V4.2 Feature Preview: Sub-Accounts

[Matt]

V4.2 Feature Preview: Sub-Accounts

 

As the beta testing commences on 4.2 amongst a closed group of testers, I thought we should take a moment to preview some of the features that have been introduced in V4.2. In this post we'll be previewing the new Sub-Accounts feature.

 

What are Sub-Accounts?

 

An extension of the Contacts feature, Sub-Accounts allow clients to create sub-users under their main account, which then allows that contact to login, and carry out various actions that the main account holder has permitted them to.

 

We call the primary login the master account owner, and any users they create under their account Sub-Accounts.

 

Why would a client use them?

 

Each section of the client area has it's own permission so the access rights can be fine tuned by the master account holder (and any sub-accounts given permissions to manage contacts) to create different logins for different purposes.

 

Just a couple of examples where this might be useful are:

 

• Billing Department - corporate users may have a dedicated billing department who should be given access to pay invoices and place new orders while the web/technical staff would only be given access to view current products & services and submit support requests, which was previously impossible
  
• Web Developers - a customer hosting with you may be employing a web developer to build and maintain their website so might want to give that developer access to create tickets and correspond on their behalf, without being able to access any billing information or change account details
  

The screenshot below shows the setup options for a Sub-Account:

 

 

As before there's also the email preferences for a contact so the user can also choose which emails the contact should receive.

 

Admin staff can also view and add/edit sub-account permissions for any contacts created under the users profile from the admin side.

 

How do Support Tickets work with them?

 

If a sub-account user opens a support ticket, then they will be CC'd any replies relating to that ticket by email along with the master account holder. Contacts can also open tickets simply by emailing if piping is enabled, and the emails from them will be automatically collected and assigned to the master client account.

 

One contact user will not receive email updates about the tickets submitted by another contact, but they can still view all the tickets belonging to the master account holder when logging in.

 

What does the Sub-Account user see?

 

When the sub-account user logs in, they see exactly the same client area that the master account owner would see, albeit they can't view areas that they don't have permissions to access.

 

The screenshot below shows the error page which is shown if a Sub-Account user tries to access an area that they don't have permission for. Rather than simply dead-ending them with an access denied error it gives them an explanation of what areas they can access and what to do in the case they think this is incorrect. A small personalisation touch is the welcome message at the top right of the screen which will show the sub-account users own name, while the account info at the bottom right shows the master account info they are a member of.

 

 

In the next preview, we'll be looking at the ways in which we've expanded and enhanced your opportunities for collecting payments - as I'm sure you'll agree, always a high priority!

 

Matt