In order to have a successful partner network relationship it is important to complete some preliminary setup in the system from within the administrator menu and make sure your boards are setup in a way that provides your customers/carriers with the most efficient experiencea user friendly experience.
Carrier or Customer Cards
If you are planning on sending out invitations in bulk (an option in the partner network setup), the cards for the customers or carriers you want to invite have to exist already in VIA. Every card that you want to use in the bulk invitation process has to have an email address attached to the card as this is how VIA will know who to send the invitation to when sending in bulk. NOTE: if you want to only send the cards to specific cards in the board you may also want to create a filter at this time to make sure that you can narrow down to only the specific cards you want to send the invitation to in your board. If you are going to send the bulk partner invitations to all the cards in a specific board OR list inside a board you do not have to create the filter.
Roles
When you setup a partner network you will have to define which role the partner network users will have to your company. For this reason, it is important to make sure that you define a role that will have only the information that you want to have displayed to the partner. The following section to look at some settings that you might want to consider when you are defining roles for your customers and carriers.
By default, when you when you partner network users see VIA® they are viewing the same boards, lists and cards that you and your employees see. You are essentially granting the partner network users access to only their information. Meaning, customers (while they can see your boards) can really only see their cards within the lists. Carriers as well can only see the cards to which they are listed as carriers on.
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To create your role you will need to have an idea of what you want your partner networks users to do and what you want them to have access to. Taking the time before you setup the partner network now can save time in the future. Creating a role specific for your partner companies will ensure that they only see the information related to them in any view within the system. For example, within a workspace view, a parent company might see a view such as this:
If you setup your partner network role correctly, they will only be able to see their information. So, the image above would look different for a customer or carrier
Creating a New Role
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Customer Access Limitations:
| Section | Item | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sidebar | View Archives | |
| Sidebar | View Segment Builder | |
| Sidebar | View Board Conversations | While you may want the customer to see the conversations on their own cards, they should not see all the board conversations |
| Administration | None | Partner users will not have the ability to administer your system regardless of the settings here |
| General | Add Shadow Lists | You will setup the system the way you want the users to see it. They should not be adding any shadow lists to your boards |
| General | Any Deletes | Unless you want your customers to be able to delete reference numbers, public filters, card contacts etc it would be best to only allow your internal users to delete |
| General | Archive Cards | If your customer wants to cancel an order it should be something that is done on your side not by allowing the customer to archive on their view |
| General | List Drag and Drop/List Pin | Either of these options will allow the customer to change the way your board looks. |
| General | Display Non User Relationship Cards | THIS MUST BE UNCHECKED UNLESS YOU WANT PARTNER USERS TO SEE ALL CARDS WITHIN A BOARD |
| General | Any Edit Fields | Allowing customers to edit information on the cards could be useful; however, it could also cause issues (allowing to edit card table) and should be considered by your business |
| Reports | Any fields | If you have reports that you would like your customers to access you should set the reports up including the filters and then restrict the partner customers from editing the filters or adding reports. |
| Hide Boards | If you are using shadow lists to display information from other boards but you don't want the partner user to see these original boards you should hide them |
Organizing Multiple Boards into a Single User View
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