Operator Basics

What is an Operator? An operator can be defined as

1. A user who physically needs to sign into Collect! to do their work.

2. A desk, task or identifier to allocate different responsibilities for different accounts.

3. A group of operators bound to one Operator ID enabling you to breakdown commission on teams and to assign accounts to the members of the Sales Team Operator.

4. A group of operators bound to one Operator ID enabling you to set account access control for several operators at once.

5. A Client to whom you wish to grant access to view their accounts in your system.

6. A user who needs to sign in from the Internet or intranet to take advantage of Collect!'s Internet access.

If you are a single user site, you are already set up. Collect! has a default operator installed that gives you full access to every area of Collect!. Even as a single user, you may want to create other operators to help you separate your work by different functions.

Operator ID

Used wisely, the Operator ID adds efficiency and flexibility to your management tasks.

The unique Operator ID for each operator enables Collect! to timestamp who worked an account and when the account was worked. An operator ID is used when creating notes and records, or when deleting. Contacts can be assigned automatically to any operator you choose and you can set up work queues. Many records have a 'Created by' field to show you who created the record. Log entries created by Collect! for "Operator" have the operator's ID in each log entry.

The Operator ID may be used in reports, automatic commission calculations, contact plans and any other place where you need to access or set information that depends on your operator's identity. Individual queues may be created for batch letters, imports and credit bureau reporting by creating Operator IDs for specific functions.

Many system administrators set up an operator with a code of SKP to assign accounts to the skip desk. When an account goes to legal, you may want to assign the account to the LEG desk. Letter operators are handy to have if you use different paper for different letters. You may have a fancy first letter paper that you use when printing your Letter 1. Assigning a letter contact to LT1 operator will allow you to print all your letters assigned to LT1, isolating only the first letters, in your daily print batch.

Operator User Level

A very important related topic is the User Level that you assign to each operator. User Level defines what the operator can see or do when they have signed into Collect!. Your System/IT staff operators will want access to everything, while your Junior Collector operators will need very limited access when using Collect!.

Collect! ships with sample User Levels developed by listening to our users. Settings in these user levels are generally useful to the majority of our users. These settings are fully modifiable if needed, as explained in the more advanced topics of working with Collect!. Try out the various sample user levels before attempting to make changes. It is safer to modify a User Level after you have more experience with Collect!'s interface.

Operator form

Operator Type

Another important setting is the Type you select for each operator. This determines what form the operator sees when they first sign into Collect!. This is useful for security reasons and also to simplify the user interface for collectors. Also, the Client Type enables you to set up a Client Operator to view their accounts in your system.

Accessing Operator

The Operator form may be accessed in many ways. Providing you have access to the various menus and forms, you can use one of the following ways to get to the Operator form.

1. Using the menu bar at the top of Collect! select System to display the drop-down menu. Select Operators from this menu and the list of existing Operators will appear.

2. Or, you can also gain access to Operators from the Main Menu. Select the System Administration button to display the System Setup menu. Select the SETUP AND CONFIGURATION button to display the System Setup form. Select the SECURITY AND ALIASES button to display the Security and Aliases form. Select Operators and Sales Teams to display the list of existing operators. When highlighting an operator, simply select the EDIT button at the bottom of the list to display the Operator form.

3. Or, while on ANY form that has a pull-down list to select an Operator ID, you can use the pick list arrow. The Operators list will display the existing operators that are currently in the system. When highlighting an operator simply select the EDIT button at the bottom of the list to display the Operator form.

See Also

- Operator
- Operator Samples