Configuring portals to customize customer environment

This troubleshooting topic is about configuring portals to customize customer environment after migrating from FootPrints 11.0 to FootPrints version 12.0.

Description

The following table describes customer environment in FootPrints 11.0 and FootPrints 12.0:

Resolution

This section provides more information about customizing customer environment.

• Portals
• Consoles
• Roles
• Mapping FootPrints version 11.0 customer portal options to FootPrints version 12.0

Portals

• In FootPrints 12.0, the UI where users access the information and features to do their jobs is called portals.
• The portal includes everything you see in the content section of the browser window. The tabs, which appear at the tops of the working area and represent different areas of the application, are called consoles. Administrators can configure the existing portals and consoles or create new ones.
• You can create different portals to accommodate different types of users. Each portal has its own URL and you can assign a specific portal to each user role. For example, you can assign a default portal to each agent role.x
  The following image displays console in FootPrints version 12.0.
  
  To create a portal, navigate to Administration > Portal Management > Portals > (portal).
• Only the Default System Portal is created during migration with basic set of consoles including Home, Administration, and Calendar. You can include additional consoles such as Address Book and Knowledge Base from the More menu.
• The access to consoles in the assigned portal is affected by a user's role and its permission settings.
• You can delete or edit The Default System. You can copy it to a new portal and then modify it to be set as default portal for a role.
• You can configure each custom portal with a desired set of consoles as well as a theme and logo for a particular role. This creates a unique environment for your users.

Consoles

You can create and configure consoles from the Consoles link on Administration main page or from Portal details page to best support your working environment and business needs.
A console consists of three areas: Actions, Widgets and Views.

• You can configure two kinds of Actions on your console.
  • Actions to create a record of some type such as a ticket, a contact, or a service.
  • Actions to navigate to a URL. 
    You can name the buttons for these actions. For example, you can name a New Incident button or a company intranet link.
• The Widgets area can have elements such as charts based on data from your reports, RSS feeds, custom HTML, and saved searches. 
  You can choose a location for the Widgets area such as top, right, bottom, or left.
• The Views area is displayed as tabs within the console and contains administrative functions, calendar, record lists such as tickets, saved searches, or category browsers.
  Thus, you can provide all useful data for particular users is just after logging into the system.

Roles

• In FootPrints version 12.0, permissions management consists of two levels: system level and container level. 
  Each user is associated with one system level role and with a container level role for each container such as Workspace, Address Book, Service Portfolio and so on, where the user is permitted to view information or perform actions.
• You can define a portal for each system level role, which is presented at login, unless the user goes directly to the URL for a particular portal.
  In the following example, to provide two completely different interfaces for two kinds of customers such as Eastern Customer and Western Customer, you should create two portals and two system level customer roles.

1. To create consoles with useful information for your customers, navigate to Administration > Portal Management > Consoles.
2. Create two portals - Portal for Eastern Customers and Portal for Western Customers.Navigate to Administration > Portal Management > Portals.
3. Create two system level customer roles: 'Eastern Customer System Role' and 'Western Customer System Role'.
   Define an appropriate portal for each. Navigate to Administration > User Management > Roles > (role).
   The following image demonstrates creation of role.
   
4. Create a user and select one of the system level roles that you just created.
   The following image demonstrated selection of system level role. Navigate to Administration > User Management > Users > (user).
   
5. The selected portal will be the default for user. This portal will be opened when the user logs in. The user may change to any other portal from the More menu, since all portals are available for all users. However, it is limited by their role and permission settings.
   For example, a Customer user may not be able to view anything in the Administration console of a portal.

Mapping FootPrints version 11.0 customer portal options to FootPrints version 12.0

• Login Method and Browse Mode
  • You can define Login Method and Browse Mode under the Customer Interface section of Customer Options in FootPrints version 11.0. Navigate to Administration > Workspaces > Customer Options.
    The following image shows Login Method and Browse Mode under the Customer Interface section.
    
  • You may also need to configure Primary Key Options, if the primary key is an email field type.
    
  • In FootPrints version 12.0, you can define whether anonymous access is allowed to a portal. Navigate to Administration > Portal Management > Portals > (portal).
    
  • When a user browses a portal anonymously, the system uses permissions for a system level Guest role and the Portal Guest role that exists in each container.
    Note that not all containers have a Portal Guest role.
  • For example, if a portal with allowed anonymous access has a console for a knowledge base, then an anonymous user is allowed to browse the knowledge base and perform actions according to permissions defined for the Portal Guest for this knowledge base.
    If anonymous access is not allowed, then Customer or Agent users should specify the login and password credentials defined in their profiles, when logging into the system.
  • Footprints version 12.0, does not support address book primary key options for login for a Customer user, and it does not support shared accounts for Customer users.
• General Settings
  • In FootPrints version 11.0, General Settings under Customer Options define color, logo, and entry point. Navigate to Administration > Workspaces > Customer Options.
    The following image shows General Settings under Customer Options. 
    
  • In FootPrints version 12.0, you should define a theme for your portal and upload a logo. Navigate to Administration > Portal Management > Portals > (portal).
    The system generates a URL to access the portal.
    
• Workspace menu
  • In FootPrints version 11.0, if the customer users belongs to multiple workspaces, you can present the users with a drop-down menu to choose a workspace from available workspaces.
    Enable this option in the user's default workspace, if you want the drop down menu to appear.
  • In FootPrints version 12.0, there is no concept of the 'current workspace'. You can present the user with data from his workspace as configured on the console. The user can view tickets from several workspaces in one list as a result of a saved search or on All Items view and create tickets of different types from the same page.
    The FootPrints version 11.0 Workspace menu does not apply to FootPrints version 12.0.
• Customer Fields Displayed and Ordering
  • In FootPrints version 11.0, you can use the Customer Fields Displayed and Ordering settings to choose the columns displayed on the customer user's homepage lists of requests and lists of solutions. Navigate to Administration > Workspace > Customer Options.
    
  • In FootPrints version 12.0, Item Fields, Saved Searches and Field Permissions capabilities should be used for customer user's homepage lists of requests and lists of solutions.
  • Each console has a Views area which may contain lists of records displayed in tables. These lists may represent data for all records from containers of a particular type (All Items view) or records returned by a saved search (Saved Search view) that are accessible by the user.
  • A column is displayed in an All Items table, if a corresponding field has the View in List property selected, as shown in the example below from FootPrints version 12.0. Navigate to Administration > Service Portfolios > (service portfolio) > Record Definitions > (service) > Fields.
    
  • Field maintenance in FootPrints version 12.0 is identical across all kinds of items such as tickets, solutions, services, and contacts, in all types of containers such as workspaces, knowledge bases, service portfolios, and address books.
    In comparison, FootPrints version 11.0, uses different administrative interfaces depending on the type of record such as ticket, contact, and solution as well as the type of container such as workspace, address book, and knowledge base.
  • You can see a column in a saved search's results, if a corresponding field is chosen in the Display Fields section of the search. Navigate to Home > Manage Searches > (search) > Display Fields.
    
  • You should set the field's permission to View or Edit for a user's container level role, to let a user see a field's content. Navigate to Administration > User Management > Roles > (container level role) > Field Permissions.