Transcript:
When it comes to customers, you can share an entire project, or you can share an individual item. Sharing with customers enables you to communicate or collaborate.
Let’s head to the detail panel of a task and talk about how sharing an individual item works. Double click on the task. On the left side we can see who is following this task. You could add a customer as the requester of this task. Now any ‘customer replies’, that is public messages, will also be sent to the customer we added. This is a good option if you are performing a task for a customer and want to communicate with them while performing that work. Depending on your customer portal settings they can also view this task from the portal. Keep in mind if there are any past ‘customer replies’ and you send a new message in that conversation, the customer will receive any past messages, so be careful when it comes to adding multiple customers to an individual item.
You can share a project with a customer or customer organization by adding them as followers. This allows your customers to view and collaborate on their requested tickets or tasks in the customer portal. You can share a project by clicking on the project-level selector here. Then selecting the share icon and tabbing to customers.
Select the customer or org you want to share with. Add the org will share the project with everyone grouped within. You can see who is following a project in a few ways.
One, from the sharing window we were just in. Two you can open up the project detail panel and see who is following. Or three, you can go to the Customers app on the left side panel. Open up the customer or organization’s detail panel to see which projects are currently shared with that customer or organization.
Now what does sharing a project with a customer do? Well a few things. One customer will receive new messages posted on a project. If you go back to your project detail panel you’’ notice the ability to create conversation on projects. If I create a new customer reply the customer will receive this to their email. This of course applies to any automated customer replies as well that are running on projects. This can be used to inform a customer about the progress of a project that you may be working on with them.
The second benefit of sharing projects is that customers will be able to view all items contained in that project from the customer portal. However this does depend on your portal settings. To configure the settings on your customer apps, first click on More Applications, select the Administration icon, then click on the Portal. Here, you are able to determine what your customers can view when logged into the portal.
You can select if they are able to see only their requested items, items requested by those in their organization, and more. So if I want the customer I added to the project to see all items in that project I can select this option, ‘Items in the projects they are following’. You are also able to determine what features and properties are displayed on the tickets or tasks that your customers are able to view. Simply check and uncheck to determine the visibility of these features and properties.
Let us know if you have any questions about sharing by reaching out through live chat or support at onedesk.com