Dispatch button - is it actually manual for some comms methods or is it always automatic (i.e. in 10 mins it would dispatch a batch)?
This depends on the communications type. More detailed information can be found in How to: Upload an award file with AwardFilePlus™
Is there a timeframe on cancelling batches or can this be done at any time?
It can, in theory, be done at any time.
The risk with Email Comms is that a user cancels a batch while the system is in the process of dispatching it automatically. In this case, while awards should still be cancelled, there's a risk some employees still get notified.
There is not a straightforward way to predict when this may happen: once a batch is created, the system does not indicate when exactly it will begin dispatching. As a general rule, dispatch begins with the first cron job scheduled to start after the batch has been created. Dispatch cron jobs are hourly, so it may take between 1 minute and an hour for the dispatch to begin.
What are ‘Awaiting Invoice’ and ‘Invoice Raised’ statuses?
For AwardFilePlus, clients and Client Support are very unlikely to see these going forward.
In the past, when a client uploaded a file but didn't have enough funds to dispatch all awards, the batch would get queued as Awaiting Invoice. After a top-up, Finance had to manually release it. This is still the case for Nominations and On The Spot Recognition.
We have now added budget validation to the AwardFilePlus uploader. This means clients won't be able to upload files at all, if they don't have enough money for all awards in their budget. If they are able to upload an award file, their batch will immediately be created with Awaiting Dispatch status.
We are hoping to introduce the same sort of validation to On The Spot Recognition in the future.
In which situations can we get an empty batch?
Those situations should be treated as regular bugs and regular procedures should be followed.
On-site alerts - are they always on or does this depend on whether the client is or isn’t on auto-claim?
For clients that are not on auto-claim, there are no onsite alerts at all, for any of the communication types (Email, Postal, None).
For clients on autoclaim, there are onsite alerts for all communication types. More detailed information on how onsite alerts work based on communication type can be found in How to: Upload an award file with AwardFilePlus™