Parent Company - Creating a Partner Network

The process of creating a partner network starts on the parent company side. You will need to also create a role in VIA to assign to your partner networks if you want to restrict any abilities or hide any fields from the partner network users.  If you would like to give your customers or carriers access to your system you will need to make sure you have created the correct roles, and determined which boards you would like to give the partner network access to. You will be creating a new partner network record for each of your customers and carriers that you want to be able to access the system.  There are two methods to setup partner networds; a single invitation or sending in bulk. If you are setting up one carrier or customer to have access to your system you would use the single option. If however, you wanted to send out the carrier invitations to a large number of carriers or customers at one time then it would be better to use the bulk invitation method. Let's walk through the different processes now. 

Sending out Bulk Partner Invitations

To send out multiple invitations to your VIA system you can use the bulk invitation method. You will need to have your cards setup already with email addresses assigned. Using this method, you will choose the board/lists etc that you want to mass send out to ; therefore, to make this work you must already have the carrier or customer cards created with email addresses assigned to the card. If you want to send out invitations only to specific cards in your board based on a filter then you should build your filter before you start the partner network setup process. Save your filter after you create it as you will need to have it ready if you are sending in bulk and want to use a filter.

You will need to setup the partner network in the administrator screen. To access the administrator screen click on the your name on the top right side of the screen and select Admin. If you do not see this option in the menu you are not setup as an administrator. Contact your system administrator to move forward.

• From the administrator screen select partner network on the left side of the screen. Any partner networks that you have initiated will be listed at the top of the screen and any partner networks that you have been invited to will appear at the bottom of the screen. 
• Click on the +New Partner Relationship Request button on the top right side of the screen and a popup screen will appear:

• For this option select the bulk option.
• In the next popup screen you have a couple options. If you have existing templates available you will see them at the bottom of the screen. You can select the template you want to use. If you don't have any saved templates or if you would like to create a new invitation then click on the New option at the top of the screen.

From the template screen fill in the information as follows:

• Template Name - Use this field to give a meaningful name to the template. This will be especially important if you decide to save the template when you are done as this will be the name you see at the bottom of the template popup screen.
• Permission Role -  Select the role that you want the partner network to be assigned in this field. This role will cover anyone who uses the partner network with the invitation you are sending out. For example, if you send this invitation out to Sam at WestSide Packaging and he in turn creates 4 additional uses on his side they will all be limited to whatever role you have assigned to them in this screen. Normal will assign the global position role.
• Custom Email -  When you send out a partner network invitation VIA will send our a standard email. If you would like to customize the email that the customer or carrier will get then you can select the custom email option and a section for email subject and body will appear.
• Invitee List  - There are three options when determining who you want to send the invitations out to. Start by pressing  the add boards button and select the board (s) that you want to select. These boards would hold the cards that you want to send the invitations out to so they should be either carrier boards or customer boards. If you leave the option here then you  will send invitations to every card on your selected board. If you have already sent out an invitation to that company the system will resend out an invitation. If you choose you can select a list in your board in this section. Then the only cards that will receive an invitation will be the cards within the list on the board. Finally, if you have a saved public filter built on your board you can select it in this section and then the invitations will be sent out only to the cards that meet the filter criteria.
• Allowed Boards - Click on the add board button to bring up a list of your boards. Check off the boards that you want to give this new partner carrier. NOTE: If you are making use of shadow lists you will have to grant this partner network access to the board where the shadow lists are displayed AND to the boards where the cards in the lists originate. If you don't want the partner network to see all the boards in their home screen you can hide these boards from within their role. Once you have selected all the boards you want to give access to click on the back arrow on the top left part of the screen to continue to setup your partner network.
• Send Request - This button will just send the invitations out to the selected cards
• Save and Send Requests - Selecting this option will send the invitations to the selected cards but will also save a copy of the template you created above so that it can be reused in the future.
• Save - This option will not send out the partner network requests but will save your template so that you can access it later.

Creating a Single Partner Network

This option will cover how to create a single email invitation for your partner network. You will need to setup a partner network in the administrator screen. To access the administrator screen click on the your name on the top right side of the screen and select Admin. If you do not see this option in the menu you are not setup as an administrator. Contact your system administrator to move forward.

• From the administrator screen select partner network on the left side of the screen. Any partner networks that you have initiated will be listed at the top of the screen and any partner networks that you have been invited to will appear at the bottom of the screen. 
• Click on the +New Partner Relationship Request button on the top right side of the screen and a popup screen will appear:

Title - Enter in a title for this partner Network. This will appear in the listing of published networks and will be used to identify the partner network connection. You can use the company name or another meaningful name for this field

Description - Much list title, this field is used to identify the partner network in the list.

Invite Email or Username - Enter in the email address of the person that you want to send a partner network invitation to. Most of the time you will enter in an email address related to the person that you want to invite to use the system. If you are sending an invitation to someone who also uses an instance of VIA system within their company and you know their username you can enter it here. For example, if Smith's Trucking uses VIA for their dispatching and you want to give Bob Smith access to your version of the system; Bob can provide you with his username and you can enter it in here.

Company Name - This will only ever be used if you have entered the username in the field above. If the username is valid then the company that the user is a member of in VIA will appear in the company name field.

Permission Role - Select the role that you want the partner network to be assigned in this field. This role will cover anyone who uses the partner network with the invitation you are sending out. For example, if you send this invitation out to Sam at WestSide Packaging and he in turn creates 4 additional uses on his side they will all be limited to whatever role you have assigned to them in this screen.

Add Boards - Click on the add board button to bring up a list of your boards. Check off the boards that you want to give this new partner carrier. NOTE: If you are making use of shadow lists you will have to grant this partner network access to the board where the shadow lists are displayed AND to the boards where the cards in the lists originate. If you don't want the partner network to see all the boards in their home screen you can hide these boards from within their role. Once you have selected all the boards you want to give access to click on the back arrow on the top left part of the screen to continue to setup your partner network.

Add Card Relationships - This section is a cornerstone of the partner network. Here you will define which customer or carrier your partner network is related to. When you click the button you will be presented with a popup screen:

Click on the + under the bill to relations or carrier relations to bring up a search screen. Select the bill to customer or carrier that you want to be able to access with this partner network. The company card will appear on the popup screen similar to the screen shot above. If you are setting up the partner network for a bill to company that has multiple billing records in your system you will need to check off the box above the company that you want to make the default relationship. This step of assigning the bill to or carrier relationship is important as it will control which cards the partner users will see within your board. Let's take a look at how the boards will appear based on this setting.

When you have entered in all the fields click the send request button at the bottom of the screen.

The screen shot below shows the same board and how it looks to the parent user compared to how it appears to the partner network. Notice that there are missing cards on the screenshot on the right side of the screen. These cards are ones where the customer or carrier is not attached to. NOTE: If you did not deselect  the Display Non User Relationship Cards in the partner network role setup the partner network will be able to see any of the cards on the board. Your partner network users will see cards as they  move through lists and as your users update them in real time.