The idea is that you can record notes against a name record that pop up during the case take on process, billing and letter writing so that the operator sees them to knows any special instructions that have been provided about corresponding with the client. It might be all correspondence should be emailed to this address, invoice copies are required to be sent on yellow paper or they don't like staples in their letters!! The fields are available on the Client Details tab for the name record in the Names program.
There are 4 types of instructions, a default, one for cases, one for billing and one for PassThru (letters). If the same notes are to be displayed across all areas then just complete the default text. If a different set of instructions is required for billing then select the billing type and put the notes against this. This will override the default notes when the pop up occurs in the billing program.
The delivery of the notes is controlled by the Correspondence Instructions site option and this defines where pop ups are enabled.
The delivery of information to the user is via the "tip" functionality, the smaller yellow box that you see sometimes if help text has been set up against case tabs and detail entries. The instructions will pop up when a new case is added when the name is the instructor and when a bill is created when the name is the debtor.
With cases, my preference would be to display the instructions every time that you go into a case so that it is always in the operators face, but that's not how it works. I would also prefer it to be a bigger dialog right in the middle of the screen rather than the little yellow one on the left hand side. This way more instructions could be read without scrolling and you can't really miss them. The ability to display in Timesheet would also be useful.
Implementation of displaying the instructions in letters requires a bit more effort. Docitems need to be set up and templates changed. I am afraid I am not fully aware of the specifics here.
Lastly, this functionality was meant to supplement, not replace, the ability to automate instructions and processes with clients. Things like:
- copies of correspondence to a different address,
- billing in a different format for a client,
- different billing address,
- different statement address,
- numbers of renewal reminders to be received,
- auto renew,
- number of bill copies,
- billing currency, multiple cases on a bill or not,
- different letters, language of correspondence,
Hi Stephen,
ReplyDeleteWe use them extensively for billing and letters. The problem we have is that the feature is too simplistic, many of our clients (like everyone else's I'm sure) have complex Standing Instructions that we place on our Intranet which allows us to format them and make them much more readable. More often than not, the popup just says "Refer to Standing Instructions on Intranet", so it is just a reminder to go and check elsewhere. I think if the text could be formatted, such as RTF, and the popup box much larger as you suggested then it would be much more effective.
I'm curious about New Case Entry popup. We don't use it, did not know about the sitecontrol. Does it popup at entry of the case only, when dates are entered, or what ?
It is a nice blog but you didn't mention where the CI are stored Names - Client Details.
ReplyDeleteWe use the CI for Case and Billing quite a bit. The New Case Entry one is mostly used to remind the operator to print out the SI Keep on Top - when a new case is opened for a client.
There is an Idea logged at CPASS SQA 10871 to have this functionality extended for Timesheet as well. Maybe this could be on the AUG wishlist?