Understanding the Placements Feature

The Placements feature allows you to enter and give yourself credit for all the verbal commitments received from account buyers out in the market. 

Once those Placements are entered into Lilypad, the Placement Tracker (Funnel) provides users the visibility to track each of those Placements to ensure they convert from Committed to Fulfilled. 

Using the data connection that's setup for your organization, Lilypad searches through the depletion/sales files being sent to us for each of your distributors in order to find an invoice that matches each placement (commitment) entered by each user. 

Placements convert to Fulfilled once the Lilypad system confirms that the invoice received matches 3 criteria: Account, Brand/SKU, and Units that the Lilypad user indicated when the placement was originally entered. 

Placement Funnel States

There are 4 different Placement Funnel States (seen along the top of the Placements screen).  

Committed ---> Issue ---> Fulfilled ---> Lost

Committed

All new placements entered into Lilypad will initially land in the Committed state at the top of the list. These placements will appear in white, and the appropriate account pushpin (shape and color) will appear to the left of the account name. 

When this state is selected, you can view a list of committed placements that have yet to match with an invoice.  Each placement will show the following information:

• Name of the account.
• SKU
• Number of units
• Number of CE/9L the placement is worth
• Days Open or Promised By Date

The Promised By date will change to display Days Open once the date indicated arrives. 

The change to Days Open indicates how many days it has been since the Promised By date has passed and the day counter on the Placement has started. 

**NOTE: Once the day counter begins, the placement will only sit in the Committed state for a default total of 21 days (Admins can customize this time frame to the individual preferences of their organization).

Yellow placements with a bell icon on the far left indicate placements that have gone past the initial Committed window and are begin to age.  They still qualify as committed placements, and Lilypad will continue to search for incoming invoices to potentially match with these aging placements.  

**NOTE: The placement will sit for another default 21 days in this state (Admins can customize this time frame to the individual preferences of their organization).

Newer placements default to the top of the list in the Committed state.  You can tap the Sort (arrow) icons in the upper right corner to reverse the sort order. 

Issue

The Issue state is where a placement will go if the invoice received by Lilypad did not exactly match the SKU or the unit quantity originally indicated when the placement was entered, resulting in only a partial match. 

Placements in the Issue state are in red and show a red bell icon to the left of each placement.  

When a placement enters the Issue state, it will sit in that category of the funnel indefinitely.  You can proceed two ways:

• Accept and Close - This will accept the product that has already landed at the account and push it to the Fulfilled state of the funnel while moving the remainder of the product into the Lost state of the funnel.
• Accept and Wait for Exact SKU Match- Take credit for what already landed at the account and move the remainder back to Committed.  This will appear as a separate commitment and the "clock" will start over on the number of days open (depending on how the placement settings were configured). 
  • For example, if 1 unit out of 5 were matched, and you hit this second option, you get credit for 1 unit, and the other 4 appear as a new placement in the Committed state.

**NOTE: If neither of these are acceptable, and you need a placement to be manually matched, then you will need to reach out to your manager and request that your placement be manually matched for you. 

Fulfilled

When a placement completely matches with an invoice, the Fulfilled state will show credit for the placement. The Fulfilled state shows the following information:

• Monthly Date Range - defaults to this month and you can scroll to previous months.
• Total Committed Placements entered for the selected month
• Total Fulfilled Placements for the selected month
• Total Remaining Placements for the selected month
• Closing Percentage of those Total Placements

This screen also displays the same totals (committed, fulfilled, remaining, and closing percentage) in CE or 9L (depending on which type of units is set for your organization). 

Lost

The Lost state is where all placements that have timed out in the Lilypad system without ever matching with an invoice will enter.  The placements in this state are sorted based on the month they were originally committed.  

If a placement never gets fulfilled, the Lost state is the final state in the life cycle of the placement.  In the Lost state, a placement cannot be edited or removed.  Lilypad is no longer checking incoming invoices against a Lost placement, which means that placement will not match, and the user will not receive credit for it. 

How to Create a New Placement

Now that you have an understanding of the Placement Funnel States, follow the steps below on how to create a new placement from the main placements screen.

**NOTE:  Users can also create new placements at the bottom of any Activity or Task that requires an account to be chosen.

• Navigate to Blue Pushpin > Placements.
• Tap the PLUS (+) icon in the upper right corner of the screen.  
• Search for and select the account this placement is meant for.
  • **NOTE:  If the account cannot be found on the Account Search screen, tap the Add New Account button at the bottom of the screen to manually create a new account.  Follow the steps in the doc below to add a new account:
  • Add New Account (mobile) - Lilypad
• If an account is serviced by more than one distributor, then the distributor name will appear at the top of the activity, task, or placement in BLUE text. Tap on the distributor name to select another distributor. The activity, task, or placement will appear in reports, exports, and recaps under the distributor that was selected when the item was completed.  
• If necessary, enter the Approved By (account) contact information as well as the Distributor Contact information.
• Click on either Draft or Package depending on the type of SKU you'd like to select.
• Select a SKU.
• Enter the number of Units Committed for the account.
• Set a Promised By Date.  This field defaults to today's date.
  • Choosing a Promised By date determines how long that placement will sit in the Committed state of the funnel in Lilypad.
  • It is suggested that the Promised By date is set for a minimum of 7 days from the date that the placement is being entered (Example: Sales Rep John is creating the placement on January 1st, so he sets the promised by date for January 8th). 
  • Lilypad defaults to 21 days in the Committed state of the funnel. If the placement has not yet matched to an invoice by that Promised By date, the placement will turn yellow under the Committed state and sit for another 21 days awaiting an invoice that matches. 
    • **NOTE: This time frame can differ based on your organization’s settings, so check with an admin or manager to confirm placements funnel time frame setup for your organization.
• Add any Optional Notes for this specific placement. 
• Tap the Add More button if the account buyer would like to commit to additional SKUs.  Repeat the steps above.
• Tap the Done button once you've logged all SKUs for this account.  This will move your placement(s) to the Committed state of the placement funnel and the History tab. 
  • After tapping Done, there will be an option to Share your placement(s).  Sharing auto-generates an email that can be shared with others (Example:  your manager and/or the distributor).
• While in the Committed state, you can tap on your new placement, tap Edit, make changes, or delete the placement. 

**NOTE: Lilypad starts comparing incoming invoices to the placement funnel from the moment it enters the funnel. Incoming invoices vary widely on when they are received through the data connection type established with Lilypad.