PRESENTATION of WP-Office

PRESENTATION of WP-Office

WP-Office is one of the modules of the WebProfessional product. It uses the WebProfessional framework (starting from version 3.4), a concept that integrates the users of WebProfessional, the Web site layout and other applications into a single tool.

If WebPower offers the common tools required to create a Web site and interact with your clients, WP-Office provides the staff users of a company with the tools used in their daily activity.

Together with eBusiness (the module that builds your electronic commerce site) and DbTools (the application that gives access to databases, via queries and user actions), WP-Office has been conceived for the management of the entire activity of your company, including the relation with the customers (CRM).

When you log to WebProfessional with your username and password, you can see the WP-Office menu like in the picture below. The site administrator customizes the first page of WP-Office; here the administrator can insert the information to be seen by all the WP-Office users. You can start the WP-Office application by clicking on buttonLaunch.

Understanding WP-Office

WP-Office contains various modules such as:

Welcome – is the part that synthesizes all the new activities and entries of other modules. Here you can also configure different filters.

E-mail – a Web mail module with some extended functions such as keyword insertion.

Contacts – stores all the contacts inside the company, whether visible or not.

sTalk – is a message system allowing you to communicate with people inside your company, as well as online with your clients.

Notes – a system that simulates the small “post it” papers. You can post some notes either to yourself (on your desktop) or to your colleagues.

Task-Req – a system for collecting requests from your clients and assigning different tasks inside your company. It is a kind of help desk allowing the management of tasks inside the firm.

Reports – a module that allows you to collect all the conclusions of the work of your employees.

CallCenter – allows you to keep a record of all the phone calls (and not only) made by and to your company.

Agenda – keeps track of all the events (company meetings or events of personnel).

DocMan – manages all the documents inside your firm. Basically it has two main folders: office documents and private documents.

CRM – is the place where you can get, for a specific client, synthetic information related not only to the WP-Office modules, but also to other data stored in databases.

For a better navigation and an easy understanding, each module has the same layout.

On the left upper part there is the name of the module where you are at a certain moment (in the image below we are in the Contacts module).

On the left side there is always the Quick Alert box, where you will see a blinking icon corresponding to the module with unread entries (e.g.: new arrived emails, tasks, etc.).

On the left part there are different actions, depending on the application you are visiting.

In the right upper corner there is a simple search where you can explore various fields related to the database of each module.

On the right side, in the yellow area there is bar where you can set up different filters for each module in order to view the information.

The information is displayed on rows with a series of icons telling you the status of a particular entry, if it is read or not, the persons it is addressed to, etc.

These rows vary from one application to another. For example, the Contacts info is different from the Call Center info. The Notes module has a different layout and is closer to the “post it” paper.

The table that displays the rows of each module has on the upper part and on the bottom part some buttons for inserting new entries, deleting selected entries, etc.

Welcome Interface in WP-Office

The first module in WP-Office is Welcome, where you can see all the “unread” objects arrived in WP-Office. For example, you can see all the tasks, notes or calls registered in the Call Center that you have not read yet.

The legend shows the colors for each type of object displayed while using WP-Office.

1. Public: – used for objects coming from outside the company (usually from clients) and can be seen by everybody.

2. Private: – means that the object is addressed to a specific person and is visible to that person AND to the administrators.

3. Confidential: – used for an object in strict relation with a person (a staff user). This object is visible only for that person (no other person, not even the administrator, can see it).

4. Office: – this is an object of company interest and is visible to all the staff users provided with access to WP-Office.

For each user, WP-Office keeps track of all the read/unread objects arrived. For example, if a call has arrived for the user John, the call remains unread until it is opened by John, appearing thus in the Welcome page. The “unread” property is shown by the icon .

When an object is inserted in WP-Office, it is new: . This status can be changed by someone who takes the object and makes it “working”: or “closed”: . For example, if a task has arrived for a certain user, it remains new until the user decides to start working on it. When the task is finished, the “working” status changes into “closed”.

A note, a call can be forwarded as a task to a certain person. In this case, the icon appears next to the object.

On the left part there is a configuration menu where you can set all the initial filters for all the modules. For instance, for the E-mail module you can set the default number of messages displayed on the page. You can change this number when you enter the E-mail module, but the next time you open it the number of displayed messages is given by the default settings.

E-mail Module

The first time you enter the E-mail module you have to set up the pop3 server where you get the emails. The SMTP server is automatically set as the server where WP-Office has been installed. You can define up to three pop3 accounts by using the “Manage Accounts” menu. In the E-mail module you can also define your personal address book.

Contacts Module

What is it for?

The Contacts module stores all the information about a company or person. For a company contact, it also stores details about a person from that company. The Contacts can be related to a firm or to a person (there are company contacts and person contacts). Do not mistake person contacts for private contacts. Person contacts are information about a person, telephone, address and email. Office, private contacts are related to the office or a member of the office.

If a contact is “company”, it means that it is related to a firm, providing as well data about various persons from that firm. This is very important because the CRM module uses this relation. For example, if I receive a call from a person from that firm, when I open the CRM with the selected firm I can see that person’scall.

Different types of contacts

Like in other modules ofWP-Office (Contacts, CallCenter, Agenda), there are various types of notes:

• Public
• Private
• Office
• Confidential

A public contact is the most general one and it is seen by everybody. If all the WP-Office members see the office contact, even more people can see the public contacts. Imagine that you want to offer some contacts to the registered users of your site. If you declare this contact as public, then you can filter it in the Contacts module and show it to your registered users who are not in the staff group. The users from the staff group can enter WP-Office and see all these public items.

A private contact is related to a person. In this case, the contact is seen by that person and by the administrator.

An office contact is an object visible to all the WP-Office members.

A confidential contact is inserted by someone in order to keep his personal address book. This contact is visible only to that person and even the administrator cannot see it.

Import contacts from a txt file

Contacts can be stored in different series. A series is a collection of contacts with a name that can be chosen by the administrator. There is an option for importing contacts from a txt file where you will be asked which are the primary keys (this must happen necessarily on a second import from the same file, for a correct update of the information of the already existing users).

Each user can import contacts. While importing, he can choose if the imported contacts are to be visible to all the WP-Office members (office type) or only to him (confidential type).

There also is a desktop application (DbTools vers. > 4.0) allowing importing contacts from a database.

Publishing contacts from other sources

You can publish contacts from other sources, such as databases or financial systems, by using the DBSYNC desktop application program and by defining a synchronization of the wpsync> type. In such asynchronization you can choose the source of the contacts that you want to publish on the Web. By using the scheduler of the DBSYNC program, you can also define the publishing frequency.

sTalk Module

What is it for?

sTalk can be used by the WP-Office members to communicate between them.

sTalk can be configured to be also accessible in the public part of your Web site. Thus, your clients can communicate directly with your operators (WP-Office members).

When the WP-Office member opens the sTalk application, he sees the following form containing two parts: one (the upper part) for communicating with the operators (the WP-Office members can communicate between them) and one (the bottom part) for communicating at the same time with the clients.

You can also choose to send a message to everyone online at a certain moment.

There is a special feature that lets you record a conversation while you are talking with a client, for example.

Each WP-Office member has his own settings and can choose to be available only for some types of users. For instance, you can decide to be “visible” only to the clients having a certain priority (greater than 6, for example). Thus, only those clients can see you in the operators’ list.

The sTalk module can also be used as an answering machine. For example, you can choose to put an icon on the Web site and if there is any available person, that person could respond on the online messenger. If there is no person available for online communication, then the visitor of the site could leave the message on the answering machine. Later on, this message can be viewed and the respective client can be contacted.

Notes Module

What is it for?

The Notes module is used in WP-Office to send short messages. It is an electronic substitute of the “post it” paper. For example, you can post a “note” on your desktop in order to be reminded about something, post it on a colleague’s desktop to tell him something or even post a note as office type for it to be visible to every participant to WP-Office.

Notes are different as compared to tasks. You do not need to know when a note starts to be processed or whether the things written in the note have been completed or not. If you are interested in this kind of information, you have to use TaskReq.

Different types of notes

Like for other modules in WP-Office (Contacts, CallCenter, Agenda), there are different types of notes:

• Private
• Office
• Confidential

Observation: Since the Notes module is used only inside the office, there is no public note (notes coming from clients or Web site visitors).

A private note is addressed to a specific person. In this case, the note is seen by that person and by all the persons belonging to the <administrator> group (the <administrator> group is a default group of WP-Office).

For example, John wants to remind Smith about an action to be done. In this case, John posts a note (a private one) to Smith. Smith can see the note (because it is addressed to him), but so can the administrator.

An office note is used by someone to announce something. When he/she creates an office note, everybody in the office can see that note. It is like posting it on a company wall, where everybody can see it. For example, if someone wants to announce all the office members that tomorrow morning there is a football game, he can place an office note for everybody to see it.

A confidential note can be seen only by the person it is addressed to. In our example, if John decides to post a note to Smith (confidential type), then only Smith can see it. Of course, John can see it in “Notes posted by me”.

Management of notes

As a general rule, the administrator (a person belonging to the administrator group) can have total control of the notes. He can delete anytime a private or office note. He cannot see the confidential notes. Every member of WP-Office can create a note. For a note addressed to a specific person (i.e. the type is private or confidential), the sender and the recipient could delete the note. You have to click on the selected box before deleting a note. If you are not allowed to delete a note, the check box will not appear. A note which has been “post it” cannot be modified by the sender.

Read and unread notes

When receiving a note, you can read it by clicking on the icon . The “unread” status is shown by the icon . When the note is read, the status of the note changes into “read” and when clicking on the link “more” the notes become “read”. We use the terms “read – unread” for status because in other modules – for example TaskReq or CallCenter – the status “new” is logically equivalent to unsolved (no action has be taken on it). Here, in the Notes module, the status “new” means “unread”.

When the note is opened, you can edit and forward it as a task, email, report or even as a new event in the agenda.

By clicking on it, a note changes from “unread” into “read”, so that you have to choose the filter “All” in the status filter in order to see it again.

Active notes, expired notes, all notes filter

When creating a note, you can set the starting date and the expiry date.

For example, I can set a note for it to be visible starting from next Monday and expire after 3 days. If the date of today is between the starting and the expiry date, then the note is active. It the date of today exceeds the expiry date, the note is called “expired”.

To see a note that has not yet started (i.e. the date of today is before the starting date), you have to choose the filter <All>.

Notes in the Welcome page

The Welcome page displays all the “new” notes regardless of their type (private, office or confidential). You cannot change this, so that you will always see the new notes in the Welcome page.

Configuration of default filters

You can configure the welcome control panel of the notes so that that every time you go to the Notes module you should automatically see filtered notes. For example, you can configure the default filter for it to show, every time when you enter the Notes module, only the office notes and the active ones.

Task-Request Module

What is it for?

Task-Request has been designed to offer a systematic way to solve problems inside a company. This is one of the most complex applications in WP-Office.

A record inserted in this module is logically considered as a request. The person who receives it has to consider it a task (to do) – therefore this module is called Task-Request.

Setup interface, WP-Office interface and public interface of TaskReq

The Task-Request module has three parts:

Part 1. Setup interface part in Setup area

The configuration part corresponding to the setup area includes the definition of the categories of problems. It also includes the settings for the users allowed to see those categories. For example, I can define a category called <report-bugs> and set it to be visible only to tester-users. Other users cannot see this category,being unable to submit a request under this category.

In the Setup area, the administrator can choose if the Task-Request module is only for the staff or also for registered or/and public users. If the administrator decides that the Task-Request module should be visible in the public interface of the site, the requests coming from this interface will be mentioned as <public>type. If the administrator decides that the requests should come only from the registered users, he can set this via the ACL (access list for this application)menu in the WP-Office setup area.