Biking around New Orleans
Today we bike all around New Orleans and took the ferry across the Mississippi to bike on levees across the river.
| Web+Center Project bidding, customer authorization and customer invoicing |
Overview
- The Web+Center suite of applications can provide all of the business tools necessary to process a customer support request into a billable/quotable project which can be approved by the customer and eventually invoiced. The various steps and functions of Web+Center to perform this kind of work flow are outlined below.
Step 1:
Customer submits a support request ticket using the Customer+Center interface. In this ticket, they will define the particular project. Some interation may occur between the customer and tech to clearly define the scope of the project.
Figure 1 – Original Customer+Center case form defining original project
Step 2:
- Tech support reviews the work order request and clarifies the scope of the project with the customer. A time and cost estimate is then entered in the Extended Time Spent Billing area of the Tech+Center case form.
Figure 2 – Extended Time/Spent form area in Tech+Center case form.
Step 3:
- As part of the customer update notification email, the Customer+Center ticket provides an option to approve and/or comment on the work estimate. This approval process allows the logged in customer to authorize work to be completed, and this authorization is placed into the case history record for that support case. A special customer setting must be set for the customer to have the Time Spent and authorization button and form appear on the customer support ticket and notification messages. This setting is configured in the customer edit form in the Tech+Center application with the Time and Billing Record option. It should be set to Customer Authorize and Tech View. System wide settings for this feature can be customized by editing the codecustomizations.inc file in the language directory.
Figure 3 – Options in the customer record to define whether the time spent information is displayed for the customer.Once the customer clicks on the Login link on the email notification, the Customer+Center case page outlines the Time and cost estimate and options to approve (sign and date) the work estimate. The customer can approve (digitally sign), date, and notate the estimated time and costs. This approval by the customer is then entered into the case history record for documentation.
Figure 4 – Customer+Center case form display the time spent billing information with button to Authorize work.
Figure 5 – Authorization Pop up with options to sign, date and add any notes
Step 4:
- Once the customer approves the time and cost estimate, the work can be completed by the technician and the case closed. An payable invoice can then be created in the Business+Center for the time spent information entered into the Tech+Center case form.
To create the invoice from the Extended Time Spent Billing Information:
- Navigate to Business+Center from the Tech+Center by clicking on the Business+Center button
- Click on the Invoices button
- Click on the Create New Invoices from Time Spent Records
- Enter the desired date and billing grouping options
- Check which invoices you want to create and press the Submit button.
Figure 6 – Creating invoice in Business+Center from Extended Time Spent Records
Step 5:
- Review the invoice and add any addditional cost/quantity to the invoice before emailing the invoice to the customer. The invoice business address and logo that is sent out with the email invoice can be customized.
The whole layout of the invoice is defined in an include file called PrintInvoiceTemplate.inc located in the Language directory. This file is designed to be customized for your particular business requirements. Any HTML or other customizations will be changed for both the print invoice option and the invoice that is emailed.
In the upper left hand corner of the invoice is your business or organization or “Bill To” address. This remit address must be configured by editing the PrintInvoiceTemplate.inc file in the language directory.
Figure 7 View of printable or emailed HTML invoice.
Also, the invoice contains a default company graphical logo that is designed to be replaced with your own graphic. The file called InvoiceLogo.jpg located in the language subdirectory should be replaced with your own graphical logo file. To fit the layout of the invoice page, it should be similar dimensions of 300 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall.
Step 6:
Once the invoice is in the system, you can run other accounting and billing reports by customer and company to provide various accounting functions. Clicking on the summary link after a customer search in the Tech+Center or Business+Center will provide information about all cases and invoices associated with that customer.
Conclusions:
The steps above demonstrate a very simple, single work order/extended time spent billing project and invoice. Using the new Web+Center Version 7.5 Project features, you can handle larger projects with multiple tickets, each containing multiple time spent and hourly estimates and approvals. Please contact Internet Software Sciences if you have additional questions on how to more effectively use Web+Center to handle more of your business processes.
I recently came across an article by Lauren Carlson from Software Advice about the problems of help desk support retention. There is often little positive feedback for technicians servicing clients. Several years ago we added some features into our software that could report the weekly, and monthly “Top Tech” in terms of the amount of time spent servicing clients.
The article linked below has some similar ideas to provide some healthy and competitive ideas into the help desk software.
http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/crm/gamification-preventing-support-agent-burnout-1022112/
New Version 7.5 Features
New Web+Center 7.5 features
Web+Center version 7.5 includes new functionality in the area of Asset Management and Project Management. Listed below are some of the details and screen shots of these new features.
Asset Management
Some final changes are being made to Web+Center Version 7.5 Beta. This version has several new features that are helpful for the next area of automation that is sorely needed at most companies and organizations – Asset management and inspections.
Companies today allocate significant resources to purchase new computer equipment, but barely have time to document their assets in an efficient way that could be used for tracking those resources and planning future upgrades and repairs. Most organizations have a simple Excel spreadsheet file listing computers and resources which does not allow for notes or support issues that can be tracked in a multi-user environment against that asset.
Web+Center has offered an asset management tool for several versions, but version 7.5 has additional features that allow for:
- Configurable Asset “Categories” in addition to simple text box fields
- Options to attach files to asset records and send asset information emails
- Asset Search options to create brief, detailed, and report views to export results or to Excel/CVS files.
- The search result screen displays numbers of support cases associated with that asset
- Ability to create an Asset Search report URL query which can be saved and emailed to other users
- Enhanced field audit feature to record and log any changes to the asset fields
Asset Search Page showing Results View Options
Asset Search – Report View showing results and email able URL Asset Query
Project Management
In addition to asset management and asset inspections enhancements, the project management features allows one to use Web+Center to track, budget, and manage larger projects that contains a collection of cases, each with billable hours and expenses. The best way to test this new feature is to go to our on-line demo version and log into the Tech+Center Application and click on the “Projects” button in the button panel.
Project Resource Reporting Page
Case billable time and new expenses features
Test On-line Version 7.5 Beta
You can test version 7.5 on line or it can be downloadedfor installation on your own servers. Once it has turned production, upgrade scripts will be available to licensed customers who have an current support renewal contract.
- Tech+Center Application
- Customer+Center Application
- Business+Center Application
- Reservation+Center Application
- Pocket+Center Application
Purchasing Help Desk/CRM software with Knowledge!
I recently came across an article with some information on software selection that should be helpful to organizations looking to purchase Help Desk/CRM/Facilities management software. This article can be found on the Software Advice website.
Help Desk For the Holidays
IÂ recently came across a good article about the importance of an efficient Help Desk process and associated software to provide valuable customer support, especially during the holidays when new products are in the hands of customers who want support for their new gift items.
Check out the article at:
Web+Center Help Desk Suite Screen Shots
Web+Center
Screen Shots
The Web+Center suite is a suite of 5 web-based applications including:
- Tech+Center – Tech Help Desk Application
- Customer+Center – Customer Self Help Application
- Business+Center – Sales/CRM Application
- Pocket+Center – Mobile Device Interface (iPhones, web-enabled phones for Techs)
- Reservation+Center – Admin login for Reservation System
The screen shots below give a quick view of each of the 5 applications that Web+Center suite.
Support Staff / Tech+Center Login screen
Web+Center Asset Management Options (Tech+Center)
Integrated group calendar functions and scheduling and integration with Outlook (Tech+Center)
Define and organize multiple customers within companies or organizational groups (Tech+Center)
Extensive web-based configuration options for configuring help desk
Support Ticket inside of Tech+Center
Sample report available for analysis of Help Desk Operations (Tech+Center)
Configurable Customer (Customer+Center) Portal
Customer+Center Support Ticket page (Customer+Center)
Menu page for Pocket+Center / Tech Interface for Mobile Devices (Pocket+Center)
Business+Center integrated invoicing and accounting module for IT organizations that bill customers for services (Business+Center)
Support Ticket inside of Tech+Center (Tech+Center)
FREE Remote Control Crossloop Utility bundled with Web+Center suite
Complete reservation application for reserving of assets and resources (Reservation+Center)
Installing Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) causes Web+Center and other 32 bit IIS web applications to fail
| Installing Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) causes Web+Center and other 32 bit IIS web applications to fail |
| OVERVIEW The Problem Microsoft is now offering a fairly new product called Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) . If this application is installed on a 64 bit web server that is running the IIS web server in 32 bit mode, your web applications will report a 500.19 Server error messages (shown below) that is not helpful for debugging why all your web applications are now failing, including Web+Center! This is a known problem with WSUS but it still appears that the current installation of WSUS still creates this problem and it has not yet been addressed and fixed by Microsoft. (As of October 25, 2010).
The requested page cannot be accessed because the related configuration data for the page is invalid. Detailed Error InformationModule DynamicCompressionModule Notification SendResponse Handler StaticFile Error Code 0x8007007e Requested URL http://helpdesk:80/ Physical Path C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Software Sciences\Web+Center 6.0\CustomerCenter Logon Method Anonymous Logon User Anonymous Most likely causes: The worker process is unable to read the applicationhost.config or web.config file. There is malformed XML in the applicationhost.config or web.config file. The server cannot access the applicationhost.config or web.config file because of incorrect NTFS permissions. Things you can try: Look in the event logs for information about why the configuration files are not readable. Make sure the user identity specified for the application pool, or the authenticated user, has the required permissions to access the web.config file. Links and More InformationThis error occurs when there is a problem reading the configuration file for the Web server or Web application. In some cases, the event logs may contain more information about what caused this error. The Solutions (2) In researching this problem, we found several articles that identify the problem and listed a solution by inserting this matching suscomp.dll compression library into your C:\windows\SYSWOW64\ directory.Internet Software Sciences has not tested these various fixes listed in the articles below and can only recommend you carefully review the articles and decide upon a strategy if you wish to host both WSUS and 32 bit IIS applications on the same web server. Related Article Links |
| How to configure the Web+Center File Attachment feature for Techs and Customers |
OVERVIEW
Web+Center versions 5.0 and 6.0 both support the ability for customers and technicians to attach a file to a case and append it as a link in the support case so both Technicians and Customers can share files. The configuration of this feature requires a few steps and by default, this feature is disabled with the out-of-box configuration. The steps below outline to how to enable and configure this feature and change a Microsoft system setting that prevents files larger than 210K from being properly downloaded. The configuration steps for this feature are also located in the end of Web+Center 6.0 User Guide system configuration chapter.
Steps to Configuring Web+Center File Attachment feature
Configuration steps on the Web Server
- On the Web server, first create a physical file directory on the web server where you plan to have the files downloaded to. The downloaded files are stored in the physical file structure and not in the database but links are to the files are appended to the case histories for sharing of the files. We recommend the path of “c:\wcfiledownloads” but it can be any directory. This directory should be added as part of your daily/weekly backup for your help desk system.
- Set the file security permissions for that file directory to EVERYONE full control and no other users.
- Create an IIS virtual directory that points to that file directory. We recommend the virtual directory name of “wcfiledownloads” but it can be named to any name which will be used later.
- Important – Set the application permission settings for this virtual directory to READ only. Do not allow script or execute permissions. This allows files to downloaded and read/shared (.exe, dll, docs, PDF, log, etc) without the downloaded file running on the server.
- NOTE: A reboot of the entire web server maybe required to properly set all of the Access Control Lists (ACL) for the file security permission directories.
Configuration Steps inside of the Web+Center Application
- Log into the Tech+Center application with Configurator level permissions.
- Click on the Administration button in the button panel.
- Click on System Configuration Menu link.
- Click on the Other Configuration link.
- Under the File Upload Options check which application (Tech+Center or Customer+Center) to enable file upload
- Enter a physical file path on the webserver that you created previously (Example: c:\wcfiledownloads )
- Enter the File Upload virtual directory you defined above (Example: wcfiledownloads)
- Enable file renaming based on case number. (Recommended) This will rename the file like Error.Log to a file name like C1023-Error.log when associated with Case number 1023. This prevent similar named files from overwriting each other.
- Select the maximum File size in bytes or enter 0 to allow any file size.
- Press the Submit Button.
Changes to Microsoft System settings to allow files greater than 210K to be downloaded
- To allow files greater than 210K in size to be downloaded, a Microsoft system related setting must be modified. Follow the specific set of instructions below for either IIS 6.0 or IIS 7.0
- For IIS Web Servers Version 6.0
* Make a backup of the c:\windows\system32\inetsvr\metabase.xml
* You will probably need to stop the IIS admin service before it will let you save this file.
* Edit metabase.xml (with note pad or other text editor)l (Note: you may need to first check “Allow direct editing of Metabase file” in the IIS settings).
* Find the line “AspMaxRequestEntityAllowed” and change the value to “10485760”. (10 MBytes)
This allows IIS to create ASP objects that can be up to 10MB in size.——-
- For IIS Web Servers Version 7.0
*Click on the default website, and then selecting the ASP limits /properities and then you will find the Limit Max Body entity and increase this from 200,000 to a larger value (10485760) as needed.
Using the File Attachment feature for Customer+Center and Tech+Center
- On the Customer+Center page, there will be a link to allow customers to attach a file to the case once the ticket has been initially created and a case number exists. This initial step is required since the files are renamed based on case number.
- On the Tech+Center application, a file attach icon will appear in the upper right hand corner of the case form. Click on this icon to attach a file to the case. Multiple files can be attached to the case, one file at a time with each submit.
| Enabling IIS 7.0 ASP error messages for Web+Center customizations and debugging |
OVERVIEW
If you start to customize Web+Center, you will most likely create an ASP error sometime during development and debug cycle of your code customizations. The Active Server Page (ASP) scripting language is a very easy and quick development language and the error messages provides by ASP environment point you quickly to the error by displaying the particular module name, line number and error type of the programming error.
If you are editing the ASP scripts with an text editor that has line numbers (like TextPad from http://www.Textpad.com, one can quickly go to that line number and debug and correct the issue and continue with your development/debugging process. With IIS 7.0, the error messages are replaced by default with a generic “An error occureed on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator” To re-enable the full ASP error message, follow the steps below on your webserver machine.
- Launch IIS Manager and navigate to the website that you want to enable or disable ASP error messages.
- Scroll down to the IIS section and double click on the ASP icon
- In the list of ASP features, change the Send Errors To Browser to True from False
- Click Apply and restart the web server.
Web+Center Blog 