About the Customer Portal
Table of Contents
Syncro's Customer Portal is a user-friendly and efficient way for your customers to communicate and collaborate with you. It's an extension of the main Syncro product that provides a subset of functionality to improve your customers' overall service experience.
Through the Portal, your customers can:
- Create, view, and update support tickets, allowing for streamlined communication and tracking of issues.
- View their invoices, check their payment status, and make payments.
- View their assets and inventory and, in some cases, remotely access and run scripts on them.
- Access important documents, guides, and resources you provide.
After using one of the methods described to access it, Syncro displays the Portal to your customers.
What your customers see in their Portal is based on their Portal User Permission Group, which you set up when you create a Customer or a Contact.
Note: By default, Customers are in the “Non-Portal User Group," which means they can only access the Portal and see the Open Tickets section.
This document describes the full capability of the Portal from the perspective of a Customer with the way “Admin Portal Group” access is defined in Syncro by default. All sections are shown here for explanatory purposes, but you can configure the Portal to show/hide the sections and features you want.
Header & Button Bar
The header in the upper left of the Portal contains your company's branding information (e.g., logo, name) as you defined them when you set up your account, followed by the Customer's Business Name that you specified when you created the Customer.
After navigating to another screen, customers can click their Business Name to return to this top level Portal page.
The button bar in the upper right of the Portal works as follows:
- Password Reset: Sends a password reset email to your customer's email. This button is visible when the Customer is enabled as a Portal User.
-
Privacy Settings: Opens a Communications Settings page where your customer can set their marketing preferences:
Note: This button is only visible when the “Privacy Settings - Manage” box for the Portal User Permission Group is checked. - Sign Out: Logs the customer out of the Portal and returns them to the Sign In page.
Account Overview
Note: This is only visible when the “Account Overview - View” box for the Portal User Permission Group is checked.
The Account Overview section displays your customer's Invoice balance and any available Credit Balance.
When the “Stored Payment Options - Manage” box for the Portal User Permission Group is checked, this section also shows any Stored Payment Options such as stored credit cards or ACH accounts.
Click the “Manage” link to display the Payment Information page:
From here your customers can:
- Click Add a Credit Card and/or Add ACH Profile to store a new payment profile (and divide to use it for any recurring invoices):
Then for each payment profile saved, your customers can then: - Click the Pencil (Edit) icon to change the Nickname for easier recognition. (This does not edit actual credit card or ACH data.)
- Edit an Expiration date to remind themselves of when they'd like to update their information. (This can't be edited more than once.)
- Click the red X (Delete) icon to delete a payment profile.
Open Tickets
Note: This section is visible when the “Tickets - View All” and/or “Tickets - View Mine” boxes are checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
The Open Tickets section displays any currently open tickets by their Number, Assigned Contact, Subject, Date Created/Last Updated, Issue Type and Status. A shopping cart icon indicates the ticket was invoiced.
In addition, customers can click:
- On the hyperlinked ticket Number: Opens a Ticket Details page where your customer can: add relevant ticket Attachments (e.g., documents or images) and/or click an attachment's filename to view it; view/download a PDF of the ticket; and add a Ticket Comment/Message:
Tip: You can set up a notification to be alerted when your customer adds a new ticket comment here.
The Ticket Comments section at the very bottom displays the full, running list of all Public Notes/ticket communications from newest to oldest. -
+Create New Ticket: Opens a pop-up window so your customer can begin submitting a new ticket:
-
View All: Navigates to a page that displays all tickets with filter and search capabilities:
Notes:
- The +Create New Ticket button is only visible when the “Tickets - Create New” box is checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
- The View All button is only visible when the “Tickets - View All” box is checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
- The “Status Is Not/Status Is” filter is only visible when the “Tickets - Show Status Filters” box is checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
Open Invoices
Note: This section is only visible when the “Invoices - View All” and/or “Invoices - View Mine” boxes are checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
The table in the Open Invoices section displays any currently open invoices by their Number and Customer. It also indicates whether the invoice has been Paid and the invoice creation Date (oldest unpaid first).
Items shows a brief description of the work comprising the invoice. The invoice Total and any Balance Due is last, along with a Pay Now button for any individual, unpaid invoices:
Notes:
- Similar to Open Tickets, View All navigates to a page that displays all invoices (paid and unpaid) with filter and search capabilities (e.g., search Items, Invoice Number).
- When an invoice has been paid, the Paid column indicates two things: whether a Tech took a payment, and whether a Ticket associated with the Invoice is still open (a lock icon appears):
Clicking the Pay All button displays the Make a Payment page, where your customers can pay one or more open invoices (and, adjust the payment of each invoice):
Customer can use any stored payment profiles to pay.
Note: The Pay All button is only visible when the “Invoices - Pay Online” box is checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
Clicking a hyperlinked Number or the hyperlinked customer Name in a row of the Open Invoices table displays an Invoice Details page, which is also downloadable/printable as a PDF (from either button):
If you're using PayPal, a Checkout with PayPal button allows customers to pay their invoice via PayPal.
If you've set up an integrated payment gateway, a Pay With Credit Card button displays so customers can enter their credit card information.
Note: For these buttons to appear, you must also check the “Invoices - Pay Online” box in the Portal User Permission Group.
Recent Payments
Note: This section is only visible when the “Payments - View All” and/or “Payments - View Mine” boxes are checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
The table in the Recent Payments section displays the 10 most recent payments made by your customer by Date (most to least recent) and Amount:
Similar to Open Tickets and Open Invoices, your customers can click View All to navigate to a page that displays all recent payments. (This page adds a search for locating specific payments.)
Estimates
Note: This section is only visible when the “Estimates - View All” and/or “Estimates - View Mine” boxes are checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
The table in the Estimates section displays any Estimates you've sent to the customer:
The estimate Number, Status, Estimate Name, Date (it was sent), and Total amount display. Customers can click the button in the Number column to view a PDF of that estimate
If the estimate is still in an open state, the Customer Portal displays Approve and Decline buttons in the Status field. When your customer approves an estimate in their portal (or you do in Syncro), the Status appears with a green checkmark:
When your customer declines an estimate in their portal (or you do in Syncro), the Status appears with a red X:
Customers can click View All to navigate to a page that displays all Estimates with filter and search capabilities:
Attachments
Notes:
- This section is only visible when the “Attachments - View Public” box is checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
- Individual Attachments are only viewable in the Customer's portal if you elected to make them public in the Attachments section of the Customer Details Page (or in the case of attachments to a Ticket, the Ticket Details Page:
The table in the Attachments section displays 10 attachments in ascending order by their Created (uploaded) date. any Attachments associated with your customer:
For each attachment, the created Date, a thumbnail, and the hyperlinked File name display. Clicking the hyperlink opens the attachment in a new browser window; customers can also download attachments from the link in the usual ways.
Customers can click View All to navigate to a page that displays Attachments from all time:
Assets
Note: This section is only visible when the “Assets - View All” and/or “Assets - View Mine” boxes are checked in the Portal User Permission Group.
The table in the Assets section displays any Assets associated with your customer:
This list can help reassure your customers that you're managing the assets they care most about.
For each asset, the Name, Asset Serial Number, and Type display. When Splashtop is integrated and end-user remote access is enabled, the Remote column displays icons for remote access and/or backgrounding tools.
When the “Assets - Run Script” box is checked in the Portal User Permission Group and the “Available on Every Customer Portal” box in that script's settings is checked, then your customer can click a hyperlinked Syncro device Name and run those scripts:
Only scripts without variables can be used like this.
Customers can click View All to navigate to a page that displays all Assets with search capabilities: