Using the Company Screen

Use the Company screen to record information on companies associated with customers; after a company is saved, it will be available for selection when a customer is added via the Customer Profile screen. Note that the layout of the Company screen is designed in configuration, and fields discussed in this topic may not appear on your screen.

Entering General Information

Entering Related Company Information

The Related Companies feature enables creation of a company structure and assignment of multiple companies to a customer.

Use the View |

Company Structure icon to display the current company along with its parent company in a hierarchical structure. The entry in the Company Relationship Label field will precede the current company name.

Completing Custom Fields

Custom fields may be configured for entering information specific to your company. You may be required to enter information in these fields. See Completing Custom Fields for more information.

Viewing History

Viewing Opportunity Fields

The Opportunities field may be included if you have the Service Desk edition and Opportunity Management functionality is enabled; it will contain opportunities assigned to the company. Click on a number to open a record.

The Assignee field may be included if you have the Service Desk edition and Opportunity Management functionality is enabled; select the support representative to assign to the company for use with opportunities. When a new customer is created from the Company screen using the New Customer ribbon icon, the assignee on the Company record is automatically set on the Customer Profile record. Also, when a company is newly added to a Customer Profile record (that hasn't previously been saved), the company’s assignee is also set.

Entering Purchasing Information

The following fields may be included if you have the Service Desk edition and Purchasing functionality is enabled. Example

Selecting Others to Notify

If enabled in configuration, use the Others to Notify field to set up a list of customers and/or support representatives to be sent event notifications and other correspondence. See Selecting Others to Notify for more information.

Assigning to Customer Groups

Customer groups enable you to generate surveys, generate correspondence, and view incidents for a group of customers. You can also enable customers to view incidents, changes, purchase requests, and assets via the mySupport portal for their associated groups. If configured, access to headlines, FAQs, categories, and knowledge entries may be restricted for members of a group.

Use the Groups field to assign all of a company's current customers to a group. This can also be accomplished for selected customers and companies on the Desktop.

Use the Primary field to designate the customer group used for location-based routing of incidents submitted via the mySupport portal and email. To designate a primary group, hover over a selected group and click the Set as Primary

icon. When the Company record is saved, the following dialog will appear to give you the option of assigning the newly-added group to all customers assigned to the company. (Note that this will not assign the group as a customer’s primary group.)

Entering mySupport Options

mySupport portals enable customers to submit and view incidents, purchase requests, and changes (if enabled), view problems (if enabled), browse and search for knowledge entries, and view headlines and FAQs. Multiple mySupport portal interfaces may be set up to target different customer groups. mySupport portals are fully configurable; administrators can set up the feature links, fields that appear for viewing and submitting records, colors, etc. Use mySupport Fields to configure the URL/options to display when customers in the company access the mySupport portal and other options.

Associating Service Contracts

The Service Contracts field appears if you have the Service Desk edition and Service Contract functionality is enabled in configuration. If configured, use Service Contract functionality to track and restrict incidents and changes for customers, companies, and/or assets. Contracts can be based on work item count (a specified number of incidents and/or changes), hourly count (a specified number of hours), duration (time frame in days), or a combination (limiting the number of incidents and/or changes within a specified daily time frame). Click the New link to create a new service contract and assign it to the company, click the Add link to assign the existing contract to the company, or click the Remove link to remove the assignment.

Associating Assets and Configuration Items

Associate assets with Customer and Company records to enable targeted customer and asset lookups when you create an incident while viewing a saved Asset, Customer Profile, or Company record. Click the Add link in the Assets field to select the asset(s) to associate with the company.

Associated configuration items are used for views, reports, and correspondence. If applicable, select a configuration item to associate with the company. If companies are configured to be an associated item for a configuration item type, configuration items of that type will appear in the Select Associated Configuration Item dialog.

Attaching Files

To attach a file to the Company record, click on the Add button in the Attachments field and select the file. If a chat was initiated while the profile was open, use the Show Chat Attachments checkbox to display any files attached during the chat. A Copy button will be included next to chat attachments; you can use it to directly associate the attachment to the profile.

Associating Rule Groups

Rule groups can perform actions when specified conditions are met in an incident. In order for a rule to execute, it must be included in a rule group; rule groups can be associated with customers, companies, category combinations, and incident and hierarchy templates.

Incident Rule Group

Select the incident rule group to associate with the company, to be applied when a customer of the company is selected for an incident. If a customer profile does not have an associated rule group, the rule group associated with the customer’s company will be used for the customer; however, if an incident template or hierarchy template selected for the incident has a rule group, it will override any other rule group that may apply. A setting in configuration determines specify what will take precedence if an incident’s customer and categorization both have a rule group.

Change Rule Group

Select the change rule group to associate with the company, to be applied when a customer of the company is selected for a change. If a customer profile does not have an associated rule group, the rule group associated with the customer’s company will be used for the customer; however, if a change template or hierarchy template selected for the change has a rule group, it will override any other rule group that may apply. A setting in configuration determines specify what will take precedence if a change’s customer and categorization both have a rule group.

Creating New Records From the Company Screen

Viewing Items Associated with a Company

View results will display at the bottom of the screen in the view frame. The frame will be minimized by default; click the up arrow

icon to expand and collapse the frame. Click the Clear

icon to clear the current view and display the view selector. Your selected view and settings will be stored in a cookie, so your selection will be retained until you change it again.

Company Name	Enter the company name; entry in this field is required.
Primary Customer	Select the customer who will be the primary contact for the company.
Status	Select the predefined status that applies to the company.
Comments	Enter comments regarding the company. These comments will display in an uneditable dialog when a customer of the company is selected in the Incident screen. The comments will appear before any customer comments.
Approval Cycle	Select the predefined approval cycle to associate with the company. Approvals require an incident or change (if enabled) to be approved by designated approvers before most record functions can be used. The rule group in effect for the incident or change controls whether approvals are required, the first approval cycle, and any additional cycles to apply if the first cycle results in an approval.
Last Contact Date Last Contact By	These fields track the last date and time a Customer Profile record linked to a company was updated, and who updated the Customer Profile record that was the most recently updated for the company.

Parent Company	Select the new or existing company to display a level above the current company when the View Company Structure link is clicked.
Company Relationship Label	Select the label to define the current company’s relationship to the parent company. This label will precede the current company in the hierarchy that appears when the View Company Structure link is clicked. Company relationship labels are defined in the Configuration module.

Vendor	Select Yes to designate the company as a vendor, which enables association with Product records for use in purchase requests.
Vendor Products	If the company has been designated as a vendor, when vendor products are associated with a company, the products are available for selection on purchase requests. Products can also be associated with company vendors in the Product screen. Click the Add link to associate products with this company.
Asset Type	Select the predefined asset type for the product to be associated with this company vendor.
Name	Select the product to be associated with this company vendor.
Rate	Enter the cost of the product to be multiplied by the quantity entry for a line item in the Purchase Request screen.
Cost Center	Select the predefined cost center to associate with the company. When a customer of the company is selected as a recipient in a purchase request, this cost center will populate the Cost Center field in the purchase request.
Job Function	Select the predefined job function to associate with the company. When a customer of the company is selected as a recipient in a purchase request, this job function will populate the Job Function field in the purchase request.
Purchasing Approval Cycle	Select the predefined approval cycle to associate with the company. When a customer of the company is selected as a recipient for the purchase request, the approval cycle will apply upon saving. The request must be approved by designated approvers before most record functions can be used.