Prerequisites for Partner Networks
- Joanna Miller
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 a 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 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.
It is recommended that you create a role for both types of partner networks that you might create. Carriers may have different rights than customers. For example, you may want to allow carriers to change the status of an order, or arrive and depart stops. Alternatively, you might want customers to be able to add new orders where you would not want carriers to be entering new orders on the boards.
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
In order to create a role, you must have access to the administrator menu in VIA®. To access the administrator screen click on your name in the VIA® screen and select Admin. If you do not see the admin menu item you may not have administrator access to VIA® and you will need to contact your system administrator.
Once you have the administrator screen open, click on the Roles button on the left side of the screen. Here you will be able to view your roles, and their corresponding rights; and you can create a new role from here as well. Let's create a new role for a customer. On the top right side of the screen select New Role and in the resulting popup screen enter in the role name you would like to use the the role description.
When you are done you can choose you new role from the drop down list at the top of the screen in order to edit the rights associated with the new role. NOTE: before you make any changes to a role, make sure you are viewing the correct role. By default, the global role will show up when the screen is loaded.
Some settings that you might want to consider are listed below; however, how you choose to configure your system should be a business decision and you may choose different settings to best fit your business needs.
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
If your system is configured so that you only have one board, or so that you have one board per customer then you might just setup the access for your partner network and grant access to the boards when you are creating the partner network. If you have multiple boards you may want to merge them all and provide your users with one location where they can go to access their orders. To do this you can utilize shadow lists. The following steps can be used to setup multiple boards into one view for your partner customers and carriers.
- Plan how you would like your board to look for your customers. For example, if you have three regional dispatch boards all with similar status lists you may want to create a customer facing board that has the same list layout.
- Once you have your plan create a new board.
- Inside the board choose to add a new shadow list and select the corresponding lists from each of the boards you want to merge from.
- NOTE: Your new user will have to be a member of the original boards in order to see the cards; however, you can hide the original boards from the partner network role when you are configuring the roles.