Portal Technology Overview V4.0

Portal Overview Information Guide -> Portal Technology Overview V4.0

The Portal management options can be used to setup the controls and monitor direct interactive website access for your preferred On Account and Cash customers over the Internet.
 Using the Portal your customers can view their business transactions with your firm and can even request new product reservations and quotations and equipment pickups.

Some of the Portal features include:

•Default cascading style sheets to display on the Portal website.
 Your firm's web designer may create optional customized style sheets with your company colors, logos, fonts, and verbiage.

•Unique customization of web access levels, themes, presentation, functionality, and information retrieval at the individual customer account level.

•Bulletins appearing on relevant dates, posted on your Web Welcome screen such as sales promotions or seasonal greetings by theme.

•Customer A/R account inquiry, displaying information on unpaid and paid account activity, with related payment history.

•A/R account roll-up option, providing ability to view account information summarized by Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly periods.

•Parent/Child account linked relationships providing access to dependant customer account information.

•Invoice and Contract detailed display with the option to print documents locally using Jasper forms.
 Note: Only posted invoices can be printed.

•Selection of rental groups and sales products, with the ability to view rates, prices, safety notes, and specifications, and add to an order list.

•Ability to generate a request for a Quote or Reservation using the Shopping Cart product selection.

•Ability to request a product pickup by contract when equipment is no longer required on a site.

•URL links for Rental Equipment specifications providing direct access to a supplier's specification information as posted on their website.

•Real time product availability.

•Kits and Suggested Sales Lists optional link to a main product.

•Shopping Cart ability to change dates, and to resort product order before Check Out.

•Ability to automatically trigger an email to both the customer and the designated store staff when a Portal order request is generated at Check Out.

•Ability for administrator and/or customer to change website access password.

•Customer account administrator control of employee level access to the various options.

•Security lockout on a pre-determined number of unsuccessful login attempts.

•Password reminder feature, generating an email of password to administrator, pending personal security confirmation and verification.

•Optional subscription to automated reporting selections, where output is emailed directly to customer's address, at a pre-determined number of days before month end.

To use Portal web access, contact Texada Support for assistance in licensing and site web setup.
 The Portal Management options are company wide even in firms that are utilizing the "Operators by Division" feature.
 Only Portal Confirmations respects the Divisional Restricted Views assigned to the operator.

Customers: Customers can be identified in Customer Information or in Portal Customers, and assigned personal passwords to provide them with website access that allows them to view their accounts, print invoices and contracts, change their passwords, and request equipment reservations or quotations, according to your company's Portal design and purpose.
 Customized access, themes, and information retrieval levels, can be setup at the customer level. Parent/Child relationships can be constructed.
 This service is not available to any Customers identified as the 'Clone' customers for any Division in the Divisional Contract Parameters as these customers are too generic and cannot be setup as a Portal Customer

Products: Specific Product Classes, Groups, Sales Parts, and Rental Equipment Groups, can be flagged to show on your firm's website for booking, complete with product prices and rates, equipment specification, safety notes and even product pictures and links to vendor web page information.
 Product availability information is also provided.
 Rental Equipment is always reserved by Group.

Sales and Rental products can use Website Categories to organize how the inventory is displayed on the web Portal, providing two to four levels in the product 'Class/Group/Category tree'.

Kits and Suggested Sales Lists:

A Shopping Cart parameter controls whether related Kit and Suggested Sales List items are added to the Shopping Cart when a main product is selected.
 Refer to in the Shopping Cart Settings window in the Presentation Themes for details on this processing.
 If this feature is not activated, Kits and SSL items can be added later by the rental store staff when the Portal request is converted to a Reservation or Quotation.

Services:

Reservations and rental quotations initiated from the Portal website do not provide the option to select services.
 Delivery or Pickup can be requested by the customer when the Shopping Cart is closed, but the charges and other services can only be added by rental store staff at the time the Portal request is converted to a Reservation or Quotation in Portal Confirmations.

Web Portal Request Notification:

When a request for a Quote or Reservation is generated from the Check Out of a Shopping Cart on a Portal session, emails are triggered to alert rental store staff and to confirm the customer's request.

•The email to the customer lists the Portal confirmation number and the products that have been requested.
 It is sent to the email address displayed on the Check Out screen, which defaults from Customer Information, but can be over-typed at Check Out.

•The email to alert store staff of the request, is first sent to the address designated for that customer in the expanded record in Portal Customers.
 If no email specific staff address is entered for the customer, then the email address for the store division in Global Portal Settings is notified.
 If no email address is setup for the division, then the general email address for the company in Global Portal Settings is notified according to Quote or Reservation document type.
 If no email address is setup for the general email address for the company, then the company email address is notified as setup in Company Miscellaneous Parameters.

When a request for a product pickup is generated for a contract on a Portal session, an email is triggered to confirm the customer's request.

•The email to the customer lists the Portal pickup request number and the products that have been requested.
 It is sent to the email address as defined in the Customer Information.

Document Details:

Fine tuning of the Quote or Reservation can be completed by rental store staff when the Portal request is converted using Portal Confirmations, including additional kits, SSL items, services, updating clerk code, Business Source, taxes, payment terms, etc.

Note: When utilizing a browser to access the Portal website, it is recommended not to rely on the back and forward buttons, as images stored in the browser cache cannot control.

Topic Keyword: WE0001