Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

[Easy I.T.]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

I would like to see:

Ability for automated client notifications for when a ticket is opened, updated or closed.

Better permissions on web users - Normal users should only be able to see their OWN tickets not everyone in the company.

I would like to see the way contracts are handled improved - (our PSA should help us automate things - I hate having to manually do this each month).

Ticketing -I would like to see maybe a "ticket conversation" added (at the least - or a complete overhaul) or something. Basically instead of emailing the client from our outlook - would like to email from CommitCRM and it go into the ticket conversation, then if client replies - it adds it to the thread - thread should be one page that can be easily read/scrolled - instead of needing to open multiple history notes/docs. (this way it is much easier for other techs to see what has been done/communication has happened so far)
With charges in the tickets - if I have 5 seperate charges - I have to go into each to get a full understanding. Sure it gives a brief one line description. But wouldnt it be better to have all this information in one page that I could just scroll (or maybe the option to have that view instead of individual)

Ability for SLA's to be defined and monitored / alerted if about to break - This is an important one

Dashboard - with real information - How many tickets are opened, how many are over due etc...

Client Executive Reports - with ability to automate - This has already been mentioned but add another request :)

Scheduler - Ability to schedule automated reports and email them - Eg Warranty/License Expiration (Antivirus etc)

Knowledgebase - ability to have a public knowledgebase - would be good to be able to send client link to KB article and them not have to log in etc.

Anyway thats my probably pretty big ask... whats others thoughts in these?

[midnightblue]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

We have a simple request. We would like to be able to set the ticket priority on the initial screen instead of having to create the ticket and then go back and adjust the priority. This would save steps.

[wtbservices]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

I have been reading through the suggestions and most of them can be boiled down to two weak areas inCommitCRM.

1. Automation. There isn't much automation in CommitCRM in that nearly everything requires a person to do it. People get busy and forget so things don't get done and we look bad to the customer. Many if not most of us have recurring jobs that we perform monthly or weekly for clients. The concept of copy an old contract or copy an old ticket is just fine when you are dealing with a handful of contracts but what happens when you have hundreds of contracts, tickets, appointments and tasks that occur regularly every month throughout the month. Activity templates help but you are still paying someone to sit there and apply activity templates. I have to enter them in Outlook as recurring tasks to remind me to copy a contract or a ticket or apply an Activity template. Why doesn't CommitCRM do this automatically?

2. Situational Awareness. Business owners, service managers and techs all need to know what is going on. To get all the information you need you have to jump all around the application. To get an idea of what's going on today you have to check the tickets screen, check the calendar, check the messages, pull up Quickbooks link, check the dispatcher, and check the opportunities. The home screen was a bit of a disappointment, I was expecting a dashboard that consolidated all of this information similar to the way the Outlook Today screen does in Outlook. Instead we got a static workflow picture telling us what we already know.

[Support Team]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

Hi wtbservices,

Thanks for your feedback on this forum thread. I just wanted to point out a few updates regarding the automation part:

1) You have mentioned the Activity Templates feature, which was introduced with version 5.0. This feature allows you to define a set of activities (tasks, appointments and tickets), and apply them to different parts of the system. When you wish to use the templates for recurring activities which are created automatically each month, you can assign a template to a Contract by linking it in the Contract's Details tab > "Linked Activity Template" field. This will automatically apply the activities whenever you copy/renew this contract. That's a great way to implement recurring tasks, appointments and tickets automatically.

2) While we are at it - The Contracts copy/renewal can be much more automated if you use the "Batch Copy Wizard" (via the Contract's menu). This wizard displays all contracts which are about to expire in a given date range, and let's you copy/renew all of the contracts at once. This way, you do not need reminders for specific contracts, you just run the wizard, and it already shows you which contracts need to be renewed. As said, while copying all of these contracts, this will also apply and copy the activity templates which are linked to the contracts.

You can find some more useful information on copying contracts and automatically renewing them in the billing user guide here.

I hope this makes more sense now.

As for the Dashboard - this feature is indeed becoming a popular one, and I hope we will be able to address this soon.

Thanks,

Ethan

[Johnathan.Erwich]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

There are a couple of options I would like to see incorporated, mostly small stuff but would make life very easy - I am still using 5.1 so please feel free to correct if these have been added in 5.2.

Ability to span calls over multiple days - some of our work starts at 11pm and finishes at 2pm it would be nice to do on one labour charge rather than 2.
When adding Notes to clients, tickets, etc. to have header identifing the user, time and date stamp of the user making that change - or better still (would take more time in development) displaying them as separate entries i.e. like under the tickets, assets, history tabs.

More to come in the future......

[Support Team]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

Hi Jonathan, thanks for posting your requests here.

I'd like to refer to these points below, and perhaps offer some helpful tips:

1) When adding charges which span over midnight, the system intentionally requires that you split this into two charge. There are many reasons for this, for example, how a multi date charge should be handled when it related to Contracts that expires on this day (and the new day is not covered by the Contract)? To what date do we need to consider this work when printing employee activities reports when it spans on different weeks or months? There are many other questions/issues that this may cause, and the system currently lets the user make these decisions manually.

What you should do is create two separate charges, one for each day (on until 11:59, and one from 12:01). Note that you can create the first charge, and then copy it and change the hour. It is very easy to copy a Charge record to the next one by right-clicking thecharge and selecting the Copy option. All the charge details will already be selected including the Account, Ticket, Contract, description etc.

2) As you mentioned, when adding History Notes this actually keeps for each entry the person who added the note, the date and the time. This is very useful and I think perhaps you should use the history notes option rather than just update the Notes field in order to document your activity.



BTW, this is the new history view which was introduced in version 5.2...

I hope this helps.

Sheli

[Johnathan.Erwich]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

Sheli,

Thanks for the reply, in 5.1 the Notes I setup for a client doesn't show in the History Tab, secondly does the Note attached to a ticket show up in the same place??

[Support Team]

Re: Feature Poll - Let's Vote!

Hi Jonathan,

In previous version the History Notes also appear, they just have a different format. Note that you need to explicitly add a History Note (rather than just update the Notes field).


As for notes attached to tickets - yes, they also appear in the Account History tab, just make sure to click the "Detail" checkbox in order to view detailed account history, including history linked to tickets, assets, etc.

I hope this helps.

Sheli