OfficeClip Blog

Create trouble ticketing system using the issue tracker

skdutta — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:42:00 -0400

Issue tracker is a part of the OfficeClip suite and provides capabilities for recording, tracking and acting on issues. This article will describe how to use the OfficeClip issue tracker and extranet to create a trouble ticketing system for your internal users and customers.

Creating web form to accept issues

To start the process you will need to create a new web form. This will provide an url that you can either put at your site or email it to your customer. They will be able to use the url to create an issue on line. Upon creation the issue is entered in the issue tracker and the customer will receive a tracking ticket using which they will be able to track the issue in the future.

Select a binder and click on the new option on the button bar called web forms, then create a new web form with public access. All the steps to do this are available in the video above.

Exchanging notes with the customer

Upon creating the ticket, the customer and the agent can communicate using note. These notes are kept in the OfficeClip issue tracker for future reference.

Agents can also keep the note private so that they do not get shared with the customers. This is useful in recording confidential information regarding the ticket or the customer. The details of the creation and communication of notes are explained in the above video.

Enabling email support

Customers can also send issues via emails. Administrators needs to create an email address in their own mail server and provide information to OfficeClip. OfficeClip polls this account periodically and, whenever the email arrives, creates issues out of it.

Customers can be given this email address to report issues. Upon sending the email, they get a tracking ticket so that the ticket status can be tracked in the future and notes can be added to the ticket. This process is explained in the video above.

Creating secured web forms

Sometimes, for security reasons, it may be necessary to have your customer login to their portal and send the ticket. OfficeClip issue tracker has built a portal so that, login and password can be created for your customers and they can report, track, write notes and track issues using their own portal.

Please see the video above for details on how to create a secured login for your customers.

SK Dutta

Book Summary: Good Strategy Bad Strategy

skdutta — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:14:00 -0400

There are lots of business strategy books in the market. I recently read the book Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt and was impressed with the research and insight that went into this!

This book seems to be little different from other strategy books that I read and it is clearly action oriented!

I know it is sometimes boring to read reviews, so I created summary points into a few powerpoint type slides.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1E7-b4m2QTKstCYfX0RjU3vl-E1-WRWdOpjFQwd-zQpA/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know how you liked it!

SK Dutta

Cloud Security: more than credit report of celebrities?

skdutta — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 17:05:00 -0400

By now you must have heard that someone has hacked (or fooled) the credit reporting agencies and published the credit report of celebrities like Aston Kucher, Vice President Joe Biden, Michelle Obama etc. on a website. This news came up late yesterday and even though the FBI is after the perpetrator(s), the website is still up and online... (as of 4PM Mar 13, 2013). We see many cloud providers touts the security of their cloud with 24 hours gated entry and other bells and whistles. Does it matter anymore if there are so many holes that hackers can get information from even the most protected sites like white house, CIA, credit reporting companies etc. and post them on internet?

This reminds me of few questions we get from our customers to help them decide whether they should use our cloud version or the installed version of the software. So here is my take on what you should consider while deciding on whether to rent your application on cloud or keep it in-house.

* Do you feel comfortable managing your own firewall? Nowadays all windows machine comes with one.

* Is your data so secured that you want your employees to use vpn rather than putting up on the website?

* Then there is a cost factor, the installed version of a software usually pays off in a year or so compared to the cloud that hosts your data and you pay monthly.

* How would you like to backup your data? Cloud companies usually will not backup your data in an isolated fashion so that you can have a copy when you want and install in another system.

* How flexible you want your system to be? Cloud solutions are created as a common solution for a large number of customers. Installed software is your own (to some extent) as you own the database and files, so you have more leverage.

* Most cloud solutions are supported via email and have low dedicated support.

There is less and less point in comparing two clouds based on if your data will be secured in one or the other...

Photo courtesy walknboston creative commons attribution

CRM Workflow and Drip Marketing...

skdutta — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:11:00 -0400

OfficeClip version 10.1 includes a CRM workflow module that was requested by our customers.

Drip marketing allows pre-created messages to be sent to prospects and customers at regular intervals. OfficeCip Workflow adds the ability to create appointments, tasks, send campaigns and enter into daily call list.

Let us know how this new feature is working out for you

OfficeClip 10 - Updated with New Enhancements

imran — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:26:00 -0400

OfficeClip Release 10.1

Welcome to the major release of OfficeClip. In this release we have closed more than 100 issues and also did numerous enhancements. The most important enhancements are given below:

See full release notes here

Workflow / drip marketing

The ability to follow through each contacts after they are entered is a key requirement of successful sales.

The new workflow module allows you to set rules for the contacts and customers that triggers automatically after a predetermined intervals. The following actions are currently supported:

Creation of a task
Creating events
Sending a campaign
Adding to the daily call list

New ways to link documents

We have added two new ways to link your documents to OfficeClip CRM. In addition to uploading documents you can now create shortcut from the OfficeClip document repository and link to an arbitary document on the web.

Click to see a video

Enhancements to campaign designer

OfficeClip CRM provides a campaign designer that allows you to design your campaigns in WYSIWYG format and lets you include images and other media. It also provides a way to include campaigns designed using Microsoft Word.

The campaign interface is redesigned and a photo album application is added. You will now be able to store your logo or commonly used photos with campaign in the album and include them when needed.

New application: photo album

Photos can now be uploaded to OfficeClip and sent via campaigns. the photo album also provides some basic editing capabilities like zoom, flip, text insertion etc.

Invoicing for timesheet and expenses

Time and expenses billed to the projects can now be invoiced using the new Invoice > Billing interface.

The billing wizard allows user to select accounts, users and date. It then gives the user ability to select how much detail they want their invoice to be presented.

Redesign of project application

The project list screen is redesigned to make it easier to search for projects. Also, the following new fields have been added to the project:

Project manager
Project type

DCAA messages in timesheet history

In compliance with the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) regulations, OfficeClip timesheet provides a mode to enable various auding features of DCAA.

Administrators are now able to see the DCAA violations as part of the timesheet history.

Redesign of the issue tracker

We have received some feedback from our users regarding ability to go to the view mode when an issue is clicked on the view screen.

We have now provided two options:

Clicking on the issue number now takes to the quick view screen.
Clicking on the edit icon takes user to the full edit screen.

Redesign of extranet web forms

OfficeClip extranet allows you to create a customer portal for sharing information with your customers and service providers. The following changes were made:

Extranet users can now be managed using the regular user manager or the contact manager.
Simple one click interface for sharing public and private shares.
Help desk implementation using the web forms.

QR code for mobile devices

To make it easier for our users to login to OfficeClip using smart phone, we have added QR codes in few places

QR code is added to the mobile link so that OfficeClip mobile website can be reached by pointing the smart phone camera to the screen.
The contact details can be added to the smart phone by using the QR code. It is useful if you are going to make a quick call or meet a client but does not have the contact information handy.

See full release notes here

How can you restrict your users to see Accounts for a particular state?

skdutta — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:53:00 -0400

Today I got a query from a customer who is in a business where you they have users or agents in multiple states and he wants to make sure that they work on their own accounts. Here is how to do this in OfficeClip CRM

Go to Setup > Manage Organization Roles and Privileges > Manage Default Application Access and make the Account Read Only.
Go to Setup > Manager Organization Roles and Privileges > Manage Roles, create a new role and then add users to the roles you want to restrict.
Go to CRM > Accounts > Admin > Rules and create a rule that states: If the Contact belongs to the State 'insert state here' then give read, write, append and delete access to the user of the role you created in the previous step.

Note: If you are editing a rule or applying rules to existing accounts, you must Run the Rule in Step 3 in order for the rule to be effective.

Note: This procedure is same for providing user access to OfficeClip Contacts.

Create your holiday address labels in OfficeClip

skdutta — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:54:00 -0400

There are few ways to create address labels in OfficeClip

Export the contacts from Contact Manager in the csv format and then use the Avery Label Creator program (free) to create the labels. How to Video: http://youtu.be/lEN4O8dSz7c
Export the contacts as in previous step and then use Mail Merge inside Word.
Download the OfficeClip Word Addin and create the label within Microsoft Word merging the document
If you have a DYMO LabelWriter printer, you can now directly print labels from OfficeClip. Go to Contact Details and from the Tools menu (top right) select the Dymo LabelWriter option.

Manage your daily call list efficiently

vasantha — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:02:00 -0400

Constant communication with your prospects is the is important for converting them to customers. Successful sales people uses a daily call list to call their prospects regularly. OfficeClip Contact Manager provides a way to create and manage your daily call list.

The Call List option in OfficeClip shows you all the calls that needs to be made for a particular day. Future follow-ups can be created or notes can be added. It can be created for calling periodically, like every week, after every fixed number of weeks or arbitrary dates.

How to short circuit the officeclip login page

Admin — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:44:00 -0400

Some of our users have asked us to create a way so that they can put the officeclip login page on their website. Due to security reasons, so far we have restricted people to login from the OfficeClip website.

We have now added a small program (starting version 9.3.10) that will do the following:

1. Allow administrators to add login html code snippet to their website and submit directly to OfficeClip

2. Automatically send the login and password information using http form post to enter into OfficeClip

Please note that use of https or an interanet implementation of OfficeClip is suggested while using these modes:

Use the following html input fields:

shortLogin: contains the login email address
shortPassword: contains the user password
Http post these information to http://<your-officeclip-application>/ShortCircuit.aspx (if you are using hosted version, it will be https://officeclip.com/ShortCircuit.aspx

If everything goes alright, it will log you in to OfficeClip, if not you will get a message saying Login Incorrect.

OfficeClip New Release 9.2.10

skdutta — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:02:00 -0400

We have done an yet another service release with a couple of enhancements and some fixes. Thank you for your time for reporting bugs and suggesting enhancements:

Enhancement: CRM activities are now grouped as Completed and Pending and additional icons are provided to complete or edit a task or event

Enhancement: Modified Clone features in the CRM module to copy all fields is implemented

Fix: Users were not getting reminders before subscription expires

Fix: Additional timesheet submission emails were going to the users

Fix: Cannot update the status of the invoice to Paid In Full

Fix: In IE9, new timesheet screen was giving error when somebody types any character in Account/Project or Task dropdown

Fix: Opportunities inline edit was not working for certain fields

Fix: Account > Activities, start date and end date was not shown properly

Fix: In New Task module, if a rurring task is added without a due date then error was coming

Fix: Clicking Save or Cancel in Issue Tracker admin screens were giving digital signature error

Fix: In Mobile > Accounts, created user and date was not showing