How To Setup Operators

This topic discusses setting up your Operators to access and use Collect!. This requires that you have access rights to the various menus and forms in Collect!.

Examine settings for different Operators by using the Record Navigation keys [<<] BACK and [>>] FORWARD from the Operator form. As you scroll through the records, you can examine the settings for each Operator.

Please press F1 for an explanation of the fields in the Operator form.

To create new operators, we recommend that you cut and paste from our original Operators. Please refer to How To Copy Operators To Master Database for details. When you are finished pasting your record, open the new Operator and enter a UNIQUE Operator ID following guidelines below.

Operator ID Guidelines

Each Operator must be set up with a UNIQUE ID.

Each Operator must also have a Password. It is advised to make the Password unique for each Operator, although it is permissible to give the same Password to multiple users.

The password is used to sign on, but the ID is used to set every parameter that relates to the operator.

For your convenience, Collect!'s Demonstration database contains a predefined set of Operator IDs and Passwords.

For Example:

- OWN for owner
- SYS for system administrator
- MGR for office manager
- SC for senior collector

and so on. For each of the IDs, the Password is the same as the ID. For example, for ID OWN the Password is own, and for ID SYS the Password is sys.

Use up to 7 characters for the Operator ID.
Make sure each of your Operators has his/her own UNIQUE ID. (Passwords can be shared.)
Use a different means of identifying your Sales Teams, such as, ST1, ST2, ST3. Sales Team IDs are not Signon IDs, but are used to classify Sales Team information where it is needed.

Using 1JC, 2JC, 3JC is acceptable, but we advise assigning distinct, different IDs, derived perhaps from the user's name. For example, JM for John Miller, SD for Sally Douglas, and JMC for Jayne McCaul.

You cannot use "System" or "Admin" for your ID. These are reserved words.

Using The Operator ID

When your Operators have been set up, you can use the Operator ID in many places in Collect! to customize routines and direct them to a particular Operator's attention. This pertains to the WIP ( Work In Progress) To Do List, assigning accounts, building Sales Teams, running Contact Plans, assigning commission rates, and other procedures.

Personal Information

Fill in the personal information fields as needed. If the Operator has an Email address, put that in the Email field and Email can be sent to the Operator.

Refer to the F1 Help for details about these fields.

Type

There are various types of user that can be chosen. Each of these results in a different series of events when the Operator signs into Collect!.

SYSTEM takes the user to the Main Menu upon signing on.

COLLECTOR takes the user directly to the WIP list when signing on. Other settings can be chosen in the WIP Options to affect how the Operator works the WIP list.

DIAL OPERATOR begins to dial contacts for this Operator as soon as they sign in, provided Auto Dialer is installed and set up.

CLIENT takes the user directly to a Client record that is specified in the Operator form field labeled Client #. This field appears when you select Client for the Operator Type. If the Client does not exist, the user is not admitted to Collect! no matter what User Level you select. The Client Type Operator can only see accounts belonging to the Client # you select.

The Browse Find By functionality for Client Operators is tied to a hierarchical client ownership system that also allows you to use the "Owned by Client" in the Client form. Clients who own other clients will be able to see all records in their hierarchical tree, but no others. Please refer to Help topic, Enabling Your Clients to Browse for Records.

WEB HOST opens Collect! in Web Host mode when this Operator signs on. Additional settings may be chosen in the Operator Detail and Operator Security sections.

SCHEDULER opens Collect! in Scheduler mode when this Operator signs on. This setting displays the Scheduler as soon as the operator signs in, allowing you to set tasks to be performed automatically, such as database snapshot, import routine, recalculate totals, and print report. Please refer to Help topic, Scheduler, for details.

SALES TEAM is not used to sign on an Operator. The ID is used to calculate commissions shown on the Debtor form. It is not a valid Signon ID. When you select Sales Team, other fields become visible on the Operator form where you can set up the team members.

The Sales Team Operator Type can be used for account access security. Please refer to Help topic, Account Access Control for details.

Sales Team

Create an Operator form for each of your Operators, assigning each of them a unique ID. Then you can create a Sales Team form with its own Sales Team ID and add the Operators to the team.

Before a Sales Team is constructed, each Operator must have their own Operator form filled out with a unique ID.

Sales Teams provide a convenient way to keep track of commissions owed to a group of your operators. A Sales Team has its own ID. We recommend that you use a code such as ST1, ST2, or TM1, TM2, to designate a Sales Team. You should try to make the ID distinctly different from your individual Operator IDs so that you can clearly identify Sales Teams.

When the Sales Team choice is selected, fields appear on the Operator form to hold Sales Team information. Operators are listed in the Sales Team fields by their unique individual ID. This can be chosen from a drop-down box.

Enter the Sales Team ID in the Debtor's form. Any commissions will be calculated and divided up among the Sales Team members using the commission percentages recorded in the Sales Team information on the Operator form.

Sales Teams also provide a way to group Operator IDs for account security purposes. This can be used with Account Access Control to restrict access to accounts based on Team ID or nested Teams.

Before a Sales Team is constructed, each Operator must have their own Operator form filled out with a unique ID.

Operator Details

In the Operator Detail tab:

Messaging

Although you may have users that are very experienced, it is advised to choose NORMAL level, at least at first, to give more prompts and messages for error checking. Records can be deleted without confirmation if you choose the Expert level, but this is not without risk!

NORMAL

You should choose the Normal setting for your Operators so that they are alerted before records are deleted. It is very easy to make mistakes. You want to give your users a chance to catch them.

Use Softphone For Dialer

You can use a softphone for your Collect! auto dialed calls. Switch ON "Use softphone for dialer" and put the softphone protocol prefix in the Note 2 field. Collect! will use this softphone for all the Operator's auto dialed calls.

This requires that your operating system is set up to handle the softphone protocol of your choice.

Please refer to Help topic, Softphone for more information.

Disable Popup Help

You can disable popup help at the Operator level. It can still be enabled if needed by pulling down the Help menu and choosing Enable popup help.

Allow Browser Signon

This switch is used to activate the Operator's access to Collect! over the Internet using Web Host. When the Operator attempts to connect to Collect! to enter new information or view existing accounts, Collect! verifies that this switch is ON for the Operator before allowing them to access the database.

Please refer to Help topic, Web Host for more information.

Automatic Recalc

Switch this ON for any operator. This will force Collect! to recalculate an account whenever the operator opens a Debtor form. This will ensure that, when you are viewing the account form, all dollar amounts are current and up to date.

Perhaps an operator does not need to see updated financial information when viewing an account. Then you may choose to leave this switched OFF. If you have many users, you may prefer to switch it OFF to optimize your network resources for increased performance.

If you do not use Automatic Recalc, there are several other options for recalculating dollar amounts to bring account balances up to date.

You may use the Tools menu, Recalculate option at any time to bring all account balances up to date.

You may use the RECALC button on the Debtor form to recalculate the dollar amounts for the account you are viewing.

Printing

Various printing options are available, as explained in F1 help. The settings here override the global switches set in the Report and Printer Setup. This is useful, for instance, if you want to assign certain reports or certain types of printing to one Operator's queue and not affect the general printer setup.

Operator Email

In the Operator Email tab:

Enable SMTP

Select this to switch ON Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a standard mail transfer protocol that Collect! can use with the Email feature. This setting is switched ON when sending HTML emails. Please refer to How To Send Email As HTML for details.

Operator Security

In the Operator Security tab:

Enable Verification

This feature gives you the ability to force verification of field data. Switch this ON when you want the operator to confirm important information in a certain field before they can exit a form. This is very useful for confirming data or simply to make sure the operator has important information that you need. There are a few steps necessary to set up this procedure. Please see Help topic, Prompt To Verify Field On Exiting A Form for details.

User Levels And Security

There are many possibilities for using the Security section. User Level is the primary way to limit or grant access to areas of your system. There are also several other settings that can be used to control access to accounts in many different ways to suit your needs. Please refer to Help topic, Account Access Control, for details.

You should only use User Level 99 for administrative purposes. Assigning a User Level 99 may result in losing functionality that relies on Collect!'s access rights system.

If you attempt to set an Operator's user level to 99, Collect! will display a cautionary message.

Setting User Level 99

Operators who sign into Collect! at user level 99 will see a similar message.

Signing on with User Level 99

The Operator 99 shipped with Collect! does not display this message. That is, Operator ID 99, User Level 99.

You can change the Password for ID 99 and Collect! will not display the message, as long as you are using ID 99 with User Level 99. Any other use of user level 99 displays the cautionary message.

When creating a new operator, Collect! prompts about entering a password if you attempt to leave the form without creating a password.

You cannot use the reserved ID "system" or "admin". Also, you cannot use a password of ******** ( 8 asterisks).

If an error occurs when you create a Password, you will be sent back to the Operator form to correct the error. You can still leave the Operator without correcting the error by pressing ESC on your keyboard.

Adjusting User Rights

When you set up each operator, it is best to choose a User Level that most closely fits the access rights you want this operator to have. However, you may discover that they cannot access certain areas that they need or maybe they can view forms they need not see, or they can change data in fields you want left alone. You can fine tune the user's permissions to suit your needs.

Every Operator must have a User Level assigned.

Please refer to How To Set Field Or Form Properties for guidelines on customizing user rights.

Planning User Levels

Setup of Operators uses the Collect! feature User Levels. By means of these levels, your users can be monitored to access only the areas of Collect! they need to, to change only the information that they must, to view only the data and forms that pertain to their work. You can guide users to the areas that they should address, displaying records tailored to their work load.

Users that need to access more of your system's forms and data can easily be set up to do so.

It is recommended that you plan before assigning User Levels. What tasks do your different workers do? What do you want them to be able to do in Collect!? Do you have a good idea of the Access Rights each User Level allows?

It is recommended that you try out the User Levels that are supplied before you create your own.

Please refer to User Level Samples for more details.

You must sign out of Collect! completely, returning to the Desktop, whenever you change to a different User Level, or some of the rights from the previous level that you were signed in as may still be in effect.

WIP Settings

Operator level settings can be saved as a configuration (CFG) file when you are setting up your operators. You can also set the configuration for all operators of the same User Level once you have saved the CFG file for one of the operators of that user level. Please see Help topic Copy Operator Configuration for details.