SSL makes Go2Show More Secure

Proper management of credit card information has always been a concern taken seriously by calan. 

The ever increasing utilization of the application has heightened the concern that both you and calan take all reasonable business steps to protect that information. As a result we have elected to take an aggressive set of measures as to how we COLLECT, DISPERSE and ARCHIVE credit card information. 

First, we have a difficult business model to accommodate. In discussions, all of you have indicated a reluctance to absorb the costs of a third party payment firm.  calan has no desire to become a bank where we incur additional accounting costs and assume greater business risks, that we would be forced to pass on to you in the form of higher subscription rates. However we do want to improve our management of this information.

Based on our research of PCI compliance requirements there are three main areas of concern. The collection of the information and perhaps even more important what happens with the information once it is collected with respect to dispersal and archiving. 

As this is clearly a sensitive and critical component of successful customer service and internal business work flow we want you to be aware of our migration plan and timing so you can manage your customer’s expectations and internal teams. There is a timeline at the end of the three initiatives we are undertaking for you review. 

Here is how we will be addressing each of those three critical components of information management:

 1: How we COLLECT information 

We have obtained an SSL certificate and created a secure transaction page. When implemented, Users who select to pay by credit card on the Payment Selection screen will receive a pop-up that they are being redirected to a secure site. They will be given an option to decline. If they so choose, they will be returned to the Payment Selection screen where they can select and alternative payment type. 

Once on the SSL credit card entry screen the User will be informed of the following:

The credit card information will be emailed to your Program Manager and then deleted.

Should you need to update your information please contact:

< Name of G2S Program Manger of the G2S URL inserted >

< Phone of G2S Program Manger of the G2S URL inserted >

< Email of G2S Program Manger of the G2S URL inserted >

Should you wish to cancel select the “X” in the upper right corner to close this secure pop-up.

Note:

All credit card information will be required to click Submit. The User can not Submit without making appropriate entries.

We DO NOT validate the card.

On Cancel by the User (Should they exit out of the SSL Pop-up without selecting Submit)

calan will purge any credit card information entered and return the User to the Payment Selection screen. The User may select an alternative payment type.

On Submit by the User

The User is provided a POP-UP.

You are leaving the SSL secured environment.

You will be returned to the Payment Selection Screen where you can change you Payment Type if you wish.

When you select NEXT on the Payment screen your information will be sent to your Program Manger and deleted.

calan will accept the credit card information entered for use in an email. 

When the User is clicks NEXT from the Payment Screen a confirming alert statement appears:

Your credit card information has been emailed to your Program Manager and deleted.

The credit card information for this order can no longer be edited.

If you canceled your credit card entry, please select Cancel below and choose another payment type from the Payment screen drop down.

Select OK to continue with your order.

When the User clicks NEXT from the payment screen, the information will be sent in an email to the designated < email of G2S Program Manger of the G2S URL > and purged from our servers.

A User returning to the Payment Screen in Edit mode will see the following:

The credit card information previously entered is on file.

Should you need to update your credit card information or change the payment type selection please contact:

< Name of G2S Program Manger of the G2S URL inserted >

< Phone of G2S Program Manger of the G2S URL inserted >

< Email of G2S Program Manger of the G2S URL inserted >

2. How we DISPERSE information collected

The information collected is immediately  sent in an email to the email alias of your designated Program Manager for the G2S URL when the User clicks Submit on our SSL credit card collection screen.

The credit card information collected is not written to any other screen or report.

In all cases where the information might be expected to appear there is an insert:

Credit Card on File with:

                < Name of G2S URL Program Manager >

                < Phone of G2S URL Program Manager >

< Email of G2S URL Program Manager >

calan no longer retains any credit card information on our servers.

3. How we ARCHIVE the information collected

calan does not retain any credit card information on the system servers or the email servers used to send the information to your G2S Program manager; except for the few seconds that the information is on our servers as the automated email is built and sent, calan does not hold the information in any form outside of our SSL collection environment. Your Program Manager is the only individual in possession of this information.

To support the cut over to our new procedures we have built a report that will allow you to capture your entire history of credit card activity, should you choose to do so. Please contact us at support@calancom.com to confirm if you want this data and to arrange for a transfer of existing records. The timeline at the end of this document indicates our PURGE date.

 4. What you should consider:

calan has passed the information to a single email alias for your Program Manager. Once received the information should be managed within your own protocols to ensure that the dispersal of the information is restricted to an identified set of individuals and that any archiving of the information is done in an encrypted environment.

Printed copies should be strictly limited, restricted in distribution and destroyed when no longer required.

Should you need to contact your customer regarding the card for any reason the Project Summary will identify who entered the request and provide their contact information?

As noted above the external User placing the order is provided your Program Manager’s contact information should they need to contact you with respect to the credit card information or any other issues pertaining to the selected payment type for their order.

Deployment Timeline:

Date		Step Taken
May 8		Go2Show SSL initiative advisory released. Please begin any communication efforts you feel appropriate to your customers and internal employees.
May 15		Cut over to SSL credit card collection process implemented Note: For the first week, ending on May 21, the immediate delete of the information collected will NOT be executed, This is to allow for your validation of the process and accommodate any internal adjustments to your internal work flow.
May 23		Immediate delete of collected information from calan servers implemented. Individual Site data purges begin. History reports available if requested.
May 31		All credit card history for all sites will be purged from calan servers.

Exhibitor Services Manual URL addition

The system has provided a file upload function for several years. This allowed the User to upload a PDF of the Show Service Kit or really any file that the User needed to pass to their account team.

A Site Owner came to us with feedback from their clients, that for the most part Show Management is no longer producing a Show Kit PDF, but providing on line web pages for the critical information required and the various services that need to be processed for a show.

In response we have added a new blue bar Exhibitor Services Information, found just under the Booth Information Blue Bar on both G2S and eInfo projects. The input for this new Blue Bar accepts a URL and the required Login Credentials.

And yes, once entered the URL does become a live link to access and download the Exhibitor's Information.

On the Project Summary screen of a Project in eInfo the Blue Bar uses the same Edit button function as all of the other Blue Bars. However in G2S, since Blue Bars are not directly editable via Edit buttons, a new icon was added to the upper left hand box where File Upload and Notes reside. Since we were updating for this new link we reworked the layout of the box itself to read a bit easier.

 Note: We also changed out the Notes icon in G2S to be a little more intuitive to the User.

Understanding the Status on a G2S User Screen

The Home Page of G2S uses a system defined set of Status specific to G2S Projects. This set of Statuses is not linked to the Project Status that a Site defines. 

The original design for the system’s coding was that the G2S Project Order Wizard would be a create and selection ordering tool used by customers; specifically their field reps who were not regular Users of the main site. However the tool has found several business models over the years where the Site’s Account Teams are, in part or whole, processing Projects using the G2S ordering wizard. As this use level has increased the need to provide a fuller understanding to the Site Account Teams seems appropriate. They are often looking at a Project’s work flow from essentially two ends of the same telescope. And of course the world look a bit different depending on which end you are holding at a given moment.

G2S Status can be replaced with Site defined Status within the main site to fit their work flow requirements. But on the User Home Page of the G2S Wizard the following represents the only Status which a Project may hold.

The Four Go2Show Status:

Open: A User has opened a Project record but as not yet Confirmed their Project request. It can be viewed and edited.

Requested: A Project has had the green Confirm Button clicked and is awaiting Approval. It can be viewed but no longer edited.

Approved: The Site has accepted the request and released the Work Order. It can be viewed but no longer edited.

Closed: The Project Close date has passed, the Status moved to Closed. It can be viewed but no longer edited. Note: This Closed Status is date based and automatic.

The G2S ordering process employing the above Status:

A User clicks Create a Project to originate a new order and is taken to the Wizard's first screen Event Information. The creation of a G2S Project record does not occur until the User has populated all required fields on this screen and clicked Next. Canceling or logging off prior to this point will result in the loss of all data. 

Provided the User completes the requirements of the Event Information screen and clicks Next, a Project is OPEN. If the User should now choose to cancel or log out the record still exists and the Project will remain in the Status of Open until Confirmed or the Project end date is passed; in which case it will be CLOSED. 

Once a Project is Confirmed it moves to a REQUESTED status and the appropriate notification is sent to the customer’s account team, with a Confirming receipt of your order email to the user. After review the Project is Approved making it ready for the Work Order Release. When the WO itself is released the requesting user is notified via email their request has been approved and the Project’s Status is moved to APPROVED. 

The day after the Project’s Close date the system automatically flags the G2S Project’s Status as CLOSED. It is likely the site will hold the Project in a Site defined Status until shipping and billing are completed.

Graphic Production Costs Added to Go2Show

Over the last couple of years several of you have come up with solutions to taking a Graphic order from a client. Some have been Go2Show solutions and some have been inside the core e-Info function.

Recently one of our sites who uses a rather slick  ‘Order a new Graphic”  trick in Go2Show asked for some help in both informing the customer of the costs for a New Graphic verses the typical pull & prep and making life a little better for their internal staff by eliminating a step in order processing.

The system was able to offer up an excellent solution and as a result we all get to share.

For the Asset type you want to allow the User to order, most likely Graphics, you need to add the new Attribute GRAPHIC PRODUCTION COSTS. Then when you upload your solution for placing a graphic order apply your Cost for that Graphic to the Attributes of that item.

On the Go2Show Selection screen that new value will now Appear and that same cost will be placed in a separate row on the Budget Screen all on one same click. The client sees their cost separated out on the G2S receipt and Budget and there is no need for any account time to go into a budget and separate the costs out.

When is a Go2Show Order NOT an Order?

When it has not been Confirmed.

Like all on line ordering processes there is no Order till the User placing the order confirms. However as we all have experienced our customers are not always like other customers.

A recent occurrence for one of our sites has prompted calan to try to add a little more help in managing the behavior practices of our customers. What has matured as a practice at some sites is that either the customer or internal account team has been entering Projects well in advance. The theory is that the customer will return, enter any final updates and CONFIRM the Project. Unfortunately life in not always prefect! A Project entered in advance was not Confirmed the internal support team did not receive any notice and the Project slipped through the cracks.

Striving to seal those cracks for our customers we have made the Go2Show visibility just a bit smarter. You will notice on your Dashboards that there are now two versions of the Go2Show shopping cart (often mistaken for a bathtub) icon. One is grayed out the other the original full color.

A Go2Show Project that is not Confirmed

A Go2Show Project that has been Confirmed.

This updated icon set and the additional change of a new control when creating a Personalized Report view, Go2Show Confirmed, use "Is not Like" = C,  will allow you to create new screens with  sort & filter qualities to better track the Go2Show Order/Confirmation process.

Note: This is another customer driven enhancement. If you are experiencing similar challenges please share with us. If you what to discuss how to make use of this new tool please feel free to reach out.

Include becomes Add to Cart

Based on some sites' feedback collected from their clients, we have renamed the INCLUDE green button to Add to Cart.

Our reasoning for for making the change is simple. Unlike in 2003 when first coded, the term Add to Cart has become a standard metaphor across the web. Correcting our button name might help some first time Users. Like chicken soup it is not likely to hurt them.

Note: The button remains green and the location did not change, so this should have little if any impact on current Users. We know they don’t read anyway.

Now you can get HERE from there.

calan has developed protocols to allow your customer companies to establish direct links from their Intranet site to the calan Go2Show wizard.

There are three possible approaches you can offer your customers.

Two of the approaches have nominal one time fees for the establishment of the services, which include FTP Folders for DTS and automated file posting every 24 hours.

IN ADDITION YOUR CUSTOMER'S IT TEAM WILL BE REQUIRED TO DO CODING AND DEVELOP SERVICES THEIR SIDE OF THEIR FIREWALL IN ORDER FOR THIS TO WORK.

We have prepared a document out ling the three approaches, what is required of your customer’s IT team and our fees to implement.

Feel free to contact us regarding this option if it proves of interest to your sales teams.

So a lady logs in to a G2S site.

Stop me if you have heard this one!

So this lady logs into the site and starts working. She is interrupted by more urgent business. When she returns she has been logged out of the system. She clicks a button and gets the Re-login pop-up.

Unfortunately she can’t recall her personal login at that particular moment, so she uses the Generic Login and Password she had once used several months ago. Well, you got to be LOL by now. You guessed it!

The system placed an order for the DEFAULT GO2SHOW LOGIN USER.

So what is so funny about that? The calan team spent three hours trying to figure out how it was possible.

Even funnier… we never did…until the nice lady returned a call and explained what she had did.

Note: He who laughs last... laughs the loudest!

New Address Drop Downs in Go2Show

Tomorrow when your Users login to their respective Go2Show sites they’ll find something new.

Address drop downs have been added to the Facility and two Shipping address fields. These drop downs are quite smart. They know the individual User and as time passes will dynamically build a selection list of prior addresses unique to the User who entered them. Not only are the addresses stored for the User but they are stored by type. So an address like their office, where they regularly have their exhibits Shipped - to or Picked-up from will not appear in the Facility address drop down and vice versa. Of course since the existing Use Event Address or Use Ship-to address buttons will remain in place you can enter an address one time and actually pass it along to the other address drop downs if you should so choose.


Note: Look for another significant blog concerning Go2Show within a week. We will be providing several options with respect to your ability to offer your client direct Login ability from their intranet, provided their IT meets specific criteria with respect to passing user credentials in their query string.