Pre-Announcement: Self-Service Portal 2.0 Beta Release : WORKetc Business Management Software

This is literally going to be our biggest beta release all year and with just a few more tweaks and testing to go, the beta release is really close.

As a re-cap, the new self-service portal enhances the existing customer portal and makes available a new contractor portal. Fresh new design and improved functionality.

Activity	Customer Portal as viewed by customer	Contractor Portal as viewed by contractor
Projects & Tasks	View project description and progress. View the sub-projects and tasks that fall under the main project Create a new note against any project, subproject or task Create a new task against any project, subproject or task Upload an attachment to any project, subproject or task	Plus complete and assign a time-sheet against a project, sub project or task. Plus create and assign a task to any other employee on your account.
Invoices	View and download current invoices and invoice history View outstanding balance Pay invoices using existing payment methods
Quotes	View quotes Approve quotes (coming in v2.1)
Support Tickets	View and update existing support tickets Create new support ticket	Plus complete and assign a time-sheet against a project, sub project or task.
Web Forms	Complete a new web form
Knowledgebase	Read knowledge-base articles

We’ve also designed a fresh new look for the customer portal, more in line with Windows “Metro” and Apple iOS7 user interface. Oh and yes the main web app will be updated to match this styling.

Roll-over each of the glowing dots in the image below:

[hsmap name=”portal”]

Why use the Self-Service Portal?

How you end up using the two portals is really dependent on what you want to be able to achieve. To get you thinking, here are a few ways of putting the new tools to use:

Assign your customer a task to provide the information you need to complete a project
Create a quote and make it available in the customers portal for that customer to approve
Use the web forms to create custom order pages for your priority customers
Assign a contractor a particular task and have them log their time inside the contractor portal (rather than allowing them access to your main WORK[etc] account!)

Better management tools

The new portal also includes a few new (and easier) management tools:

View the customer portal, from your customers’ perspective.
Make available specific web forms to each customer

Custom branding and colors.
Custom URL (not available on all plans)

Who can get it?

Once released, the new customer portal will be available to all existing customers, regardless of what plan they are on. However, certain features like custom URL and contractor portal will only be available on the newer Foundations and Platform plans.

What about the beta?

We’re now making beta invites exclusively available to members of our WORK[etc] Insiders program.

Insiders is our advocate marketing program where we reward people with loyalty points for helping us market and promote WORK[etc]. Earn enough points and you qualify for beta invites (as well as some cool prizes, WORK[etc] upgrades, discounts and more). Read about the Insiders Launch.

To join WORK[etc] Insiders, simply sign up here, making sure to use your WORK[etc] login detail.