Portal Functionality and Customer Specific Document Link

Method_Ashur — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:28:19 GMT

We received the following questions from Micky via email.

I have signed up for a demo and am playing with the portal function.

I have integrated the doc vault function and managed to add a tab to my portal called documents and it pulls from the list of document tabs available.

My questions are:
1. how do I set up customer specific document areas that show selectively, based on the customer that logs in? This can be customer specific – not individual, although that would be nice.

2. How do I enter data into customer portal fields (contact portal name) that the wizard references?

a. There is a customer tab, which, if I add a name to should go into the contacts table, but how do I access the portal username fields – or is that built through the portal registration process?

b. Is there a way for me to import this data into method?

Hi Micky,

1. I did this by adding a new custom screen named Customers Documents List to the default Contacts_Portal. First I created a new screen based off the DocumentLibraryLink table and added it as a tab to the Contacts_Portal; you can create a new screen by going to Customize > Screens. Edit the screen and add a Grid object, then edit that. Add the fields you would like to display in your grid, but most importantly I included the Entity field, this is how I will link the document to the User/Customer that's signed into the portal. You can then setup filters for fields, I used the Entity field. The filter was setup to ensure the Entity field is equal to the Portal- Entity FullName. Clicked Finish, Publish, Save & Close, then tested it out and it worked perfectly.

2. I'm assuming you want customer specific data to show up in the portal for the user that signs in? The stock tab links that are available for customers to view using the portal are Home (Outstanding balance, Profile, and a Contact Us section), Recent Transactions (Invoices), Solutions (Help Documents), Customer Service (Cases, which are used for tracking customer issues/questions), and Documents List (which will be replaced by the new custom screen detailed above). If this is not what you meant, then what kind of data are you looking to enter into the customer portal fields?

a. Are you talking about the Customers Incoming list in your Method CRM account? These fields are all pulled from the Contacts table, which the stock Contacts_Portal also pulls data from. To access the portal username fields you'll need to build a custom screen based off the contacts table. The Contacts table contains the PortalUsername and PortalPassword field.

b. Need more clarification on what you're looking to import to Method, are you wanting to capture customer entered data from the portal? Wherever a customer is able to enter information in the portal, i.e. adding a New Question in the Customer Service tab link, it will show up under their account. For this example, the Case would show up under the Customers' Cases. You can get there by going to Customers Incoming > Customers and Contacts List > find the appropriate customer and click Go To...

If you're looking to import a list of your customers that exist in a CSV file then the answer is yes, you can import this data into Method using the Import/Export tool (Customize > Integration Tools > Go to Import/Export...) However you should first enter at least one Test customer into Method (not one of your real customers) then export the Customer table in CSV format. Compare it with your file then edit your file to match the apporpriate fields/columns showing in the exported Customer table from Method. Also take into consideration the type of data each field contains, i.e. Dropdown list, integer values, etc.

- Ashur

Method:Classic General Q&A

Portal Functionality and Customer Specific Document Link