How To Reassign Accounts To Operators

In Collect!, accounts "belong" to the Operator whose ID is displayed on the Debtor screen in the Operator field. This account ownership is very important for working accounts, calculating operator commissions, and several other functions. This Operator ID should always be current and correct. So there may be times when you need to reassign accounts to a new operator.

You may change the Operator ID on an account manually, or reassign many accounts at once using batch processing.

Please make sure you have a recent backup of your database whenever you batch assign accounts.

We will step through a batch process to reassign accounts.

We will cover:

• What happens when you reassign an account
• Batch process steps to reassign accounts
• Cleaning up remaining contacts

What Happens When You Reassign An Account

When you change the Operator ID on an account, three things happen:

• All in progress contacts that were assigned to the old Operator ID are reassigned to the new ID.
  
  
• All in progress contacts that were assigned to some other Operator ID in your system are left alone.
  
  
• All completed contacts are left alone.

To illustrate this, look at the screen shots below.

The account is currently assigned to SC. There are two in progress contacts assigned to SC and one assigned to OWN. There is one completed contact assigned to SC.

Account Assigned to Operator SC

After reassigning the account to JC, there are two in progress contacts assigned to JC and one assigned to OWN. There is one completed contact assigned to SC.

Account Assigned to Operator JC

Completed contacts are not reassigned. Also, contacts specifically assigned to a particular operator, not the owner of the account, are not reassigned. In this case, that applies to the contact for OWN. That is why it remains assigned to OWN after the account is reassigned to JC.

Batch Process Steps To Reassign Accounts

The Batch Process automatically performs the same actions you could do for each account separately, as shown above. But many accounts may be handled at once with batch processing.

Please make sure you have a recent backup of your database before running this batch process.

It is recommended that you reassign accounts when no one else is signed into the system. You may be affecting several WIP Lists! As well, batch processing may tax the system heavily. Single- user mode guarantees that the following procedure will be efficient and stable.

Make sure you already have your new operator ID set up in your system before you begin.

1. Sign into Collect! and stop at the Main Menu.

2. Select Tools from the top menu bar and then select Batch Processing from the drop-down choices. This will display the Batch Processing form.

3. Put a dot in 'Assign accounts to operators'. Select the NEXT button. This will display the Select Accounts To Process form.

4. Put a dot in ' Select by account operator'. Select the NEXT button. This will display the Select By Account Operator form.

This form needs a bit of explanation. There is a FROM and TO pick list. This is for a RANGE of operators.

If you want to reassign the accounts for only one operator, select the SAME Operator ID in the FROM and TO fields.


One Operator Selected

If you want to reassign the accounts for several operators and they are strictly alphabetical, one after the other, you can process a RANGE of operators at once.

To reassign accounts for a RANGE of operators, select the FROM Operator ID and the TO Operator ID. Ensure that there are NO Operator IDs in your system between these two values that you DO NOT wish to reassign. Accounts for all operators between and including the FROM and TO Operator will be reassigned!


Range of Operators Selected

5. Select the NEXT button when you are ready. This displays the Select Operator To Assign form. This is where you select the new operator. Select the ID for your new operator from the list of Operators.


Operator To Assign Accounts

Select the NEXT button.

6. Select START when the Assign Account Operator screen displays and Collect! will automatically process all the accounts.

Then you will be shown the number of accounts that were reassigned.


Results of Operator Assignment

Select the OK button to close the message window.

Now all the accounts that belonged to the old operator or range of operators will have the new ID on the Debtor form. All normal In Progress contacts have also been reassigned and will appear when you load the new operator's WIP List.

If you have "special" contacts left over that were manually assigned to the old operators at some point in time, you may want to do an additional step to clean up these remaining contacts that were not automatically reassigned in the batch you just completed.

Set Plans To Run When Operator Is Assigned

You can select a contact plan to run on each account where the Operator has changed during your batch process. You can create any events that you need in the Contact Plan you select. This option is available in the Screen and Messages form, accessed through System -> Preferences -> Options, Sounds and Colors.

Run Plan on Batch Op Assign

Cleaning Up Remaining Contacts

There may be times when you assign contacts to operators for special reasons. For instance, you may have scheduled a Review for OWN on an account worked by JC. The Owner may not have owned the account, but may have been scheduled to Review it. If you reassign OWN's accounts to SC, you may want to leave the Review scheduled to OWN that was on JC's account or you may want to reassign it to the new operator.

This enables you to clean up any stray contacts in your system that are still assigned to old Operator IDs. Be very careful with this step as you can inadvertently reassign contacts that should be left in a particular Operator's work queue. Reassigning them may create a situation where you have lost track of what you were doing. It is better to err on the side of leaving a few stray contacts in the system.

After you have finished your reassignment batch, you can run a report in Collect! to change the Collector ID on contacts.

This report ships with the cv11.2.14.2 Demo and newer. If you do not have the report in your database, you can download it from the Collect! Member Center.

Download Contact Collector Cleanup Report

The report is called Contact Collector Cleanup. It prompts for the Collector ID that you want to remove and asks for the Collector ID that you want it changed to. You can even assign all the contacts to a special ID so that you can examine them. The report processes only In Progress contacts and displays the total number of contacts that were reassigned and the new operator ID.

This is a safer practice that gives you control over the changes you are making. Collect! no longer allows you to empty WIP Lists during the reassignment batch.

Summary

Account ownership is very important for working accounts, calculating operator commissions, and several other functions. The Operator ID on the Debtor screen should always be current and correct. So there may be times when you need to reassign accounts to a new operator.

You may change the Operator ID on an account manually, or reassign many accounts at once using batch processing.

Please make sure you have a recent backup of your database whenever you batch assign accounts.

It is recommended that you reassign accounts when no one else is signed into the system.

The batch process to reassign accounts automatically reassigns all of the old operator's in progress contacts to the new operator. Other contacts in your system that were manually assigned to the old operator may be reassigned as well using a simple utility report after your reassignment batch is completed.

See Also

- Account Toss
- Batch Processing Topics