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Creating External Organisations and Contacts

4,022 bytes added, 20:46, 5 October 2007
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==Overview==

[[External]] organisations are the organisations involved with your business such as customers, prospects, suppliers and partners. These organisations are referred to as “Accounts” within [[SmartSimple]], though you can change this term.

Each [[External|external]] account uses the same basic information as an [[Internal|internal]] organisation, such as the business name, address, and phone numbers, plus any [[Custom Field|custom fields]] that you define specifically for external organisations.

For each account, you store related contacts and, as with [[Internal|internal]] people, you can enable these external people to access [[SmartSimple]] and log into the system.

You can give any external accounts permission to share any of the following [[SmartSimple]] Items:
* Calendars.
* Discussion Groups.
* [[Smart Folder|SmartFolders]].
* [[SmartSimple]] Application programs.
* Contacts can be used as resources in the Project and Job Costing [[Application|application]].

==Referencing External Organisations to Specific Applications==

Some [[SmartSimple]] applications, such as [[Sales Tracking]], and the E-mail Broadcast provide specific features for managing [[External|external]] organisations.

You should consider subscribing to some of these programs if you need specific account or customer management features.

If you plan to use [[Sales Tracking]], then you may wish to use '''Leads''' to initially track organisations, rather than setting up an account for each lead.

See the SmartSimple Quick Start guide for [[Sales Tracking]] to see how this works.

<u>'''External Accounts and Roles'''</u>

You should always create specific [[User|user]] roles for external contacts since doing this will enable you to create [[Custom Field|custom fields]] specific to each type of contact, and if you allow your contacts to log in then the role will control the [[Menu|menu]] items visible to those contacts.

==Creating an External Organisation==

Wherever you wish to create a new [[External|external]] organisation the same technique is used.

1. Click the '''Organisation''', '''External Contacts''' [[Menu|menu]].

[[Image:Account1.png]]

The '''Account Organisational Structure''' is displayed – currently no accounts have been established.

Do not click the root organisation link when adding new [[External|external]] organisations, because the created organisation will be created as an internal organisation – instead always use the '''New Account''' tab.

2. Click the '''New Account''' tab.

The '''New Account – Quick Entry for Duplication Check''' is displayed.

[[Image:Account2.png]]

3. Enter the following details:

[[Image:Account3.png]]

4. Click the '''Submit''' button.

No potential duplicates are located so the '''New Account''' window is displayed.

5. Complete the '''details'''.

[[Image:Account4.png]]

6. Click the '''Save''' button.

The record is saved and the account [[Menu|menu]] is displayed.

[[Image:Account5.png]]

==Account Fields==

The standard fields that you can set for an account are:

[[Image:Account.png]]

==Additional Account Information==

You can also manage the following information/setting for an account.
* '''Notes''' – display any notes that have been added to the account. You should only use these notes for background information. Notes related to activities can be added to the individual activity.

[[Image:Accont6.png]]

* '''Settings Menu''' – [[Applications]] –subscribes [[SmartSimple]] application programs to this account.
* '''Settings Menu''' – Contact Signup– creates a web sign up page for contacts from this account to register.
* '''Settings Menu''' – Company Signup– creates a web sign up page for other companies to register.
* '''View Menu''' – Organisation Chart – You can create an organisation chart for any [[Internal|internal]] or [[External|external]] set of accounts.
* '''View Menu''' – Pin Board – displays the account specific pin board.

[[Category:System Management]]
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