We did an update today, so I thought I'd bring you up to speed with some of the new things to look for.
A. Action List organized - finally.
B. New Actions: "Assign Value to Shared Result" and "Get Value From Shared Result"
C. New Action: Create Third Party Portal Link
A. Action List organized - finally.
The list of actions is finally organized into actions that pertain to "Screens", "Grids", "Tables", "Action Results", "Reports" and "Advanced". This should make it a lot easier for you to locate the appropriate action to use, depending on your situation.
B. New Actions: "Assign Value to Shared Result" and "Get Value From Shared Result"
"Shared Result" - we created a new tool called Shared Results. These are similar to Action Results, in that they are a temporary place to dump a piece of information that you'll later retrieve. But unlike Action Results, Shared Results can be retrieved by other screens and other buttons.
For example of when to use an Action Result:
Send Email button:
Action 1. Get the email address using either "Retrieve value from table" or "Retrieve value from screen", and assign the email address to an Action Result named "ResultEmail".
Action 2. Send the email, using the ResultEmail as the email address.
Action 3: Show a Message saying "Email Sent Successfully"
You could do other things, though with Shared Result, that are a little more fun.
For example of when you would use a Shared Result:
Customer Screen, Send Email button:
Action 1: Use "Assign Value to Shared Result" action to assign the email address to a Shared Result named "SharedResultEmail".
Action 2: Call another screen that you have specialized for sending emails, using the "Show Screen In Popup" action.
Send Email Screen, Send button:
Action 1: Use "Get Value From Shared Result" action to assign the Shared Result to an Action Result named "ResultEmail".
Action 2. Send the email, using the ResultEmail as the email address.
Action 3: Show a Message saying "Email Sent Successfully"
C. New Action: Create Third Party Portal Link
Now this is just the icing on the cake for Third Party Portals. We already made the sign in process for customers to access a portal a breeze, since they can self-register as long as their email address is entered in QuickBooks. But we wanted to go a step further and just blow you away with power. Admittedly, this is the most advanced Method concept to date.
The Create Third Party Portal Link action asks you for the name of your portal, which screen you want your customer to see when the first sign in, and which customer the link is meant to be used by. Method will then create a unique link just for that customer and return the link back to you in the form of an Action Result. You can then use this action result to send to the customer in the form of an email, or store it in your database - whatever you want.
But the best part is that your customers don't need a User Name or Password. The link is secure because it's unique, so you can just give it to them, and they'll log right into their account.
There's more! You can also track whether or not that link was clicked on by your customer, what their IP address was when they clicked on it, and the last date and time the link was clicked. You can then retrieve that information whenever you want from the ThirdPartyPortalLinks table.
And finally, you can pass a Shared Result to the portal, built into the link. So.... here is a real life use of this (you'll see how it all comes together now!):
1. Create a portal where your customers can log in, see their invoices, payments, and submit questions.
2. In your Customer Center, create an invoice list grid that is filtered to only show overdue invoices.
3. Create a button that loops through each invoice in the grid, and for each invoice creates a Third Party Portal link, and emails that link to the customer. In the Third Party Portal Link, make sure it is set to show the Invoice screen first, and pass a Shared Result equal to the Invoice number.
4. Have your portal's Invoice screen have an action on screen load that looks for the Shared Result and uses that value to filter the screen to show that invoice.
That way when your customer clicks on the link they'll be taken straight to that overdue invoice, and you'll be able to track that they actually clicked on the link.
Massive marketing implications too....I get excited about this because it lets small business get systems and marketing tools that were previously only available to large organizations - and puts the small business in the driver seat with a do-it-yourself setup, all directly tied into real time QuickBooks.
I'll do a blog movie in the next week or so showing this setup.
Paul