As any support staff member knows, customers raise support tickets for various queries. Many times, those queries are repetitive. This is where efficient ticket management comes into the picture. There are a number of ways to handle it. But the easiest way to handle it is to have a smart ticket management feature built into the customer portal.

Let’s explore the feature that is built into PowerApps’ Customer Self-Service portal.

Here’s how to manage 360° ticketing from the PowerApps portal:

Step 1: Your portal users can login using their portal user credentials in PowerApps Portal.

Step 2: From the Navigation Menu, they need to navigate to My Support. The Case list view will open from where they can see their cases. 

Users will search for a problem solution before generating any case, if they don’t find one, they will add a new case, edit existing case or remove case.

Step 3: To create a new case, they can click on Open a New Case.

User will also get a solution as a suggestion while typing the case title.

Similarly, if you opt for a third party solution over the default portal, you can get a robust ticketing management solution.

Step 1: Your portal users can login with their portal user credentials in Customer Portal.

Step 2: They need to navigate to the case module where they will be able to see the list of records of that module. They can search a record from the list view, delete it or update it.

They can also filter the existing contacts based on account and contact selection. It will allow them to filter and get details of specific child contacts. These hierarchy settings will be based on the hierarchy that is set by admin on the Dynamics CRM side. So the parent roles will be able to see the cases of their child roles.

Step 3: Your users can add a new record to that module. To add a new record, they need to click on the Add Case button from the list view or from the navigation menu by clicking on the Add button.

- This Customer Portal provides Case Deflection. This feature will help portal users to get probable solutions before generating any case.

- When a portal user faces any queries or issues, they will be able to navigate to Add Case option.

- Once they create a new case from the portal, it will get reflected in Dynamics CRM.

Step 3: By clicking on the View button from the List View, your users can view the details of a case. They can edit that case or add notes for particular cases from the detail view.

The purpose of tickets is to solve certain problems that a user is facing. But it should also be easy to do for the support staff. With features like case deflection, they can handle the issues that are new or unique instead of spending all their time on queries that already have a ready made solution. Whether you go with the default option or a third party portal solution, make sure to get one with a robust ticket management feature.

Not all third party portal solutions for Dynamics CRM are made the same. At the end of the day, their functionality and ease of use as well as features decide which one to use. CRMJetty’s Dynamics 365 WordPress Customer Portal has some particularly neat features. On top of that, it is simple to configure and use, for both the admin users and the end users. Let’s walk through the steps to configure advanced settings in their customer portal.

- Once the activation is successfully completed, navigate to the CRMJetty tile to access and setup various configuration for portal i.e. General Settings, Email Settings, Portal Layouts, Language Configuration and Roles.

Or

- For unified interface, navigate to Dynamics 365 – Custom and from the bottom menu select CRMJetty.

- To manage upgrades, we have upgraded a specific flow wherein if you have any older version of Customer Portal, then the Upgrade Data button will activate.

For upgrading data, navigate to ‘CRMJetty -> General Configuration and click on Upgrade Data button.

- By upgrading data, you can make your portal compatible with the latest version of the portal.

- For general settings, navigate to CRMJetty from the menu.

- Mention the URL of your WordPress Account (i.e. Portal URL) which will be sent along with the credentials mail and click on the Save button.

- Use Dropdown Caching to set up values of lookup fields (Related to other modules). Values displayed in lookup fields will remain old until it surpasses the time set here.

- By enabling the Change Role of Hierarchy, you can change the role of hierarchy i.e. if the role of any contact is updated or removed, it will be applied to the whole child hierarchy.

- By enabling the Change Account of Hierarchy, you can change the account of hierarchy i.e. if an account of any contact is updated or removed, it will be applied to the whole child hierarchy. If it is unticked, and the account is updated then it will work as a separate entity from the hierarchy.

- Admin can create any email template like Signup and Forgot Password template from CRM.

- From templates, the user gets the option to create New template and also select template type.

- Select email template type as Contact and create an email template filling the necessary details as per your requirement.

Note: Users can also assign default "Email templates" for various actions performed.

- For assigning the default email template navigate to CRMJetty -> Email Settings.

- Select appropriate email template and Save email settings.

- To manage the user roles, navigate to Settings -> Security -> Users.

- Now select the users whose roles are to be managed and click on Manage Roles. This will open up a pop up to select roles.

- To access CRMJetty product entities assign CRMJetty Customer Portal role to selected users.

Note: System Administrator will also be able to access CRMJetty Product Entities.

CRMJetty’s customer portal is thus one of the easiest one to navigate in the market. The portal market is huge, but you have to find one that fits your workflow, your customers and your staff.

This article is for business owners who have brick and mortar shops. You have already taken a big step opening a physical shop in a time where the ecommerce environment is dominant. You understand the value of face-to-face interaction with your customers. This helps you maintain a much more personal relationship with them.

The place where you interact with your customers the most is your point-of-sale station.

You can choose the hardware that is most convenient for you. It can be based on the number of devices/machines you need and where you want to place them. You can choose between a tablet and a computer/laptop. This hardware then defines certain aspects of how the software will function/or the interaction agent of the software: mouse or touch.

Now let’s look into a software that can help you better your POS station interaction: a retail portal that is a customer portal solution. Not only does it enhance your customer relationship, but such a portal can also provide greater visibility in multiple aspects like employee productivity, vendor management, customer communication, product sales, and whatnot.

In addition to the retail portal software, the POS system will have certain hardware modules to connect with like payment tools and a bill-printing device. But the foundation of this retail portal is your Dynamics CRM and your inventory management.

So let’s look at what all you can manage with a retail portal and how it can grow your business substantially:

- Payment Integration

- Customer Directory (for repeat customers)

- Employee Management

- Informative Dashboard

- Invoice Management

- Vendor Management

Payments are no longer limited to magstripe or EMV chip cards. Near-Field Communication or NFC technology in phones and smartwatches has enabled us to carry around virtual cards and money in our regular devices. Therefore, your POS system will require connections with NFC enabled payment terminals.

Hardware aside, the retail portal software will be able to create invoices and have your accounting specifics integrated. It will be able to accept payments via multiple payment gateways. Another useful function that it can have is coupons and promotions. You can apply a coupon code for discounts on the bills during discount campaigns.

With a CRM customer portal in the form of a retail portal, you can run a membership program for your customers. Members can get special benefits like priority supply and first access to sales, point collection credit and longer exchange and return periods. With a customer directory, you can also note down their frequent purchases, and product specifications. You can notify them once a product they want is back in stock. And the use cases are countless.

If you don’t want to have a membership program, you can use a customer directory for your walk-in customers as well. This can help you build future email campaigns and ad campaigns that can help you understand your customers and their needs. Targeted marketing begins when you know whom to target.

The retail portal can have an integrated employee management system. This way it can only unlock for employees. These systems can work as employee check-in, check out systems too. Another thing that you can track is, which employee was on duty when each item was sold. This makes it easier to check employee performance.

You can also assign role-based access to this portal to your employees. Everyone can have access to invoice generation, catalog management, inventory view access and modification rights to the customer directory. Whereas managerial employees can have rights to approve leaves, arrange shifts for other employees and create sales reports.

Since each employee has their own account, they can also have a personal dashboard for quick information. This dashboard will have details like their shift schedule, leaves, working hours, break hours, etc. Along with this, it will also have access to the customer directory and the inventory.

The inventory module on the dashboard lets them quickly check if a product is running low or if a perishable product is nearing its expiration date. The dashboard also has details like the products they have sold, the discount coupons they have offered and the invoices they have made.

With such an advanced system, it will be convenient to do away with paper invoices too. You can use the customer directory to email/SMS invoices directly to them and save a copy in their accounts on your CRM. Since this is a CRM customer portal, you can also give customers their own credentials, so they can see their purchase history and invoices.

While creating an invoice, the retail portal can show complementary items to the one that a customer is buying. This can help the employee at the desk to upsell or cross-sell items.

The retail portal can also act as a great tool for vendor management. When you see a dip in the stock of a certain product, you can simply send an alert to the vendor to restock your inventory. With the POS system being your connection with the purchases, you can also send sales reports to your vendors to share how their products are doing in the market. Such real-time and periodical feedback can help vendors make better decisions in terms of which store needs what amount of products and if they need to make any changes in their products.

Point-of-sale customer portal solutions go beyond writing up a bill now. It can aid you to build a better relationship with your customer and can make your busiest day easier to handle. Your employees will not call in sick for no reason and your customers will come back.

Elevate your store point-of-sale system from just a screen to your favorite employee with the integration of a retail version Dynamics 365 portal.

Admin level: 

• With your data and resources being managed online, redundant paper-work gets eliminated.

• Personnel management streamlines with faculties managing their schedules, classes, and grading work using Education portal.

• You get an overview of the institute’s financial status with the fees & receipt management system.

Admin Level benefits of Education Portal:

• Once an education portal is set up, it drastically cuts down on redundant tasks.

• Lecture rooms won’t be double-booked.

• Professors would not have a conflicting timetable, and neither would students.

• They can also manage the fee details of each student so that the portal alerts the students and their parents when the fee is due. 

Teaching Faculty:

Here’s how:

Steps to create Web Page & add form into web page:

• To let your customers avail Dynamics CRM modules from your WordPress portal, it is mandatory to set Portal Layouts for each accessible module. Customer Portal plug-in provides facility to set Portal Layouts for Dynamics CRM modules.