FirstRain // Unlock The Business Web™

At FirstRain, our objective is to be continually improving the capabilities and value our solutions provide. And so with our April release, we’re very happy to tell you about several new upgrades now in place that will further enhance your experience with the FirstRain Business Monitoring Engine.

Monitor Enhancements
Our daily email monitors now feature a simpler and cleaner design, which will improve readability and make it even easier to quickly scan through your daily monitor for the critical events impacting your industry, company, customers or competitors.

Viewing and managing your monitors has improved as well, adding the ability to easily re-order your monitors in the Business Monitoring Engine interface.

Wizard Enhancements
Our simple and effective monitor setup wizard just got even better. Both regions and industries can now be added as the subject of a new monitor (rather than as a filter on company or topic monitors, as before). And, the wizard will now suggest related industries as you setup or edit your monitors.

We’ve also further streamlined the monitor setup process, with improved criteria selection and fewer steps to add companies to a new or existing monitor.

Again, we’re always looking for your feedback on the features and functionality of FirstRain solutions, so please keep clicking on that ‘Feedback’ button, and letting us know how we can continue to improve your product experience.

For most situations, searching by Company name or a Topic descriptor is enough.

However, you may even add a few filters to get a desired flow of fresh content daily.  Filters for specific business-lines, or relevant to specific industry or perhaps only for specific business basics may given enough focus for you to maximize your research-time.

However, some situations may demand complex searches.  FirstRain has a variety of handles for you to get to desired set of monitoring items.  FirstRain’s research engine understands complex search strings that include AND, OR and NOT operators.

Listed below are some example of triggers with some AND/OR and NOT operators in addition to the standard tag handles (C:  for a company, T: for a topic,  I: for an industry and R: for a region )

EXAMPLE 1: Find out what executives are saying about Healthcare Legislation

• Search for: T:HealthcareLegislation T:ManagementQuotes (link)

EXAMPLE 2: Track what companies are being mentioned in your Territory

• Search for: R:Delaware OR R:NewJersey OR R:Pennsylvania I:IndustrialSEGMENT (link)

EXAMPLE 3: See who’s winning or losing customers in your sector?

• T:CustomerWinsorLosses I:ComputerHardwareSEGMENT (link)

To Research an individual company or a set of companies that are not in an existing monitor, here are some instructions to follow:

FirstRain performs many analytics to get you the latest articles about your top accounts and competitors, but did you know FirstRain could also help you become aware of unannounced management changes? These changes can give you insight into what’s new, update to a company’s strategy or signs of their health.

Management Changes for a single company:

1. You may Login or click on the More About link from your email monitor
2. Once you have run the search you will see 4 views available to you in tabs across the top
3. Click on the Management Turnover tab to see the latest management changes

Management Changes for a set of new companies:

1. Login and select Create new monitor from the home page
2. Select Monitor a set of Companies and select Enter a list of companies to cut and paste your list of companies and press Add
3. Set your filters using the tabs provided (you may filter by Business Basics, Sources, and Regions and topics using the advanced tab and press Next
4. Name your Monitor and press Save and start to receive a daily report at 8AM every day.

Management Changes across an Industry:

1. Login to enter the desired Industry name in the search bar using the format I:<name> – Jump to it now: I:TechnologySector
2. You will see 2 views available, tab across to Industry Brief
3. Scroll down below the Industry Market Map (Summary) section on the right hand side to see the Management Turnover section for the Industry

Industry briefs provide a quick summary of changes across key companies and trends within the industry in a two to three page document. Similar to FirstRain Company Briefs, FirstRain Industry Briefs provide the most up-to-date view of any industry and key events shaping the trends within the industry. FirstRain Industry Briefs also include proprietary analytics that highlight key trends, and health indicators of the particular industry.

Industry briefs are available at Sector, Segment and Industry levels. FirstRain has over 250 of the Sector, Segment and Industry classification available. To find one of the Industry brief page for any of these items, just type in I: in the research bar (at http://www.firstrain.com) and then start typing in the name of your industry. If the name/key-word matches any of the existing industries, you’ll see relevant suggestions in the drop-down. Simply select the relevant match, and click Run.

Noted below are some example handles for the relevant Industry Briefs.

• I:DrugsWholesaleINDUSTRY
• I:FinancialServicesSEGMENT
• I:EnergySEGMENT
• I:TechnologySECTOR

Your FirstRain subscription can help you stay on top of your competitors, major customers and prospects, and instantly monitor the key events you need to know about. If you’d like help to set this up, please email us the list of companies you’d like to monitor or key industry developments you care about, or follow the instructions below:

1. Login and select Create new monitor from the home page
2. Select Monitor a set of Companies and select Enter a list of companies to cut and paste your list of companies and press Add
3. Set your filters using the tabs provided (you may filter by Business Basics, Sources, and Regions and topics using the advanced tab and press Next
4. Name your Monitor and press Save and start to receive a daily report at 8AM every day.

If you’d like to change your existing folder, email me your updates and I will make the change for you quickly. For instructions on how to change your existing email reports, follow the instructions below:

1. Click on Add/Remove Items from your email report
2. To remove a company, use the Remove link
3. To add a company, use the options provided to add any company or a list of companies and press Add

To delete a folder, Login and click on My Folders drop-down in the header bar. You will see a list of your folders; use the Remove link to delete the folder

To get a continuous feed of content to your mobile device or inside of Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010, please see our blog post.

Your email monitors are timely and provide you a snapshot of what has happened until your monitor is delivered to your inbox. FirstRain also provides you a way to compliment your daily emails with an RSS addition inside of your Outlook 2007 or greater. This feed of content will provide you the same quality of results you have come to expect from FirstRain, but will be updated continuously thought-out the day.

1. Go to your Monitor and select Subscribe, in the upper right hand corner of the page
2. Right click over the RSS button, and select “Copy Link Location“
3. Go to Outlook and you will see RSS Reader as an option in your list of Mailboxes, right click over that and select New RSS Feed
   1. Go to the Search or Folder you’d like to get an RSS from
   2. Right click over the RSS button, and select “Copy Link Location”
   3. Go to your desired RSS reader, and past the link into the RSS reader

Go ahead and confirm your settings. That’s it!  Go down to your mail folders and select RSS Feeds.  Now you can get to the latest developments on your market, competition or customers in your email inbox, updated continuously throughout the day, without ever leaving Outlook.

You can find many new ideas on how to find unique, personalized intelligence with FirstRain using our Customer Support portal. Please do not hesitate to contact our Client Solutions Team for assistance.

RSS feeds can be inserted into any reader by using your browsers RSS feature.

In Internet Explorer, you subscribe to the RSS feed of one of your Monitors, Confirm the addition and you will be able to view the articles on your Monitor inside of Internet Explorer (no external reader needed).

In Firefox, you subscribe to the RSS feed of one of your Monitors, Click on Subscribe Now and you will have Live Bookmarks setup inside of Firefox (no external reader needed).
In case where you want to take the feed and integrated it into your iGoogle or My Yahoo page, you will:

1. Go to the Search or Folder you’d like to get an RSS from
2. Right click over the RSS button, and select “Copy Link Location”
3. Go to your desired RSS reader, and paste the link into the RSS reader

It behaves just as other standard RSS feed options behave depending on the default browser you use.   It is a very useful alternative to having to get emails intraday on the companies and/or topics you are monitoring.

To View in Outlook 2010 or greater
There are lots of RSS readers available but if you have already installed Outlook 2010 then you can use that as a RSS reader.

Click on the File menu –> Info and click on the Account Settings

Navigate to RSS feeds tab and click on New link

Enter the RSS feed of a blog or a website. In this example I am going to enter this tech blog RSS feed.

Click on the Add button to add the RSS feed. The following RSS Feed Options dialog box would be displayed and if you want to change the delivery location of the RSS feed then click on the Change Folder button and specify the desired location. Click Ok to confirm the changes.

Navigate to RSS Feed delivery location, this would display the RSS feeds from FirstRain

Here’s a helpful brief on some of the ways you can use the FirstRain as a monitor of what’s important. – these are some common monitors and simple instructions on how to set them up:

Monitor Top Accounts: One bit of missed information can make or break a deal. Make sure you know what is happening across your top accounts and be notified as soon as anyone on the web writes about your customers, their products, or management based on your triggers. To see how to setup your Top Accounts, click here.

Monitor your Prospects: Your prospects can be small or big, public or private… FirstRain can help you have the confidence that you know what’s going on in their business, whether they want you to know or not. Know what is happening across your targeted prospects and be notified as soon as anyone on the web writes about them, their products, or management based on your triggers. To see how to setup your prospect list, click here.

Monitor your Regional Territory: you can’t afford to miss an opportunity or patterns that are taking shape in your territory. Make sure you know what is happening across your territory and be notified as soon as anyone on the web writs about a potential prospect, their products, or its management based on your triggers. To see how to setup your regional territory, click here.

Monitor your Competitors: Be sure your competitors aren’t getting a leg up on you. Know what is happening across your peers and be notified as soon as anyone on the web writes about your competitors, products, or its management based on your triggers. To see how to setup your competitor’s monitor, click here.

Monitor your Market: Markets can be chaotic with new entrants, new standards, new products, rumors, and major developments. It’s your job to know what’s happening in the space and you can’t afford to be blind-sided. FirstRain can help you monitor your market in in less than 60 seconds across blogs, local papers, industry sources as well as press & wire articles. To see how to setup your market monitor, click here.

Setup a Blog Monitor: It’s hard to know what to listen for and what’s just noise. FirstRain can help you monitor the blogosphere on your customers or your market place, in less than 60 seconds. Set it up, and let FirstRain find you what is most relevant and pertinent to you. To set this up follow the same instructions for covering a company or market, and select blogs only on the content type filter tab.

Setup an Industry Source Monitor: Industry sources are plentiful and you only have time to monitor the key sources in your market place. With FirstRain, we provide a much more efficient way of reading the news, with quick filters to get to what you want faster. To set this up follow the same instructions for covering a company or market, and select Industry Sources only on the content type filter tab.

These Monitors can be delivered to you via a daily email, continues feed in outlook via RSS, or by logging into our online application.