Especially from the pharmaceutical industry, we have often heard the requirement that one client should be visited by two or even three sales reps on a regular basis in order to provide even more attention to the client. In this case, you have to avoid those field reps from “coming and going constantly” to the same customer. Ideally, just one rep should call on a customer in a given week. This means however a lot of coordination effort.

portatour® offers support for this with today’s update. It is possible to determine a so-called “Scheduling restriction” on the basis of calendar weeks individually per customer. To enter it, click the pen-symbol of the Scheduling parameters on the customer detail page.

If, for example, a customer should be visited regularly by two colleagues, the first rep sets the scheduling restriction on “Only in even weeks” for this customer, whereas the second rep sets it to “Only in odd weeks“. In this way, it is ensured that the client is never suggested for a call by both colleagues in the same week when portatour® does automatic call planning.

The modification of customers’ scheduling restrictions is also available through the extended customer search and the subsequent mass editing. In this way, the scheduling restriction can easily be set by postal code. Additionally, the customer export and reimport also allows an en masse setting of the scheduling restriction.

Hint: If two colleagues share the same territory, we recommend subdividing it into two halves, e.g. South/North or city/suburbs. For each sub-territory, the colleagues set opposite scheduling restrictions. Through this process, you support the planning of mileage-optimized routes, since in one given week, only the customers of a compact geographical region are taken into account.

To check the scheduling restrictions, the coloring of the customers on the map can be shown according to the restriction. Just click on the cogwheel-symbol on the right upper corner and then on “Color: scheduling restriction“:

Please note:

• The scheduling restriction “Only in even weeks” does not automatically mean that the customer is scheduled every 2 weeks. The frequency is still determined by the set call interval. The scheduling restriction only means that a customer call is only to be suggested in even weeks. The shortest reasonable call interval when using this scheduling restriction is therefore 14 days. 
• Both colleagues have to set the scheduling restrictions for shared customers separately – and in the opposite way. It is not sufficient that only one of them sets the restriction.
• Do you want to filter your customer list for those customers who do not yet have a scheduling restriction? Or customers who can be visited today according to the scheduling restriction? Use the extended customer search! There, you will find the new filter “Scheduling restriction”.
• If a customer is visited by three colleagues, you would use the scheduling restriction “Only every 3rd week”, whereat the first rep chooses the restriction “from CW 1”, the second one “from CW 2” and the third colleague “from CW 3”. “from CW 1” means that the calendar weeks 1, 4, 7, 10 etc. are allowed. “from CW 2” means calendar weeks 2, 5, 8, 11, etc. “from CW 3” it is analogous again to one week later. The shortest reasonable call interval in this case is 21 days.
• Manually created appointments at customers have highest priority and are also possible in weeks with scheduling restrictions. With the appointment feature “Find suitable day” however, days with scheduling restriction are marked in grey to remind you that a colleague will possibly also visit this customer during this week.

Today’s update provides a new interesting feature in portatour® for companies with at least 10 field reps: The assignment of user accounts to user groups.

What is the purpose of user groups?

Without user groups every supervisor can log into all other user accounts with a single click. If this is what you want in the future, then you won’t need user groups.

If, however, you want to restrict the access to certain users, then the new user groups will be just the thing for you. If, for example, you have divided your sales territory into areas with area managers (=supervisors), who each shall only have access to their own team of sales reps.

How to activate user groups

The activation and editing of user groups is exclusively reserved to administrators of company accounts with at least 10 licenses. Go to Options and User Management and click the new button User groups in the menu bar.

This opens a window where you click the button Enable user groups. During the enabling process all users will be initially assigned to the automatically created user group called “default group“. Hint: This will not modify portatour®’s behavior as all users still belong to the same user group after this step.

How to administer user groups

Go to the already known editing window of individual user accounts to create user groups and to assign users at the same time.

Click New group to create a new user group. Then enter the name of the new user group. All existing user groups will be shown in the Member of list. Select those groups the user should be a member of. Multiple selection is possible − in Windows press the Ctrl key while clicking. User groups without members will be automatically removed.

Administrators will always have access to all users, irrespective of the user groups. The user list allows you to filter by user groups, which improves clarity in case you have many users.

Exemplary implementation of user groups

Take the following steps in order to create the above example of sales areas:

1. Edit the sales manager of the first area
2. Click “New group” and enter the name of the area, e.g. “Area North”
3. Unselect the “default group” membership. Only “Area North” shall be selected.
4. Save the sales manager
5. Then edit one sales rep after the other for that region
6. Select “Area North” under “Member of”. Only “Area North” shall be selected.
7. Save the user

Repeat steps 1-7 for every sales area.

Subsequently, each sales manager can only see the members of his respective territory in the user list and can only log into those user accounts.

The company’s supra-regional sales manager becomes a member of all user groups to ensure he has access to all users.

Summary of user groups’ effects

• Supervisors will only see those users in the user list who are members of a common group.
• Subsequently, supervisors can only log into those user accounts whom they can see in the user list.
• Users and supervisors can only use the “Transfer customers” feature for target users who are members of a common group.
• If a supervisor carries out an application check it will only contain users who are members of a common group.

Further hints for user groups

• As soon as you have enabled user groups every user must be a member of at least one group. This is why initially the “default group” will be created and each user will be a member of that group at first. Proceed to creating own groups and remove the “default group” membership. As long as all users are members of the “default group” you will achieve no access limitations.
• The names of user groups may not exceed 40 characters.
• One user may be a member of no more than 25 groups.
• User groups without members will be automatically deleted. Thus, remove all memberships in order to explicitly delete a user group. To find the members, filter the user list for the group to be deleted.
• A user group’s name cannot be changed retrospectively as it is used as a key. Instead, create a new group and assign new users to it.
• You can mass edit user groups by exporting and importing the user list as an Excel or CSV file. The file contains the new column “user groups”, in which the groups − separated by semicolons − can be exported or imported. This also enables the automated synchronization of user groups via API.
• Whenever you disable the user groups on a company level, all user groups and memberships will be deleted.

We hope you enjoy the new user groups and look forward to receiving your feedback on feedback@portatour.com .

If you have a portatour® company account − i.e. you own at least 2 user licenses − then your portatour® user database has obtained two new optional fields with today’s update of portatour®. Both fields can be modified via editing the user or be exported and imported via an Excel or CSV file.

• Employee number: This field allows you to assign a unique number (or sequence of characters) to each user in order to identify the users for export and import purposes via API instead of using their e-mail addresses. The respective parameter of the API features is called “employeeNumber” − please refer to the technical API documentation in the options. The advantage of using the employee number and not the e-mail address in the API is that the employee number, as opposed to the e-mail address, does normally not change and ideally originates directly from your ERP/CRM system − e.g. the ID of the user data record.
• Note: This free text field allows you to enter any information that might be of interest to the administrator. It is only shown when editing the user and will not be used internally by portatour®.

During the last weeks we have worked intensely on the call reporting of portatour®. We are happy now to present you a lot of improvements with today’s update:

• Different fields per report type
• Better assistance in report entry
• Automated report creation

We hope you enjoy the new features and look forward to receiving your feedback on feedback@portatour.com .

The portatour® user community really appreciates the custom fields of the reports. We have often heard the wish to show different fields per report type, e.g. other fields for a successful customer visit than for a client you missed. As of today, this is possible!

You or your administrator goes to Options > Custom fields > Reports. There you define which group of fields should be shown for which report type.

It is also possible to show a group of fields for multiple report types – e.g. mileage for the report for start of work and end of work. Just select multiple report types in the selection box (hold the Ctrl-key).

portatour® differentiates between the following report types:

• Call: When clicking on “Called now” at a customer or “Took place” for a customer appointment
• Missed: When clicking on “Missed” at a customer or customer appointment
• Other: For appointments without location (=phone call) or without customer reference, for “My places” and when clicking on “New report” at a customer
• Start of work: When clicking on “Clock in”
• End of work: When clicking on “Clock out”
• Day off: When clicking on “Report day off”

While entering the report you can determine its type by looking at the window title.

Please note:

• The maximum number of custom fields for reports is 100 – irrespective of the subdivision into report types. The export always contains all fields. Those fields which are not shown for a report type are empty in the respective line.
• The field names have to be unique because of the import and export – irrespective of the report types.
• Modifications of custom fields possibly lead to changes of the import and export columns. Be aware of that when you run automated processes.

Highlighting of mandatory fields

Fields defined as mandatory are highlighted with a red line until you enter information. By the way, as of now this applies to entire portatour® – not just for the report entry.

Description of custom fields

The descriptions you can enter for the custom fields in the options are now visible for users when they click on the underlined field name. Like this, it is easy to show a help text for individual fields. By the way: If the field name is automatically shortened because it is too long, one click is enough to show the whole field name.

Please note:

• This new feature also applies to custom fields for customers and appointments.
• If you want to remove the underline from a field name, remove the description text or abbreviate the field name to a maximum of 10 characters.
• Modifications of custom fields possibly lead to changes of the import and export columns. Be aware of that if you run automated processes.

Cancelling the report entry

Until now, a click on “Called now” at a customer has updated the last visit date of the customer in any case, even if you clicked on “Cancel” during the following report entry.

As of now, if you create a report by clicking on “Called now”, the last visit date of the customer is not updated until you save the report. If you cancel the report entry, the last visit date will remain unchanged – that avoids disorientation and data inconsistencies.

If you let create and open reports automatically (see Options > Reporting), saving the report is absolutely necessary in order to update the last call date of the customer.

In case you want to create reports just optionally (see Options > Reporting), the query is now more intuitively designed:

This modification also applies for reports when clicking on “Missed” if you have enabled reports for that case.

Call reports are the basis for the statistical key figures in the portatour® Report. If you enter your call reports in a third party system and not in portatour®, but you want to use the portatour® Report to the full extent anyway, portatour® is from now on able to create and save a call report in the background when you click on “Called now” at a customer (or “Took place” for appointments) without any further clicks being necessary. For this, go to Options > Reporting and select Create automatically.

Please note:

• No additional, manual entries in the report are possible in this mode. An “empty” report is created which is mainly used to count the visits. Mandatory fields are ignored.
• In addition, a maximum of one report per customer and day is possible in this mode. This is intended to avoid unintentional duplications when erroneously clicking several times on “Called now” at a customer.

The extended customer search has been enhanced by three additional filter options with today’s update. Click Extended in the Customer menu to go to the filter settings:

Upcoming appointment: Select “present” to obtain only those customers with at least one uncompleted fixed appointment on the same day or in the future. On the other hand, select “none” to obtain those customers without future appointments.

Reservation: Select “present” to obtain only those customers who have a reservation (“include in schedule”) – irrespective if they have already been included in the schedule or not. Select “none” to obtain all customers without reservations.

In schedule: Select “scheduled” to obtain only those customers who are planned in the current schedule – no matter if they have been included due to an appointment, a reservation or an automated call suggestion based on the call interval. Select “not scheduled” to obtain those customers who are currently not planned in the schedule.

If you leave the selection “any” there will be no filtering for this criterion. As usual, you can set several filter criteria at the same time.

And there is one more innovation: You can limit the export of the customer list to the currently filtered customers:

With today’s update portatour® Anywhere allows the automatic creation and update of user accounts by means of import files – e.g. Excel or CSV files. This is mainly a benefit for companies with many new users or companies who want to synchronize their user administration with third party systems (ERP/CRM).

In case your company owns two or more portatour® licenses you – or your administrator –  can find the new Import, Export and Import settings buttons below the user list in the portatour® Anywhere user management.

Use the export to obtain the complete user list with all fields of the user administration as Excel or CSV file for download. You can edit and re-import this file for the easier mass editing of many user accounts.

The import enables the automatic creation, update or deactivation of user accounts.

The fields First name, Last name and Email are mandatory fields when creating user accounts. We recommend to use the e-mail address or Portatour ID as key fields when updating user accounts. Click the blue (i) symbol next to the field names to obtain detailed information for the additional fields.

Click “Next” to reach the next page where you can optionally assign the users’ home location fields.

New user accounts are activated by default – i.e. a user name and an access link are assigned. However, the user will only receive an information via e-mail or text message if, as usual, you click “Send access link” in the user list.

In addition, there is the possibility of automated export and import of user accounts via API. Click import settings below the user list to obtain the configuration file for the import. Please refer to the API description in the options for details.

Please note:

• The new user import/export feature is not available for companies who have established a direct connection between portatour® Anywhere and a data host system – e.g. Salesforce or Dynamics CRM. In those cases the user accounts are synchronized automatically with the host system in any case.
• For security reasons it is not possible to mass delete user accounts via the import. Instead, user accounts are deactivated. Therefore, deactivated user accounts should be deleted manually every now and then after the previous transfer or download of the contained data in order to avoid the exceedance of the licenses.
• Previously created and updated user accounts will definitely be preserved in the case of unexpected errors during the import process. A rollback will not be carried out.
• The data (customers, appointments, reports, …) of a user account will be deleted if you select “No” for the field “Has own schedule” for that user. In emergencies restore to a restore point.

The subject of data security is taken very seriously by portatour®. This article gives you an overview of the measures that we at portatour® have already taken with regard to this subject.

From today onwards, this list has been enriched by another facet: The access links of newly created user accounts are extended by an additional code. Only by knowing this extended link users can carry out their initial login and define their own password.

What changes does this extension cause for you in everyday life? None! As usual, your administrator will send access links to new users via e-mail or text message. Furthermore, existing user accounts are not affected by this modification.

If, in the future, your administrator sees a user with a longer access link in the user list they will know that the new user has not yet logged into portatour®. The additional code becomes obsolete and disappears from the access link after the first login and definition of an own password.

Speaking of the password: Another recent feature of portatour® ensures that newly created passwords of users are not represented on a “blacklist” of the most frequently used internet passwords and thus cannot be guessed easily. This check combined with random user names most probably makes portatour®’s login system one of the safest on the internet.