Onboarding Producers to Connect - A Guide for Food Hub Admins

This document is intended to help Food Hub Admins using LFM onboard their producers to the Local Food Marketplace (LFM) platform. 

Primarily this will involve getting producers access to the Local Food Connect producer portal and helping them understand it.  Also included is information about the hub/producer relationship that we have found to be important to ensure the producer’s success with the hub.

What is Local Food Connect?

LFM’s producer portal is called Local Food Connect (Connect for short) and is accessed at app.localfoodconnect.com.

Connect can be used to sell to your food hub or market, as well as other online stores, and in person markets.  It enables producers to login to one application and manage their sales from one place instead of many.  Currently, it only automates sales into other LFM-hosted markets, but we expect that to expand over time to include other widely adopted online sales platforms. 

The Contents of this Guide

The first two parts of this guide are specifically aimed at hubs and producers who have been utilizing the Legacy Producer platform.  Part One provides some communication points to share with your producers about the transition to Connect.  Part Two walks through common tasks completed in the Legacy platform and where you’ll find the tools to complete these tasks within Connect.

Part Three of the document is the bulk of this guide.  This section walks through a variety of hub/producer relationship information as well as Connect specific information.  This section is written from the viewpoint of a new hub or an existing hub onboarding new producers, but the information covered in this section is also valuable for existing hubs and existing producers to review and consider.

Part Four covers a couple situations with special considerations, specifically those producers who are selling in multiple LFM markets and those producers selling products via a Network market.

PART ONE: Transitioning Producers from the Legacy Producer interface to Connect

This document generally assumes that you are a new LFM hub bringing your already existing producers into LFM or you are an existing LFM hub onboarding new producers. 

If you are an existing hub with existing producers using LFM through our Legacy Producer access and are looking to move your producers over to using the new Local Food Connect interface, this document will hopefully still be useful.  Several quick notes for those hubs looking to move existing producers over to Connect:

• They will continue to use the same login credentials that they use to login to the Legacy Producer portal.  Beginning to use Connect will not preclude them from still using Legacy (at least for the time being).
• Everything they can do via the Legacy Producer portal they are able to do through Local Food Connect. 
• Local Food Connect isn’t just a different look, it provides producers with additional tools beyond what is available in the Legacy portal.
• If a producer only sells in one LFM hub, there is virtually no additional setup required in Connect.
• If a producer sells through multiple LFM hubs, Connect will require some additional setup to map products across markets.  Depending on the extent of the producer’s products and the number of markets they sell in, we recommend setting aside some time to work on this process.  While we normally encourage producers to seek assistance from their hub admins first, this setup process may be a time where directing producers to LFM support first makes sense.  

There is a section of the Local Food Connect Guide that has specific articles dealing with the process of transferring producers from the Legacy producer to Connect, including one specific for Food Hub Admins and another for producers.  You can find those articles here:  https://localfoodmarketplace.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/8864767188763-Moving-from-LFM-to-Connect

PART TWO: Where to find Legacy features in Connect

Product Availability and Product management, which are two separate pages in Legacy, are combined in the Sell page in Connect. Availability can be updated by clicking the Bulk Update Availability button or by clicking the the > symbol on a product line to update an individual product. The product details can be edited by clicking the product name and then clicking the pencil icon that appears. New products can be added by clicking the Add Product Button.

Pick List and Purchase Orders

Pick Lists and Purchase Orders are found in Connect on the Distribute page.

Packing List and Labels

The Packing List functionality, many packing reports, and product labels are found in Connect on the Pack page.

Sales Reports

Sales report found in the Reports page of LFM are found in the Reports page of Connect. LFM reports such as Products I Sell, Current Product List, and Items Sold vs Listed are found on the Sell page by filtering the product list and clicking the print icon.

Settings

Producer settings including Contact information, Farm Description, Participating Subperiods, and Users can all be found by clicking the person icon, choosing Settings, clicking on Manage Markets, and then clicking the pencil icon on the market.

PART THREE: Onboarding new producers to LFM and Local Food Connect

General Info 

When managing a food hub, it is critical to share details about your hub, expectations and requirements so that producers are fully informed about the practices of your hub. 

Typically, an FAQ (frequently asked questions) document will cover these details.

Some information you may want to share in this document includes:

• Provide an overview of what producers your market works best for:
  • Expectations around listing, updating and maintaining their own products
  • Explain your typical margins or markups so they can price their items accordingly to be competitive. 
  • Explain your marketing schedule and cadence. 
    • When do emails go out to customers?
    • Do you need content for social media posts?
    • What about Producer Info cards?
• Explain your weekly cycle and cadence so producers know when to list and update their items to maximize their sales. 
• What can producers sell?  Are there limitations to what a producer can sell?  Do you want producers to be able to add items to their product list on their own?  Or do producers need approval to add new products?
  • How would you like new products to be created?  (Provide your standard nomenclature for product names, units, and pricing types.)
  • Should producers add a photo?
• Proof of insurance, licenses, and certifications:
  • Do you require licenses, proof of insurance or other documentation?
  • How often (and what cadence) do you review and require updates to this information?
  • This information can be uploaded in Connect by producers and made available to market managers.
• Selling Policies
  • You should specify your requirements around quality, listing accuracy, pricing, labeling of products, timely delivery, etc.
  • Specify the process if an item that was ordered is no longer available. 
  • Specify how you handle customer rejections due to quality issues. 
• Payments
  • Explain your process and timing (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly are typical) for paying producers.
  • Provide requirements for timely payment (1099, invoices, up to date licenses, etc)
  • Share details on how they can compare their payment received to the data in Connect to ensure accuracy.
• Delivery requirements
  • Provide details on what is required for delivery (what labels and specific format, invoice/picklist, etc.)
  • Include what information producer should fill out in Connect (e.g. lot numbers) prior to delivery.
• Updating availability
  • Explain how availability reloads each week.  (Remember you can have different settings for different producers.)
  • When should availability be updated?
• Managing availability and orders throughout the week.
  • Share how they can track their orders throughout the week.
  • Be sure they are aware of whether order items can be updated or canceled (this is based on your store settings in LFM).
  • Explain how they can update availability if an item sells out or has low availability.

Interacting with LFM and Connect

We realize that each hub has a unique way of working with their producers, and that is sometimes varied within a hub by the individual producer. 

While there may be barriers and challenges, producers that interact with the platform, at some level, will have greater understanding of how their products are being sold, and the customer expectations than those that simply just drop products off. 

For producers that just receive pick lists or purchase orders

If your producers are not going to be logging directly into LFM to manage their products or update availability, then their interaction could be through email only.  Here are some best practices for producers that don’t login:

• Ensure pick ticket and/or purchase order content is clear. 
  •  To update the main content on pick tickets, go to  Admin >> Site Setup >> Producers >> Producer Content.
  • To update purchase order content, go to – Admin >> Site Setup >> Inventory >> Purchase Orders
• Plan to communicate via multiple channels (phone/text/email) to ensure they receive your communications.
• Request confirmation and acknowledgement.
• If your hub uses POs, consider adding a PO status for tracking what POs have been confirmed.
• Emails sent through LFM can be tracked via Admin -> Mandrill emails.

For producers that need to access Connect

If producers will be directly accessing their profiles in your hub, they will use Local Food Connect.  Connect gives producers the ability to add, edit and delete products that they sell, update availability, print harvest and pack lists, keep track of their sales, and run reports.

You’ll want to make it clear to your producers how you want them to interact with Connect and when to ask for assistance.

For example:

• Producer Profile details
  • Maintaining Info, contacts, etc
  • Providing photos for your Meet your Producers page (those must be uploaded by an admin)
  • Upload certifications, insurance, etc.
• Product setup
  • Explain what product types they should use for which circumstances.  For example, do you use Type B products?
  • For maximum control over products and ease of use for producers, you might want to instruct producers to tell you when they want to add a product. You can add the product(s) in LFM and the producer will then be prompted to import them into their Connect profile
  • Instruct producers to search your global product list for existing products to add to their profile before creating new products. Suggest that they type in just three letters of the product name (“tom” for a variety of tomato) so they are sure to see your version of the product in case they have it named or spelled differently
  • Give producers clear and explicit guidelines about any naming conventions you want to have consistent in your market (“lb” vs “pound”, “Red Tomato” vs “Tomato, Red”)
  • Tell producers exactly which fields in the product set up they need to fill out when creating a new product. Connect allows producers to add a lot of product information, which may be overwhelming to some if they don’t know what is necessary and what is optional.
• Will they login and list product availability themselves each week?

If you want them to login and update their own availability each week, they will need to be setup as a Producer user on your LFM account and shown how to use Connect.

• Will they setup their own products or will you do that on their behalf?  Are they allowed to change pricing? Connect gives producer users the ability to add their own products and make changes to existing products.  If you do not want producers adding their own products, changing prices or editing products in other ways, you will need to make clear that they should not initiate these changes without your approval. New products added by producers do require a final step of being categorized by a foodhub admin, so although producers can add new products, those products won’t show up on the storefront without hub approval (by way of assigning the product a category/subcategory). Price changes and adding/deleting/modifying selling units on existing products are however immediately live, so making it clear to producers as to whether or not they are allowed to make such changes is very important.
  
  
• Will they need to use Connect to run other reports, print labels, etc? Connect has a variety of reporting tools that producers may find more useful than just the standard pick list.  If you think your producers would benefit from these reports, such as if they need to print labels, you should make sure your producers are aware of how to access these reports.

Training Your Producers

Onboarding your producers is more than just setting them up with a producer user account and giving them a link to Connect.  It is the hub’s responsibility to make sure their producers know how to use Connect to fulfill their obligations to the hub.  We recommend doing training sessions, either one-on-one or with a group of producers, where you walk them through using the basic functions of Connect.  Doing these sessions via a video call (such as Zoom) is an effective way to manage these trainings and gives you the option of recording the sessions for future review by your producers.

Hub admins should be the first point of contact for producers who have questions about using Connect.  If producers are having specific technical issues accessing Connect or getting errors, you may direct them to LFM support.  Have them email – [e-mail]

Topics you will want to cover in the training:

• How to use the SELL page to adjust availability of products, adjust product pricing and other product related edits.
• New producers may specifically be interested in the following updates:
  • Adding product photos
  • Updating product descriptions
  • Editing or adding selling units and prices
• Product types (Type A, B1, B2 and C) and how their setup differs
• Selling Unit Naming Conventions (i.e. “lb” versus “pound”)
• Other product settings and your requirements on how they are completed:
  • Weight
  • Volume
  • Unit Multiplier (only for Type A products)
  • UPC
  • Sort Order
• Pricing: how do prices get set on the storefront
• The HARVEST page – The Harvest tools are a producer-specific tool only available in Connect.  Show how they can convert selling units into harvest units. Producers can assign lot numbers to pick list items here, and those lot numbers will flow through to your market.
• The PACK page – Show how to use the Pack page to run various packing reports for specific distributions, including product labels.  Producers can assign lot numbers and product weights to pick list items here, and that information will flow through to your market.
• The DISTRIBUTE page – Show how producers can access their pick lists and purchase orders here.
• The REPORTS page – Show how producers can run Sales reports for specific periods of time using this page.
• The SETTINGS page – Allows producers to edit their information in your market. They can update contact information, their description which appears on your storefront Producers page, and they can upload business documents such as proof of insurance and certifications. If you want producers to use these features, you should give them instructions and guidelines. SETTINGS is also where they will set up Stripe Connect to receive electronic payments from you, if you are using that feature.
• Re-visit schedule details such as:
  • When can producers begin updating their availability for a specific period?
  • When does the store open/close for customers?
  • When will producers receive final orders?

Some producers will benefit from a customized hard copy guide to how you need them to use Connect. Step by step instructions with screen shots that they can refer to while working in Connect will help the less technically savvy who may not be inclined to use LFM’s online resources and who might be overwhelmed by the options and features that may not be relevant to your market.

PART FOUR: Special Considerations

 Producers in multiple LFM markets

If a producer sells products in multiple LFM markets, Connect allows them to manage product availability, harvesting and packing for all markets in one interface. They will need to map their producer accounts and products from multiple LFM markets together if they want to have a unified management experience in Connect. The Add A Market section of the Connect manual explains how to map producer profiles and products together.

• If the producer is already managing their profile for another market in Connect, they will need to map their profile for your market to their existing Connect account.
  •  If you have assigned their products to their profile before giving them access they will have a straightforward process of mapping your version of their products to their products in the other market(s).
  • If you want them to add their existing products to your market, they can do this in two ways.  It will be important that you instruct them about which way to add their products before giving them access
    • They can export their products from Connect into your market, creating all new products in your market which you will need to categorize.  If they do this, they may create duplicate products to products you already have setup in your market.
    • They can search your global product list for your existing versions of their products and add them to their profile, mapping them to their other market’s products as they do so. They may need help finding your versions of their products.
• If the producer is not using Connect to manage either of their markets and is setting up their Connect account for the first time, they will need to choose which market to start with. After setting up their first profile they will be able to map their other market profiles to their first one from the Settings>Manage Markets page.

Setting up Network producers

Local Food Network is a platform that allows LFM markets to order directly from each other. Markets need to be licensing the Network module and to be added to an existing network to use Network ordering. Once a market is in a network, the products the market wants to offer to its network partners need to be added to a producer Connect account. If a producer in your market is not going to be using Connect themselves but you want their product to be available to your network partners, you can add yourself as a user of that producer profile and set up the products in Connect. Go to Admin>Site Setup>User Management and add your LFM email address as a user of each producer you need to set up in Connect. Then log into https://app.localfoodconnect.com/ to set each producer and add their products to their Connect profile. Those products will then be available to add to your Network product list.