurst Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

www.quoteburst.com

2 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................3

Getting Started ..................................................................................................................................4

Setting the right computer controls ......................................................................................................... 4

Window 7 & 8 ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Vista ...................................................................................................................................................... 6

Installing the FlashBack Software ............................................................................................................. 7

Entering Basic Agent Info .......................................................................................................................... 8

The Audit ...........................................................................................................................................9

Advanced Date Search ............................................................................................................................ 10

The Scrub ......................................................................................................................................... 12

Submitting a file to scrub ........................................................................................................................ 12

Saving the scrubbed file .......................................................................................................................... 14

The Load .......................................................................................................................................... 15

The Quote ....................................................................................................................................... 17

Resume Quoting ..................................................................................................................................... 21

Finishing .......................................................................................................................................... 22

Life Quoting ............................................................................................................................................. 22

Printing .................................................................................................................................................... 22

The Call List ............................................................................................................................................. 22

Reprinting ................................................................................................................................................ 23

Mail Merge .............................................................................................................................................. 24

Use Ctrl-Click to go directly to the section.

www.quoteburst.com


Introduction

FlashBack is a powerful tool that pulls old leads from Alliance and requotes them with the latest rates. The agent then has the option to print or create a mail merge file.There are four steps to requoting:

1. Search Alliance and create an audit file of prospects to requote.

2. Scrub the audit file. 3. Load the scrub information into the audit file. 4. Requote.

Did You Know…

… QuoteBurst is a result of

collaboration of Allstate agent Bruce

Thompson and IT guru Stephen

Bentley?

…The products and services provided

by QuoteBurst are offered exclusively

to Allstate agents?

…QuoteBurst offers free techincal

support for all our products through

www.quoteburst.com or 1-800-527-

9395?

…Every time you start a QuoteBurst

program you will have the latest

version of the software automatically

downloaded free?

…QuoteBurst is your employee to

handle all your Internet leads

(Typhoon), bulk mailing leads

(Dynamo) and requoting (FlashBack)

needs?

…Our goal is to make quoting as easy

as possible for you so you can

concentrate on others ways to make

your business more profitable?

AAlllliiaannccee

Flashback/

History/ YYYYMM.csv

My Documents/

YYYYMM.csv

1

2

3

4

Let’s get ready to start FlashBack!

http://www.quoteburst.com/

www.quoteburst.com


Getting Started

There a few things to do before running FlashBack for the first time. You need to:

1. Ensure your computer has the right controls set 2. Install the software 3. Enter your user information into FlashBack

Setting the right computer controls

There is a setting in the control panel that needs to be checked in order for FlashBack to run properly. You will need Admin rights for the computer in order to make these changes.

You need to make sure the computer is not going to sleep.

Go to your or button in the bottom corner of the screen. Then select “Control Panel” or (some machines may have “Settings” instead of “Control Panel”.) Use the directions of the following pages for your particular Windows edition. QuoteBurst products are not engineered to run on Mac or virtual machines.

www.quoteburst.com


Window 7 & 8

1. Select the Systems and Security category.

2. Under the Power Options, select “Change when the computer sleeps.”

3. Use the dropdown button to select “Never” and Save the changes. Turning off the display is not necessary for Flashback.

This completes the control panel changes. Click here to begin Installing the FlashBack Software.

www.quoteburst.com


Vista 1. From the control panel double click

the Power Option.

2. In the side panel locate the option to change when the computer sleeps and click

it.

3. Use the drop down arrow to select “Never” from the list of when to put the computer to sleep.

4. Click to save the changes.

This completes the control panel changes. Click here to begin Installing the FlashBack Software.

www.quoteburst.com


Installing the FlashBack Software 1. Go to www.Quoteburst.com.

2. Scroll down and click on the install link. Click Install.

3. You need to allow the program access to install by clicking install. NOTE: Some security programs like McAfee may require additional steps to install programs on your computer. Check with the security program providers for the steps to allow the FlashBack installation.

4. During the install you will see a screen like the one on the right informing you of the download progress.

5. The program will create an icon on your desktop and FlashBack is automatically activated for you.

http://www.quoteburst.com/

www.quoteburst.com


Entering Basic Agent Info

FlashBack works by logging into Alliance and filling out the screens just as you would. In order to do so, it needs your Alliance information.

Agent ID – This is your agent number beginning with A0.

Gateway User ID – In most cases this will be same as the agent ID. Sub-producers will have a number that begins with an “S”.

Password – this is the current Gateway for the user ID entered in the previous field. **Note – when you change your gateway password, you must change your password in FlashBack. To get back to this screen, click the “click here” link on the menu screen.

Alliance Node – Allstate has divided the nation into processing regions within the computer system. Each processing area is assigned a

Node. To locate your node, simply start the Alliance Apps from your Gateway page. Look at the address displayed. It will read https://xxG####.allianceweb.allstate.com. For example, LAG0101. Enter this node in the Alliance screen.

You can select to not see the welcome screen again by checking the box and then clicking

.

https://xxg/

www.quoteburst.com


The Audit The first part of the requoting process is usually to create an audit file. From the main FlashBack menu, select the search option, the binoculars.

On the first time thru, make sure the Agent ID and the state are correct.

Note: When you change your password in Gateway you must also change it in FlashBack. You do that by clicking here at bottom of the menu or search screen.

1. Select the Product Type. Choose from All Products, Auto, Homeowners, Renters, or Condominium.

2. Select the Date Type. Choose from the last saved date, the expiration date, or the follow-up date.

3. Select the Month(s) and Year(s). In this case below we are pulling May and December for all previous years except 2008. Flashback will not search the current month/year.

Attention Pilot Users

Sometimes, when a region is

running a pilot program, they may

request that you only run certain

months or they may have you skip

the audit, scrub, and load. Please

pay attention to your specific pilot

directions.

www.quoteburst.com

10 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

4. Choose between Quotes or New Business. The default is Quotes.

5. Make sure the Action is set to Audit.

6. Press .

Advanced Date Search There is another option for the date selection, especially designed to pull for quotes for part of the month. In this search, enter the beginning month, day, and year you wish to search followed by the ending month, day, and year. This search option is limited in its range so you will most often use the basic date search.

You can toggle between the screen by click Basic Date Search or Advanced Date Search.

NOTE: To ensure you get the correct quotes, make sure you do not have dates entered in both screens at the same time.

Understanding Flashback

When you press “Search,”

Flashback searches through your

Alliance database and makes a list

of leads that fit the date criteria

you selected.

Flashback puts the list in the

Flashback/History folder. It names

the file with the current year and

month. For instance, if you ran the

search in May 2011, the name of

the file would be 201105.

If you run subsequent searches, the

audit list will be added to bottom of

the same file. In this way you have

an audit trail of what has been run

for the month.

It doesn’t matter how many time

searches you run during the month

or for what month you are

searching, the file name will be the

same throughout the month.

www.quoteburst.com

11 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Once you press you will be taken to the search screen. The first thing FlashBack does is to log into Alliance using the User ID and password you provided. While it does this you will see that there is no date information displayed.

Next, it will start searching Alliance, going through the months and giving a running total. Just a note: FlashBack searches by month then year. So if you select May and Nov for 2009 and 2010, FlashBack will search May 2009, May 2010, Nov. 2009, then Nov. 2010.

When the search is complete, you will receive a message that you can exit and run another search or continue on to the scrubbing.

We now have our search results in the FlashBack/History folder. You will notice the leads are identified as audit only and there is no scrub information as yet. You will also notice in some cases the prior save date has “#######”. This is merely Microsoft Excel’s way of denoting that the data field is bigger than can be displayed with the column set to that width.

NOTE: DO NOT MAKE MODIFICATIONS TO THE HISTORY FILE OR SAVE IT. SAVING THIS FILE THROUGH EXCEL COULD CORRUPT THE FILE.

If you wish to use this file as a call list or as input to a label mail merge, please make a copy of it and save it in your documents. You can then sort it or delete records as you need.

You are now ready to proceed to the scrub.

Flashback and Microsoft Excel

Flashback uses Comma Separated

Values files (.csv). Microsoft Excel

is commonly used to open .csv files.

There is a problem however, with

saving the Flashback history files

with Excel. The control numbers

beginning with the 1 (those

generated after January 2010) will

not save correctly using Excel, so

no match can be made between the

scrub data and the audit entry.

For this reason it is imperative that

you do not edit the history file.

You may view it but you must not

save it using Excel.

www.quoteburst.com

12 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

The Scrub The Audit created a list of potential leads for us to requote, but we need to scrub out current customers as well as prospects on the Do Not Contact/Solicit list before we requote them. To do this we use the Allstate DNC or DNS tool (it differs by region).

From the FlashBack main menu, click on the 2nd icon.

The next screen is nothing more than the instructions to scrubbing the audit list in the history folder. It may be helpful to drag this screen to the bottom corner of monitor.

Submitting a file to scrub 1. Log onto the Allstate Gateway.

2. Go into the Allstate DNC or DNS Tool.

3. Select the file scrub option – either by

clicking on the tab or the description.

4. On the file scrub screen, you must indicate the file you want to scrub. The first option (A) is to type in the name v:\FlashBack\History\YYYYMM.csv where YYYYMM is the current year and month, for instance 201105 for May 2011.

The second option (B) is to browse. Click

1

B

A

[email protected]

www.quoteburst.com

13 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

.

In top line, use the drop down box to get to the v: drive, it is called the C$ client (v :\). Highlight it and double click it.

Find the FlashBack folder in the list, highlight it, and double click it.

Next, locate the History folder, highlight it, and double click it.

Finally, select the file YYYYMM.csv where YYYYMM is the current year and month, (e.g. 201101 for Jan 2011), highlight it, and double click it.

5. Click on the box to request the DNS scrub indicate the current customers. Note: Allstate will indicate the customer as a current customer if he has any type account with Allstate. In other words, even if you have requested auto quotes, if John Smith has a homeowner’s policy but no auto policy, the scrub tool will identify him as a current customer.

6. Click

The DNS or DNC Scrubber

Allstate has 5 scrubbers at work to

handle all the files submitted to it.

Generally, there will be more

agents vying for the scrubbers later

in the day and later in the month.

You can monitor the progress of

the file as it goes through the

process. Go to the “File Status” tab.

First, when you submit a file to be

scrubbed you will be given a

number showing your number in

the queue or line. By pressing the

refresh button, you can watch as

the number gets lower.

Next, you will see the words “File

processing”. This may take

several minutes or hours. Once the

scrub is complete you will receive

an email informing you. At that

time you can save the file and

return to Flashback.

Understanding Flashback

When you submit a file to the Scrub

tool, you are actually sending a

copy of the history file to Allstate.

www.quoteburst.com

14 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Saving the scrubbed file

1. After you receive the email informing you that the scrub is complete, return to the DNS tool and select the file status tab.

2. The file status must be Complete. Position the cursor over the words Download File and click.

3. It will ask you if you want to open

or save this file. You want

4. You need to save the file in your “My Documents” folder. Use the drop down box to locate the folder and double click.

5. Once the “My Documents” file list is

populated, click . There is no need to change the file name or the type.

6. If you have already run an audit/scrub this month, the program will inform you that there is already a file out there with the same name. Verify that you are indeed saving to the “My Documents” folder and overwrite the file. You do not want to save in the FlashBack History folder since this will overwrite the audit file.

7. When the download is complete, you can close the task box, exit the DNS tool, and return to FlashBack.

www.quoteburst.com

15 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

The Load Below is an example of the scrubbed file you saved in your “My Documents” folder. The next FlashBack step is the Load, which takes the scrub data and matches it up to the original history file we created in the audit.

From the FlashBack menu, click the third icon.

1. First, we need to identify which audit file we are using. Remember, you should always use the current year, current month file, for example, 201105.csv. Note: Ignore the files ending in “_filtered” as they are used internally by FlashBack. The only filenames you need to be concerned with are ones in the format YYYYMM.csv

2. Next we need to tell FlashBack where the scrub file is located. If you followed the instructions, it will be in

the “My Documents” folder. Click , select the YYYYMM.csv file from My Documents and open it.

3. Once the scrub file is loaded, the becomes

active. Click to move the scrub data into the audit file.

End of Month to New Month

Care needs to be taken at the end

of the month. For instance, if you

ran the audit on the 31st but didn’t

run the load until the 1st, there will

not be an audit file for the new

month.

In this case, go into the Flashback

History folder, copy the previous

month’s file and rename the copy

for the current month.

www.quoteburst.com

16 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Once the load is successful, the audit file will reflect the scrub data. You are now ready to return to go to the quoting step.

Message Your Response

Good Job! You are ready to proceed to the final step. Exit the load and go back to the first icon, the binoculars.

When you submitted the scrub, you neglected to check the box to indicate current customers. Resubmit the scrub to the DNS tool and continue from there.

When you downloaded the file from the DNS tool, you saved it in the FlashBack History file, overwriting the audit file. You need to rerun the audit step, save the scrubbed file to the My Documents folder, and then load the data again.

History file DNS List

www.quoteburst.com

17 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

The Quote So far we’ve made an audit list of customers to requote, sent a copy of the list to Allstate to scrub, and copied the scrub data down to our original list. Now we are ready to get started on the actual requote.

1. From the FlashBack menu, click , the top icon. Yes, this is where we started but this time we are going to requote to print or Mail Merge the quote. The selections you entered during the audit are still visible. If you wish to make changes to product type or date range to quote, you may as long as you choose a subset of the audit file (see sidebar).

2. This time instead of audit we will choose one of the other actions. Use the dropdown arrow to show all the options available. The table on the next page explains the actions more fully.

Limits of Requoting

When you made your selections for

the audit, that becomes your

requoting limits (until you run

another audit) but you can quote a

subset of the audit list.

For instance, you may have

requested the audit for all types

and for May 2006 -2010. You could

then choose to just quote the autos

or only quote May 2009. You could

not choose April until you run an

audit for that month.

www.quoteburst.com

18 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

*You have the option of saving the changes to the quote.

3. Notice, when an action other than audit is selected quoting option becomes available.

Save changes to the quote – This saves the updated existing quote in Alliance; will not replace the old quote. In most cases you will want to set this to “yes.”

Set Follow Up Date to – allows you to set the follow-up date on the coverage page to a certain date.

Change IS Score to be – If you select this option it will change the IS score on the quote IF the credit report was not pulled previously.

If someone truly clicks the “Order CR” button in Alliance, the IS score is returned from that process and there is no input field in Alliance for us to change. So the score stays.

If however in the existing quote they did not order a credit report, but just put some value in the IS score input field, we do overwrite that with what is set in Flashback.

You can set a default home purchase date to help requote

homes previously saved without this information. It is

required with “House & Home” quoting.

Set minimum annual Miles (California only) - ensures that a vehicle has a minimum of a certain number of miles and but will not affect the mileage that meets or exceeds that amount.

Action Description Updates

History file Requotes

Saves to Alliance*

Prints Emails Mail Merge

Audit Creates a list Print Only Mail Merge Only Save Only

www.quoteburst.com

19 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Force PPD for single auto homeowners – Changes the future items to be a 1 – acquiring a vehicle within the next 2 months.

The other options are discounts you can choose as fits your business practice.

4. Once you’ve made your selections, click

5. The first part of the requoting step looks that same as the audit – FlashBack searches Alliance for the prospects matching the selection criteria.

6. When the search is complete, you will see other filtering options to limit the quotes.

IFS Flashback allows the filtering of quotes by their Insurance Financial Stability (IFS) Group. By default Flashback selects a value of 10 and will include only quotes that have an IFS of 10 or better (lower number). The value can be changed to limit the quotes even further. If IFS is not a factor in your search results, click the Ignore IFS checkbox. By doing so, IFS will not be evaluated when determining to include or exclude a quote from being requoted. Bulk Quotes Many agents use automated tools for generating quotes in Alliance (such as QuoteBurst's Dynamo product). Bulk quotes are identified as those that have not had a LIS report run on them, since most quoting tools do not run reports. Flashback gives you options to treat bulk produced quotes differently than those of requested quotes in Alliance.

Skip Bulk Quotes - To skip quotes considered bulk quotes, check this box. Include Only Bulk Quotes - To target only quotes considered bulk quotes, check this box.

Current Insurer Use this option to refine your search based on who the current insurer of the prospect is. This allows you to target customers of competing companies when you are aware of rate changes. Zip Code Use this option to limit the quotes of those in a geographic area. Multi-Vehicle Homeowners

www.quoteburst.com

20 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Note: The approved templates can be found in the

FlashBack/Template folder. Additional templates

can be found at http://quoteburst.wikispaces.com/Technical+Support+-+FAQs

Use this option to only include quotes for homeowners with more than one vehicle on the quote. This will allow you to capitalize if special rates for such homeowners are available in your area. Years of Prior Insurance with Carrier The default is any but you may also limit selection for 0-1 year, 2-4 years, and 5+ years.

If you are quoting in New York and have selected Condominium, you have the option to only include co-ops.

7. If you have chosen to create a mail merge file,

you will need to set your agency heading information if you have not already done so. If you want a line left blank you must enter a space in that

line.

8. Click to begin quoting.

9. If you are creating a mail merge file, FlashBack will create the file on your desktop. The file name will be YYYYMMFBQuotes.csv, where YYYY is the current year and MM is the current month. You will be reminded of the filename

when quoting begins but the file will not be created until

FlashBack is ready to complete the first quote. Click to continue.

You will also be reminded that Allstate wants you to use their approved template and to encrypt the data if you are sending the mail merge file to an outside vendor.

Click to continue.

http://quoteburst.wikispaces.com/Technical+Support+-+FAQs

www.quoteburst.com

21 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

10. Periodically while FlashBack quotes, there will be pop-ups that appear to require you to

respond. Do not respond. You have a FlashBack Assistant in you tray at the bottom right corner. She will respond for you. Note: If you are running Dynamo or Typhoon at the same time as FlashBack you will see two assistants. They will close automatically when you exit the program.

11. The summary lets you know what FlashBack is doing. Here we see that it is processing 2 out of 49. The first one was written to the mail merge file.

Completed Quotes Merge – the quote data has be written to mail merge file. Complete Quotes Printed – FlashBack has created a PDF of the quote and it is written in the PRT folder in the FlashBack folder. Quotes are sent to the printer after all quoting is complete and you have exited the quote screen.”

12. As it quotes, FlashBack makes an entry in the audit file indicating action it has taken. DO NOT OPEN THE

HISTORY FILE DURING THE REQUOTING PROCESS. When the requoting process is complete you can copy the audit file to another location, sort and edit it to create your call list.

13. Once the quoting is complete, the will change to When you click any print files will be sent to the default printer for your machine.

The requoting process is now complete!

Resume Quoting

On some occasions you will have a need to stop the requoting process or it may be interrupted due to a power failure. Go back into the search screen, keep the same settings, and press

. After FlashBack searches Alliance, it will give you a Resume button rather than the Start button. When you click Resume, FlashBack will resume where it ended.

If you have selected to mail merge, You will be notified that is a Mail

merge file has already begun. Click to add records to current mail merge file.

www.quoteburst.com

22 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Finishing

Life Quoting When the quoting is finished Flashback will ask you if you want to

send a file to QBLife (If you are a subscriber to QBLife) for the date

range you just selected. Click Yes to load the file into QBLife. The

file name will be “Flashback file” followed by the date.time.

Printing

When FlashBack sends a quote to print, it is actually

creating a .pdf of the quote and placing it in a

temporary PRT folder in the Flashback folder on you

C: drive.

When all the quoting is complete and you click exit,

Flashback moves the files the PRT folder to the

Batches folder and names it with the date and time

of the run. The empty PRT can be deleted but does

not need to be deleted.

The Call List

Create a call list by copying the history file to another location.

1. Go to My Computer and select the C: drive.

2. Select the FlashBack folder, followed by

the History folder.

www.quoteburst.com

23 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

3. Right click the file you wish to copy to bring up the action list.

4. Select copy 5. Go to location you want to put the file, for example the desktop or My Documents. Use

the Ctrl-V to insert the copy into the new location, or right click and select Paste. 6. You can use Excel to sort the file, delete records, etc. to create a call list. You can also

use this file as a source file to create mailing labels (i.e. sort by result to locate just the printed quotes.)

Reprinting

Flashback keeps all the print files on your C: drive in the Batches folder of Flashback. The files are named by the date and time they were run. If you need to re-print the files, you can select the .pdf files.

1. Go to My Computer and double click your C: drive.

2. Select the FlashBack folder. 3. Select the Batches folder. 4. Select the folder for the date of the

FlashBack run you wish to reprint. 5. Select the pdf files you wish to

print, right click and select print.

Sometimes, during a power outage for example, the .pdf files can get stuck in the PRT folder and not moved to the Batches folder. If this happens, locate the correct PRT folder using the date it was created, select all the pdfs (Ctrl-A). Right click, and select print.

www.quoteburst.com

24 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

Mail Merge

There are several templates available to use with the FlashBack mail merge file. Go to www.Quoteburst.com. Scroll down to the FlashBack section and click on templates. There you can download templates to use or you can make your own.

The following instructions are for Microsoft Word using one of these downloaded templates. Remember, there are 3 ways to do

everything in Word – below is one way.

1. Open the template

2. If this message appears, just click no on the OK.

3. Once Word is open, click on the mailings tab

4. Click “Select Recipients.”

5. Click Use Existing List… to find the mail

merge file that was created by FlashBack.

6. Locate the mail merge file on your desktop. If you ran the requotes in Aug. 2015, the file will be 201508FBTypeQuotes

7. Double click or highlight and click Open to select.

www.quoteburst.com

25 Need Help? Call 800-527-9395

8. Click “Finish & Merge”.

9. Edit Individual Documents will merge the file with the template to create a new

document of all the letters to be print.

10. Print documents will send all the merged documents straight to the printer.

NOTE: Word processors differ. The above instructions are for Word 2007. For instructions for other versions of Microsoft Word, click on the links below.

Word 97 go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/141922




http://support.microsoft.com/kb/141922


