Contact Types?

[Michael]

What are they for, I looked in the manual but I only see a screen shot of the box with Contact Type name:

http://docs.blesta.com/display/user/Company+%3E+General

[Paul]

When you add a contact to a client, it must have an account type set. By default, there is a "Billing" type, but under Settings > Company > General > Contact Types you can add more.

 

The purpose is primarily internal use to identify certain contacts. For example, a primary support contact, or emergency contact. In the future, when we enable the ability for contacts to login, it may have an ACL attached to restrict their access within the client area.

[Michael]

So you can do:

- Additional Contact

- Administration Contact

- Technical Contact

[Paul]

So you can do:

- Additional Contact

- Administration Contact

- Technical Contact

 

Yep, anything you like.

[Michael]

Thank you Paul

[ezpnet]

For us, the ability to have contacts on the account is a requirement. 

 

Giving the contacts the ability to login would be absolutely perfect. 

 

We have many clients who host with us but have a web dev who deals with our support and an accountant who deals with billing, etc.

[Paul]

For us, the ability to have contacts on the account is a requirement. 

 

Giving the contacts the ability to login would be absolutely perfect. 

 

We have many clients who host with us but have a web dev who deals with our support and an accountant who deals with billing, etc.

 

Contact logins are planned, so you can expect that in the next few official releases.

[ezpnet]

After a wee bit of testing the contacts... 

 

If a contact sends an email to a support dept, the ticket is opened under the correct client. But under the primary contact and not the contact who sent the email. When staff reply, the response is mailed to the primary contact and not the contact who submitted the request. 

 

Is this the expected action? I know that I expected it to email the contact who submitted the request.

[Paul]

After a wee bit of testing the contacts... 

 

If a contact sends an email to a support dept, the ticket is opened under the correct client. But under the primary contact and not the contact who sent the email. When staff reply, the response is mailed to the primary contact and not the contact who submitted the request. 

 

Is this the expected action? I know that I expected it to email the contact who submitted the request.

 

Good observation. I suspect this is the intended behavior for now, but we may want to take a look at this once the ability for contacts to login has been implemented.

[ezpnet]

Ok, I think changing it would make more sense but I can understand waiting until granting contacts the ability to login to implement this.

[FRH Dave]

Dragging this topic back into the limelight.  I don't know how I didn't notice this was added!  This is great!

 

The single biggest issue we run into is John Doe signs up for a hosting account, but Jane Smith is the developer.  Jane Smith opens a ticket requesting assistance with some obscure PHP thing.  When we reply, if the response goes to John Doe, John replies with "what is this, I have no idea what you're talking about etc".  It would be nice to have the ability to allow a contact to semi-privately send tickets.  Perhaps the tickets would still be accessible to the main client, but the main client wouldn't receive any notifications on them.

 

This way, nothing is hidden from the client, but they also aren't getting bothered by updates to tickets that they don't understand or don't care about.  If you want to put icing on the cake, allow the admin to define certain contact types for "transparent tickets".  For example, each contact type gets a "direct ticket routing" checkbox.  If checked, ticket responses don't go to the main user.  That way, a "developer" contact can open tickets without bothering the user, but tickets from a "billing" contact would always cc the user.

 

Finally, updating the docs might be in order here.  A quick blurb explaining what the contacts are would be helpful.  Also, the current screenshot simply shows "Name" as an example.  It might be more helpful to show "Billing" or "Developer" or something like that; otherwise, someone might think they have to manually create name, address, phone, etc fields.

Edited September 19, 2013 by FRH Dave

[ezpnet]

Hmmm. So I understand that contacts with the ability to login and permissions granted via acl is not quite here yet. But in the meantime, if contacts can simply use the support system via email, it would remove a huge roadblock for us. 

 

The main client (and any contact in the future with support system permissions) should be able to view support tickets, but the main client/any other contacts should not be emailed ticket updates unless they created the ticket or were cc'd on the ticket. 

 

Personally, I would love to see the full contact system in place (still waiting on a reply to that sponsored dev cost guys!) so I can encourage users to *actually* use blesta instead of just emailing us but this would be a fairly easy quick fix for contacts I think.

[FRH Dave]

Hmmm. So I understand that contacts with the ability to login and permissions granted via acl is not quite here yet. But in the meantime, if contacts can simply use the support system via email, it would remove a huge roadblock for us. 

 

The main client (and any contact in the future with support system permissions) should be able to view support tickets, but the main client/any other contacts should not be emailed ticket updates unless they created the ticket or were cc'd on the ticket.

 

The problem we run into here is that if we have a developer with the email address awesomewebdevguy@example.com, and he's listed as the tech contact on each account that he's responsible for, our current billing platform can't handle that.  It either won't allow multiple accounts with the same address, or it will route the ticket to the first account listed (can't remember which, too lazy to test).  At any rate, it's a valid problem:  how do you know which account it should route the email to?

 

A workaround would have to be built into any such functionality.

[ezpnet]

Yes, indeed. Ubersmith routes it to the latest account the email address is associated with.

 

Blesta could lodge the ticket, but force admin staff to associate the ticket with the appropriate account?

 

My main concern and the concern of my clients, is that they don't want to share the main account login.

[Paul]

I've added a little bit to the documentation for contact types - http://docs.blesta.com/display/user/Company+%3E+General

 

I think contact types start to become extremely useful once they are able to login, and have unique ACL permissions. At the moment, they are primarily useful to admins when responding to inquiries about an account, or reaching out to the company for whatever reason.