Types of Users
There are two primary groups of people that will use your SmarterTrack installation:
- Users (customers and/or end users) will use the portal to search for information in the Knowledge Base, participate in your online Community, start tickets or initiate live chats with company representatives. Because one of the goals of SmarterTrack is to enable users to use self-service resources to find solutions to issues before using a more expensive form of support, end users can create an account for portal access by default.
- Employees will use SmarterTrack's management interface to interact with users (agents and managers) and set up all aspects of the system (administrators). Any employees that will communicate with customers or end users via email, tickets or live chats should be added as agents in SmarterTrack. Unlike users, agents must be created by an administrator and be given the role of "agent" so they can access the management interface and interact with users. An agent with a "manager" role will have access to the various Departments and Groups associated with that manager role. Administrators are in charge of managing the SmarterTrack installation, creating Brands and the Departments, Groups and Agents that are part of that Brand, etc.
Users
Each individual that visits your portal or sends an email to your company is considered a user. Because all users are assigned roles (which define permissions and dictate which features the user has access to) companies can restrict a user's access or ability to perform certain actions. Depending on the user's role, companies can:
- Allow only certain types of users access to parts of the Knowledge Base.
- Allow only registered users to submit tickets or start live chats.
- Configure custom icons (custom links) on the homepage of the portal to only show for certain types (roles) of users.
Generally, companies will require users to login to the portal before they can perform such functions. However, administrators can configure SmarterTrack to hide the concept of logging in from customers by allowing anonymous access to certain functions.
Employees
Each person that accesses SmarterTrack's management interface is considered an employee. Employees are then broken down into various roles: Administrator, Manager and Agent are the default roles for Employees.
Anyone who will be managing the overall SmarterTrack installation, from creating Brands to adding Agents, is considered an administrator. By default, administrators are NOT agents, so they do not take an Agent role, nor do they count against the SmarterTrack agent-based licensing model, either for on-premises installations or for the hosted service. That's not to say an administrator can't be an agent -- they can. However, they do not need to be.
Managers, on the other hand, DO require the Agent role. A Manager has overall control of the Group they are managing, so they have the ability to see all tickets and live chats for any agent in their group, etc.
Finally, an agent is a front-line worker. They interact with Users via tickets, live chats, etc. Because SmarterTrack tracks, documents and reports on all customer communications and agent actions, it is important that every agent has his/her own account and login. This will ensure proper reporting and auditing and avoid confusion.
Some of your agents, such as your support/sales staff, may be full-time SmarterTrack users. These agents will spend the majority of their time actively working in the management interface, watching tickets and responding to live chats.
Other agents, such as your development staff or managers, may be part-time SmarterTrack users. Generally, these agents will log in to SmarterTrack once or twice a day, or when needed. To ensure these users receive immediate notification when new tickets or other events occur, SmarterTools recommends that they set up events that can notify them when a new ticket is assigned to them, when a follow-up comes due, when a user replies to a ticket and more. Any agent can set up events, and use them as needed, but part-time agents will benefit from having that extra layer of notification.