How to Choose Which Call Statuses and Types a Customer Sees
A Customer portal sign-in shows the customer only the calls whose status and call type it allows. You set this in the sections Call statuses they may see and Call types they may see when you open a sign-in on the Customer sign-ins screen (menu, then Administration). Both lists are your company's own call statuses and call types, the same ones the office uses.
How do I choose which call statuses a customer can see?
Open the customer's sign-in on the Customer sign-ins screen, choose one of the four options under Call statuses they may see, and press Save.
- Open the sign-in with Open on the People tab.
- Choose an option under Call statuses they may see. For your own list, choose Choose and tick each status the customer may see.
- Press Save at the foot of the Customer sign-ins form.
The four options are:
- As the defaults — the sign-in uses whatever Call statuses says on the Defaults tab, now and after any later change there.
- All of them — every call status, including any your company adds later.
- Choose — only the statuses you tick. Your company's call statuses are listed with a box each.
- An SQL filter — a hand-written Structured Query Language (SQL) statement, for a sign-in brought over from the old web portal or a special case. Type it into the box under Advanced.
The screen's advice is: "Leave it as the defaults unless this customer should see something different. Most customers are set to see finished work only." Showing only finished calls keeps work in progress off the customer's screen, but it also hides the calls a customer logs themselves until the office finishes them.
Call types they may see works exactly the same way, with your company's call types.
The Customer sign-ins screen only chooses which statuses and types a customer sees; it cannot add, rename or remove them. Your company's call statuses and call types come from ABM, and whoever looks after ABM at your company changes them there.
Why does my customer see no calls at all?
A customer sees a call on the Customer portal only if all four of these allow it: the call is on one of the accounts their sign-in reaches, its status is one of the statuses the sign-in may see, its type is one of the types the sign-in may see, and it was logged on or after the date in Do not show calls logged before on the Defaults tab.
A cause that is easy to miss is Choose with nothing ticked. Under Choose, an empty list means the customer sees no calls, and the Customer sign-ins form says so: "Nothing ticked means none of them — not "as the defaults"." To let the site's settings decide, choose As the defaults instead.
Check each part in turn on the customer's sign-in and on the Defaults tab. After you save a change, the customer is signed out and sees the new list when they sign in again.
How do call types affect logging a call?
The call types a sign-in may see on the Customer sign-ins screen are also the only types the customer can choose from when they log a call on the Customer portal. The screen says: "The types a call of theirs may be, on the list and on the Log a call form."
The same list applies when a customer with Edit their calls changes the type of one of their calls: they can only choose a type their sign-in may see.
So if you give a customer Log a call, make sure Call types they may see includes the types they should log calls as. A sign-in with no call types can open the Log a call form but has nothing to choose. If there is only one type they may see, the form chooses it for them.
This is also a way to steer what customers ask for. For example, if your company has call types that only the office should raise, such as internal or warranty work, leave them out of the types customers may see: those calls then do not appear on the customer's list, and the customer cannot log a call as one of them. Check the types on the Defaults tab too, because every sign-in left at As the defaults takes its call types from there.
Why can't a customer see a call they just logged?
A new call logged on the Customer portal is given ABM Service's Open status. If Open is not among the call statuses the customer's sign-in may see, the call does not appear on their list, even though the office has it. This is normal for customers who are set to see finished work only.
The Customer portal tells the customer this at the moment they log the call: it shows the call's number and says "The office has it. It will not appear on your list of calls — this sign-in is set up to show only some of them, and a call this new is not among them — so please quote the number above if you ring." Once the office closes the call, it appears on their list if its new status is one they may see.
If you want customers to follow their own calls from the start, include Open, and whichever statuses your company uses while a call is in progress, in the statuses they may see.
What does Advanced show under the call statuses and types?
Advanced, under Call statuses they may see and Call types they may see on the Customer sign-ins form, shows the statement that will be stored for that choice. It is read-only unless you choose An SQL filter, and it opens by itself when you do. With As the defaults the box is empty, because nothing of the sign-in's own is stored.
A status or type filter follows the same rules as a customer filter: a single SELECT, no semicolons, balanced brackets, and no words that change the database. It must return status or type numbers in a column called UniqueId, as the statement Advanced shows for ticked boxes does; one that returns anything else stops the customer signing in. There is no Preview for these two, so the safest way to write one is to tick some boxes under Choose, copy the statement Advanced shows, and change it from there.