KB: Managing your Sub-Contractors’ Work: Difference between revisions

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==Introduction==
==Introduction==
Many businesses hire sub-contractors for many reasons. Managing tickets, appointments, tasks, and charges through your sub-contractors are very important tasks, since you need to keep logs and possible report on these tasks to your customer. This article provides some guidelines on how to work with and track sub-contractors you work with in CommitCRM.  
Many businesses hire subcontractors for many reasons. Managing tickets, appointments, tasks, and charges through your subcontractors is required so you can keep log about these activities. This article provides some guidelines on how to work with and track subcontractors you work with in RangerMSP.


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==Working With sub-contractors==
==Working With Subcontractors==
Working with contractors can be done in two possible ways:
Working with subcontractors in RangerMSP is best achieved by defining subcontractors as restricted employees in RangerMSP and letting them access via RangerMSP Web Interface. Alternatively, you can let subcontractors access the system using a Customer Web User via the Customers Web Portal.
#Let sub-contractors access the system with a restricted employee user, or
#Let sub-contractors access the system via the Customers Web portal.


Using an Employee Account for your contractor will require an Active Employee License for as long as the sub-contractors is marked Active in the system, while using the Commit Web Interface for Customers will allow you to manage your sub-contractors without using a license; however, this method does not offer the same level of management you would get with using an Employee Account for each contractor.
===Managing Subcontractors as Employees===
When working with subcontractors as Employees, you can restrict their access to only specific Accounts and restrict what they can do in the system. See more details about the official way to manage subcontractors in [[Subcontractors]].


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Benefits of managing your subcontractors as employees:
===Working with sub-contractors As Employees===
# Your subcontractors can log their own work directly into the system. This includes Charges, History Notes, Appointments, Tasks, etc.
If you wish to assign tasks to a subcontractor, dispatch them to different customers jobs and manage their work separately, you can go about this by adding the subcontractor as an employee. Managing sub-contractors as employees provides the most complete solution. You can restrict the privileges for this employee to be very limited, allow them to view only their own tickets, etc. so they will be able to login to the system (even via the Web Interface only) and see their jobs.  
# Subcontractor work is automatically included in RangerMSP Reports such as Time reports, Charge reports and Activity reports.  
# Recycle Active Employee Licenses when a subcontractor is not active.  
# Limit your subcontractor to only be able to log into the RangerMSP Web Interface for Employees, see only specific Accounts and access only their own Tickets.


Please note that managing sub-contractors as Employees takes up an Active Employee License for each active subcontractor.
[[Subcontractors|Read more about managing Subcontractors using Employee licenses]].


The benefits of managing your sub-contractors as employees are as follows:
Although using employees as your subcontractor is the recommended way to go about it, note that this requires an employee license per active subcontractor. If you want to avoid adding more employee licenses, you may consider an alternative way for working with subcontractors by letting them access the system as '''customers via the Customers Web portal'''. This alternative is limited and requires more manual management on your side; however, you may find it useful for your needs
#Your sub-contractors can log their own work in the system. This includes Charges, History Notes, Appointments, Tasks, etc.
#Generating different CommitCRM Reports that monitor your sub-contractors work statistics; such as Time reports, Charge reports and Activity reports.
#Recycling Active Employee Licenses to make room for new sub-contractors, once older sub-contractors aren’t receiving work from you.
#Limiting your subcontractor to only be able to log into the Commit Web Interface for Employees.
 
Note:
The current users restrictions (via File > Users & Privileges) allow you to restrict employees from accessing the complete account list, so they won't be able to see all the account details, however, they will be able to see the account list (without details) when they open a ticket, and select the account to be linked to the ticket, so you should consider whether this solution fits your needs. You can find more information and suggestions on this topic in [http://www.commitcrm.com/forum/showthread.php?t=819 this link] (see questions #1 and #6).


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===Managing Subcontractors as Customer Web Users===
Working with subcontractors as customers via the Web Portal is an alternative way to manage subcontractors. Subcontractors logging into as customers via the Web Portal can create new tickets and update existing tickets; however, they don't have access to all information and they can only update some Ticket details and add History Notes.
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Using this method not as complete as managing your subcontractors as an Employees, since the subcontractor will not be able to resolve tasks or appointments, add Charges, close Tickets, and so on. However, it does not require additional Active Employee Licenses, so you can manage many active subcontractors simply by adding Customer Web Users for them.
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As customer Web users subcontractors can create Tickets and update the Tickets details, or add History Notes. It is then your responsibility to actually close the ticket when appropriate (which is not a bad idea since this way you have close supervision over their Tickets), and add the Charges for their work.
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'''Adding Charges from History Notes'''
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Once a subcontractor adds a History Note to update work performed for a Ticket, it is easy to convert the History Notes into a charge by opening the ''History Note > Clicking Go Advanced > More Actions > New Labor Charge from History Note''. This way, all the text entered in the History Note gets copied to the new charge that has been created.
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===As Customer Web Users===
You can read more about tracking subcontractors as customer Web user in [[KB:_Logging_sub-contractors'_work|Logging Subcontractors' Work]].
The Second option is letting sub-contractors access the system using Commit Web Interface for Customers. Customers’ Web users in CommitCRM can create new tickets, and update existing tickets; however, when using this method, you’ll need to create a new set of customer Web user credentials for each customer account that you want your subcontractor to have access to.
 
Using this method is less ideal than managing your subcontractor as an employee, since the subcontractor will not be able to resolve tasks or appointments; however, this method does allow for new history notes to be created, and does not require the use of an Active Employee License, so you can keep as many active sub-contractors as you like.
 
You can let your sub-contractors open the tickets and update the status by using history notes; however, it will be your responsibility to actually close the ticket when appropriate, which is not a bad idea since most sub-contractors work is kept under supervision by the business that he is working for. Since your subcontractor will need to log in to the system with different credentials for each customer account he uses, making this a less flexible option. However, using this method, you can be sure that your customers see everything logged by the subcontractor.
 
Once the subcontractor has completed his work at a customers site, you will be able to easily convert the history notes entered by the subcontractor into a charge to bill the customer by '''opening the history note > Clicking Go Advanced > More Actions > New Labor Charge from History Note'''. This way, all the logged information in the history note gets copied to the new charge that has been created.
 
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==See Also==
==See Also==
[[KB:_Logging_sub-contractors_work|Logging sub-contractors Work]]
[[KB:_Logging_sub-contractors'_work|Logging sub-contractors Work]]
[[Category:KB|Sub-contractors]]
[[Category:KB|Sub-contractors]]

Latest revision as of 12:41, 8 July 2020

Introduction

Many businesses hire subcontractors for many reasons. Managing tickets, appointments, tasks, and charges through your subcontractors is required so you can keep log about these activities. This article provides some guidelines on how to work with and track subcontractors you work with in RangerMSP.


Working With Subcontractors

Working with subcontractors in RangerMSP is best achieved by defining subcontractors as restricted employees in RangerMSP and letting them access via RangerMSP Web Interface. Alternatively, you can let subcontractors access the system using a Customer Web User via the Customers Web Portal.

Managing Subcontractors as Employees

When working with subcontractors as Employees, you can restrict their access to only specific Accounts and restrict what they can do in the system. See more details about the official way to manage subcontractors in Subcontractors.

Benefits of managing your subcontractors as employees:

  1. Your subcontractors can log their own work directly into the system. This includes Charges, History Notes, Appointments, Tasks, etc.
  2. Subcontractor work is automatically included in RangerMSP Reports such as Time reports, Charge reports and Activity reports.
  3. Recycle Active Employee Licenses when a subcontractor is not active.
  4. Limit your subcontractor to only be able to log into the RangerMSP Web Interface for Employees, see only specific Accounts and access only their own Tickets.

Read more about managing Subcontractors using Employee licenses.

Although using employees as your subcontractor is the recommended way to go about it, note that this requires an employee license per active subcontractor. If you want to avoid adding more employee licenses, you may consider an alternative way for working with subcontractors by letting them access the system as customers via the Customers Web portal. This alternative is limited and requires more manual management on your side; however, you may find it useful for your needs


Managing Subcontractors as Customer Web Users

Working with subcontractors as customers via the Web Portal is an alternative way to manage subcontractors. Subcontractors logging into as customers via the Web Portal can create new tickets and update existing tickets; however, they don't have access to all information and they can only update some Ticket details and add History Notes.

Using this method not as complete as managing your subcontractors as an Employees, since the subcontractor will not be able to resolve tasks or appointments, add Charges, close Tickets, and so on. However, it does not require additional Active Employee Licenses, so you can manage many active subcontractors simply by adding Customer Web Users for them.

As customer Web users subcontractors can create Tickets and update the Tickets details, or add History Notes. It is then your responsibility to actually close the ticket when appropriate (which is not a bad idea since this way you have close supervision over their Tickets), and add the Charges for their work.

Adding Charges from History Notes
Once a subcontractor adds a History Note to update work performed for a Ticket, it is easy to convert the History Notes into a charge by opening the History Note > Clicking Go Advanced > More Actions > New Labor Charge from History Note. This way, all the text entered in the History Note gets copied to the new charge that has been created.

You can read more about tracking subcontractors as customer Web user in Logging Subcontractors' Work.

See Also

Logging sub-contractors Work