Travel By Appointment

FileMaker Provide TBA with a Star Solution    

Celebrity travel management company turns to FileMaker to streamline internal operations

Widely regarded as one of the most innovative travel management companies in Europe TAG needed an easy to use booking system

The Appointment Group (TAG) is regarded as one of the most innovative travel management companies in Europe and works with many high profile corporations and individuals. Originally established to manage travel arrangements for the music and entertainment industry, TAG has expanded and diversified its travel management services into various other fields, including the corporate sector. TAG now consists of four separate subsidiaries that focus on different aspects of travel and event management and related services: Travel By Appointment (TBA), Music By Appointment (MBA), Events By Appointment (EBA), and Leisure By Appointment (LBA).

Wanting to avoid the unwieldiness that can accompany expansion, but still meet their clients’ diverse and demanding requirements, TAG needed to ensure that all their critical operations were safeguarded and optimised for exponential company growth.

TAG came to MaJic Solutions, a FileMaker Solutions Alliance partner who specialises in creating bespoke FileMaker business solutions, looking to streamline their office systems. Instead of multiple booking systems and databases, TAG, and in particular its high-profile travel management division, TBA, wanted one system to manage the entire booking process, be it a return air ticket to Belfast or a 2 year world-wide tour with an entourage in excess of 100 personnel. FileMaker, with its established tradition of providing powerful, yet immensely versatile, easy to use data solutions, was an obvious choice.

"With an extraordinary breadth of clients ranging from artists such as Sir Elton John, Eminem, David Bowie, Whitney Houston and Britney Spears, to media organisations including MTV, as well as many corporate clients, we needed to ensure that all our internal operations were run as smoothly as possible," said Lynne Griffiths, Managing Director at TBA. "We required a system that was robust, functional and could handle a massive variety of data. FileMaker fitted that bill."

“Before the implementation of the FileMaker solution, we really had no satisfactory centralised operating system that was capable of efficiently co-ordinating all the various elements of a travel booking. Most of our mission-critical tasks were being performed manually and, as such, were very time consuming."

TAG began working with MaJic’s newly launched travel management application in May 1995. Originally developed on FileMaker Version 2.1, the solution was implemented without the need for a pilot programme, and with minimal upheaval to the business.

"We have been developing solutions with FileMaker Pro since 1990," said Mike Smith, Managing Director of MaJic Solutions. "The power and flexibility that this software offers has continually allowed us to be able to offer robust, yet fully customisable solutions with complex functionality that can grow with the changing demands of our clients, with realistic development costs."

Specific benefits of the FileMaker solution are as follows:

The solution is based on the need to make all relevant information immediately accessible to the complete range of applications employed by TAG. The one interface is used to access 55 separate databases. Thus, all aspects of the agency’s bookings system are now linked through various layers of interconnected databases, all instantly accessible according to the specific needs of the client.

Full details of all suppliers and clients are available to agents. Hotel and flight bookings, insurance, currency conversions and client histories are instantly available to the company’s agents through a central, common interface, no matter the size of the booking. Furthermore, the system will remember if, for example, one member of a group is a vegetarian and will automatically make all the necessary adjustments for every stage of the booking. All details of every single customer relationship ever established are thus retrievable by the appropriate agents.

Auto-updating. The application has been designed to accommodate timespecific information, such as currency values and hotel rates, and automatically updates itself through external connections to pre-determined points of contact via a series of automatic e-mails, rather than needing to be manually updated. For instance, the system auto-updates over 2000 hotel rates annually by generating automated e-mails which are sent out at the appropriate time, and their replies are similarly entered into the system.

Other essential tasks, such as quotes, invoices and employment records are also auto-tasked to minimise manual data input further. Management can also set tasks for employees, which are automatically updated in to the employee’s personal task list as appropriate, to ensure customer service is kept at the highest possible level.

All internal and external correspondence is produced and stored on the system, and can be recalled whenever necessary. For instance, the system stores 17 different fax headers and can use these interchangeably.

The system uses a series of built-in security permissions and password protection for different levels of access to different types of data to ensure further that no data can be deliberately or accidentally corrupted.

Crucially, bespoke FileMaker Pro plug-ins allow connectivity to the accounting system and also to an airline reservation system, Galileo. FileMaker’s powerful controls permit the instant generation of airline tickets when required.

The FileMaker solution is mission-critical to TAG’s operations, which have now grown to include over 100 users, accessing and manipulating 55 databases through the one interface over 11 remotely connected sites.

"Quite frankly, the power and extent of this solution has surprised even us," said Keith Harris, Vice President of International, FileMaker. "We have long believed in the product’s potential to achieve all kinds of solutions, but MaJic’s implementation of the TAG solution really is in a class of its own in terms of the sheer scope of the components that it brings together within the one, easy to use interface."

In 2003 TBA was awarded first prize in the "Best Use of Technology" category by Travel Weekly. As Lynne Griffiths says, "What continues to be most impressive is how seamlessly the business is now able to run. Managing such a complex operation in such a streamlined and automated way vastly increases our competitive edge and further solidifies our position within the industry."