How to setup a User/Contact, allowing them access to Customer Portal.

You will need to do four main things:

1. Create a User
2. Create a Contact
3. Associate the User to the Contact
4. Relate facilities to the Contact

The steps below outline this process:

1. Use MET/TEAM to create a new user account that will be used to log into Customer Portal.
1. Log into MET/TEAM as a user belonging to the Administrator group because this is required to add, delete and modify user or contact records.
2. In the main menu, click Setup then Users. When the find page opens, click the Add button in the top menu to add a new user.
3. When the Add User page opens, enter First, Last, Initials, Username, Password and any other required or desired data.  In this example our user is "PortalUserNew".  Keep in mind that a customer portal user can change their password during the log in process, so the initial password can be something simple they can change later. When finished entering data, click the Save button in the top menu.  
4. After saving a new user, an "Attention" message box will pop up and ask you to select a lab to associate with this user... 
   
   Click the OK button, which will open the "Find New Lab" find screen.
   Click the Find button on the menu bar and then double click to move one or more labs to the bottom 'selected' grid on the find screen.
   
   Note:  Only facilities that are marked as a "Lab" will be listed.  See Facility screen shot below for example of a "Lab" facility. 
   
   
5. Once OK is clicked on the "Find New Lab" find screen, it will close and you will see the lab name or names listed in the Facility grid at the bottom of the Edit User page as shown below.
   
   Note:  The lab facility or facilities that are selected for the user are NOT used by Customer Portal in any way, however, the selection of at least one is required.  These labs are only used if this user were ever to log into MET/TEAM.  See more information/suggestions on this, at the bottom of this article as item 7.
   
   
   Note: In the screen shot above, the label is "Edit User..." not "Add User," because the screen shot was taken after the user was initially created and saved.
   
   Screen shot example of an active "Lab" facility:
   
6. Now click the Group button from the Edit User window's menu bar to pop up the Assign Groups window.  Check the Customer Portal checkbox and then click Save button and close the Assign Groups window. 
   
2. Next, you need to add a contact to associate with the user account.
1. In the menu, click Setup then Contacts. When the find page opens, click the Add button to add a new contact.
2. When the Add Contact page opens, enter the Contact ID (typically employee number or email address, whichever is known), other information like First and Last names, etc, "PortalContactNew" in this example.  Click the Save button in the top menu.
3. Once the contact is saved, you need to associate a user to this contact.
1. When viewing the Contact record, click the ellipsis for the "User" text-box.  When the "Find User" find screen opens, click the Find button and choose the user that we just added, "PortalUserNew" in this example. Click Save button to save the contact info. now with the user record related.
4. Next is probably the most important step, you need to relate the contact to one or more customer facility records, who's data they need to view within customer portal.  This is accomplished by adding the desired items to the Facilities grid at the bottom of the page.  
1. When viewing the contact record, click the "Add Facility" button on the bottom right of the contact page. This will open the "Find Facility" find screen, typically you will want to filter for "Customer" facilities only, however this is NOT required, any facility can be selected.  
2. Once OK is clicked on the find screen, it will close and you will see the name of the selected facility listed in the Facility grid at the bottom of the Edit Contact page as shown below.
3. Repeat steps 4 and 5 as needed until all desired facilities are listed.  
   In this example, the only facility name in the list is "cal-1", which means the customer portal user will only be able to view assets with an owner of "cal-1". If an asset is owned by "MT" it will not be visible to this customer portal user.  If the "MT" facility was also added to the grid on the bottom of the contact record, then the contact could see both cal-1 and MT owned assets via customer portal.    
4. When finished the Edit Contact window will look like below:
   
   
   
   Note: The screen shot was taken after the contact was saved, so instead of Add Contact, you see Edit Contact in the title.
   
   
5. The last step is to verify everthing is working.
1. Open Customer Portal (typically the same address as MET/TEAM but with a port number of :35855 instead of MET/TEAM's :35853) and try to login using the login name and associated password you just created.  In this example: PortalUserNew
2. Once logged in, you will notice the facilities configured for the Contact are visible in the drop down list on the top right of customer portal.  If multiple facilities are configured, the customer portal user can choose to filter the displayed data by just one facility or all of their configured facilities.  
   
   
   
   
6. At this point this user is configured and able to use Customer Portal as needed.  Repeat the above steps for as many users as you need to configure for the use of customer portal.
   
   
7. If you are concerned with keeping 'customer portal users' out of your MET/TEAM 'user' or 'technician' list, then we suggest the use of a lab facility different than your 'real' lab when configuring the customer portal 'user' records. In this example I have created a lab facility record named "Customer Portal Lab".  See screen shot below...

Whenever configuring a user record for a customer portal only user, I will relate the user to the "Customer Portal Lab" facility record as show below...

All of my 'real' users will be related to my 'real' lab facility record that is displayed in the top right of MET/TEAM when I'm logged in.  

Now if I'm in MET/TEAM, on the work order page, looking up a technician via the find page, just by using the "Current Facility" check box, I can control if my "Customer Portal only" users are included or excluded...

With "Current Facility" NOT checked, I get the "customer portal only" users and my 'real' users (no filter applied)....

But with "Current Facility" checked (now filtering to only display users that are related to the lab I'm currently logged into as displayed in top right of MET/TEAM), I no longer get the "customer portal only" users, just my 'real' users related to the lab I'm currently logged into.

If you are new to Customer Portal, you will probably find this article helpful...

Customer Portal Quick Start Guide 

We hope you found this article helpful, but if you have questions or need assistance, please send an email to softwaresupport@flukecal.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.