The Requests and Help Desk feature is designed to help you more efficiently manage requests and improve customer and member satisfaction. As you will quickly discover, the Portal Prodigy Requests and Help Desk feature’s flexibility makes it applicable for a wide variety of applications. The Portal Prodigy Requests and Help Desk feature provides a complete request management system for capturing, processing and managing a variety of interactions including general information requests, warranty claims, maintenance service requests, maintenance and support contracts, product information requests, project requests, requests for quotes, consulting requests, training requests, resource requests, research requests, event planning, questions and assistance with problems and more.

 

The Requests and Help Desk feature integrates with Work Order Management so you can create cost estimates, capture customer approval, and bill for services. Services can be priced based on hourly rates or flat fees.  The system can be used both to automatically log time and manually enter time and produce invoices for billable services.  Work Orders can include both services and products.  Work Orders fully integrate with the Product Catalog, Inventory Management, Order Management, Fulfillment and Payment Processing features.  For additional information about Work Orders see the Chapter titled Work Order and Time Billing Features in Detail in the PortalProdigy Administration Manual..

 

All Request information can be indexed and made searchable as part of your organizations Help Desk knowledgebase.  Requests and Help Desk integrates with Document and Resource Management so you can attach documents and other file types to Requests.  Requests and Help Desk also integrates with Task Management so you can assign tasks, track activities, and track both billable and non-billable time. 

 

Independent of Work Orders, Requests and Help Desk integrates with Item and Order Management and the Shopping Cart to provide a complete transaction management solution for capturing RFQs (requests for quotes), bid requests, and customized order requests. Customers can add Items without pricing from the Product Catalog to their Shopping Cart.  Upon checkout the customer is then presented with a Request form for capturing whatever information you require.  These Requests can later be priced and converted to Quotes. An automated email notification can be sent to the customer notifying them that their price quotes is ready and include a link back to your website where the customer can place an order for the quoted items and complete the required payment process. Once approved the Quote is automatically converted to an Order and placed in the queue for fulfillment.

 

Request Types are used to classify requests.  Each Request Type has its own custom form and configuration options.  The number of possible request types is virtually unlimited. So, it’s up to you to find creative ways to provide paid and/or unpaid access to the many benefits offered by the Requests feature.

 

For each Request Type you create a customized form for collecting information. Forms are created using Form Builder.  Form Builder allows you to define each of the information (data fields) that you want to collect. Form Builder is very flexible, allowing you to define fields of a variety of data types including:

• Text
• Date
• Number
• Dollar
• Memo
• List box selections
• Radio button selections
• Check box selections
• PortalProdigy Fields

 

Form Builder allows you to include PortalProdigy fields such as contact name, company name, addresses, phone numbers and other information such as product codes, product names, etc. The values entered into PortalProdigy fields can be used to locate products, search for and link to existing contact and company records, and create and link to new contact and company records.

 

Form Builder also supports sub-forms which are grid sections containing columns and rows (spreadsheet style). This is useful for capturing information for multiple items on a single form such as products. 

 

The Requests and Help Desk feature also provides everything needed to manage the submitted requests including automated email notifications, task assignment, tracking of billable time, creation of contact records, creation of work orders, and integration with PortalProdigy’s other features.  It supports both a self service model and an operator/administrator entry model.  The self service model provides users with online entry of requests along with the ability to view the status of their requests, submit documents and files, approve work orders, search your help desk knowledgebase, and more.  The operator/administrator model permits operators and administrative users to enter requests received by phone or other means and to manage all aspects of the requests.  You can even define and display operator scripts to instruct the operator what to say while on the phone with the customer.

 

Various Feature Components of PortalProdigy utilize Request Types for special purposes.  The Sales & Opportunity feature component utilizes Request Types to define Opportunity forms which are managed directly using Opportunity Management rather than Request Management.  The Shopping Feature Component utilizes Request Types to define RFQ forms and Bid forms for products.  Each of these special purposes is described in the Special Situations sub-chapter of this Chapter.

 

Requests and Help Desk feature benefits include:

Self service customer request entry screen – used by customers/members to initiate requests and report problems.

§         Self service customer request status reporting screen – used by customers to check status of requests and work being performed, and to provide additional information.

§         Administrative help desk request entry screen – streamlined for quick input of requests and initial troubleshooting by help desk (support) staff.

§         Administrator (help desk support operators) scripts – provide instructions and scripts for client interaction, applicable to specified type of request.

§         Definable data elements (questions and input values) for Request entry forms for both Customers and Administrators.

§         Help Desk Knowledgebase – provide access to prior requests and descriptions of resolutions via keyword search.

§         Track billable time and non-billable time.

§         Create Work Orders for authorizing and tracking billable time.

§         Support service (maintenance and support) agreements as blanket Work Orders covering costs for specific request types and tasks.

§         Automated time entry and manual time entry.

§         Assign tasks to staff based on requests.

§         Assign separate rates permissible by task type and customer.

§         Assign default rates to each customer.

§         Billable time approval process that allows manual adjustments by permissible staff.

§         Print customer invoices for billable time.

§         Ability to include Products on invoices for billable time.

§         Scheduled recurring billing for service agreements.

§         Define project schemas as hierarchal description of design or expected output (such as feature components, fields, options, and functions/processes).

§         Copy Schema Template option – copies pre-existing project schema definition to new project.

§         Define project deliverables with estimated and actual dates.

§         Attach documents to requests and projects.

§         Define project milestones with estimated and actual dates.

§         Send automated email notification with link to request to customer (requestor) when new requests are entered.

§         Send automated email notification with link to request to members of specified group or individual when new requests are entered by customers.

§         Option to send automated email notification to requestors with solution or as notification that request has been completed and link to request in customer request status page.

§         Quick view of customer request history available from Administrative Help Desk.

§         Copy Tasks option – timesaver to copy Tasks such as standardized milestone tasks, deliverable tasks and document requirement tasks (without dates and time log entries) from a template into a new Request.

§         View tasks and project by vendor, staff, and hierarchal structure (timeline/dependency order).

§         Quick payment entry from Administrative Help Desk for billable requests not covered by a service agreement.

§         Integrates with Product Catalog and Shopping Cart to create automated RFQs (Request for Quotes) and Requests for Bids.

§         Provides ability to price an RFQ and automatically convert to an Order

§         Provides ability to define Opportunity Types used by Sales and Opportunity Management.