OTOBO Customer Management

Setting up a customer

Introduction

In the OTOBO ticketing software, customer data management plays a central role in efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM). With OTOBO, you can effectively add, edit, and manage customer companies in the system to handle customer service and support requests seamlessly. Whether for IT support, customer service, or any conceivable helpdesk scenario – OTOBO offers comprehensive support.

Handling customer information in your helpdesk system is crucial for setting up successful customer support. OTOBO provides an intuitive interface for customer data management, accessible via the Customer module within the Users, Groups & Roles group. Initially, a fresh OTOBO installation contains no customers, so the first step is to add them to your system.

Customer overview

The interface for customer management [1]

Adding a customer

To add a new customer, click on the Add customer button. Fill in the necessary fields and confirm by clicking Save.

How to add a customer to OTOBO [1]

Editing a customer

Editing customer details is just as straightforward. Select a customer from the list, adjust the data, and save the changes.

Editing customer details [1]

Settings for customers

When adding or editing customers in OTOBO, various setting fields are available to you. Personal data such as Customer ID, Customer, Street, Zip, City, Country, and URL can be edited. An additional Comment field provides space for supplementary information. The Validity ensures that only active customers are maintained in the system.

Connecting customers with groups

To increase user-friendliness and efficiency in managing customer access, OTOBO allows assigning group permissions to customers. This feature makes it easier to organize permissions across teams and optimizes the management of customer access to support requests and tickets. By using group permissions, it can be ensured that customer requests are processed effectively and managed centrally via the ticketing system.

Summary

Efficient management of customer information is a decisive factor for the success of your support team. OTOBO offers a robust solution for managing customer data and permissions to maximize the effectiveness of your customer service. By adding customers to the system, editing their details, and assigning them to specific groups, you significantly improve the quality and efficiency of your customer support.

Learn more about the capabilities of OTOBO and discover how our software can transform your customer support.

Customer-group relations

The efficient management of customer-group relations is an essential component of customer support in any helpdesk and service management system. OTOBO offers comprehensive features that allow administrators to link customers with groups and thus realize fine-tuned access control to support requests and tickets. This guide leads you through the process of setting up and managing customer-group relations within the OTOBO software.

Linking customers and groups in OTOBO

Management of customer-group relations [1]

To make customer service and helpdesk management in your company more efficient, it is crucial to properly assign customers to groups. This assignment allows for targeted control of access to tickets and increases transparency within the support process.

Activating customer-group support

The comprehensive setting options of OTOBO allow administrators to decide individually which customer-group functionalities should be used. The basic requirement for using this feature is the activation of customer-group support in the corresponding backend. For the standard OTOBO backend, this setting can be found in the system configuration.

Activation of customer-group support [1]

Administrators who need a more specific configuration or use multiple backends can create additional configuration files.

Steps for assigning customers to groups

When assigning customers in OTOBO, only a few steps are necessary:

1. Select a customer and the desired permissions to link them with one or more groups.
2. Confirm the selection with the Save button.

Assigning groups to a customer [1]

The assignment of multiple customers to a specific group works analogously:

1. Select a group and the corresponding permissions you want to use for the connection with customers.
2. Complete the process with Save.

Assigning customers to a group [1]

Adjusting customer group default settings

OTOBO offers the possibility to adjust default settings for customer groups. This is achieved by changing the setting CustomerGroupCompanyAlwaysGroups, which allows you to automatically assign specific groups to all customers.

Adjusting customer group default settings [1]

Final notes

By using the customer-group functionalities in OTOBO, the efficiency and effectiveness of your customer support can be significantly increased. The careful assignment of customers to groups allows for detailed access control and thus ensures optimized ticket processing and improved customer service.

Discover the extensive possibilities of OTOBO to perfect your customer service and become a market leader in terms of efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Permissions in customer-group relations

The fine-tuned control of access rights in connection with the linking of customers and groups is an essential feature that OTOBO offers its users. This makes it possible to perform differentiated rights management within ticket and support management, which increases the security and efficiency of the customer support process. In OTOBO, various permission levels are available by default, which can be used when assigning customers or vice versa.

Same customer

Allows customer users access to tickets created by customer users of the same company. This is done by matching the ticket CustomerID with the CustomerID of the viewing customer user. The use of this permission makes it possible to grant shared ticket processing or viewing within a company, thereby promoting the collaborative support process.

Read permission (ro)

Provides read-only access to relevant resources. Customers or customer users can view information or tickets with this permission, but cannot edit them. This is particularly useful for providing transparency to customers while maintaining control over the processing of tickets and data.

Read and write permission (rw)

Grants full read and write access to the assigned resources. Users can not only view information and tickets but also actively edit them. This permission is suitable for situations in which customers or specific user groups are to be directly involved in the processing of requests or problem solutions.

Note

Checking a checkbox in the column header activates or deactivates all checkboxes in that column. This option allows for a quick and efficient assignment of permissions for all customers or groups in a specific category.

Summary

The presented permissions are an integral part of customer-group management in OTOBO. They allow administrators to adjust access and editing rights within the system to meet the requirements and policies of the respective company. This contributes to a more secure, better controlled, and more efficient ticketing and support process.

In OTOBO, you thus have the possibility to steer customer support in a targeted manner while remaining flexible regarding the needs and security requirements of the company. Use these permissions to optimize your customer service management and contribute to an improved customer experience.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I manage customers in OTOBO?

Use the Customer module under Users, Groups & Roles to add, edit, and overview customer companies.

Does a fresh OTOBO install include customers?

No. A new installation starts without customers, so you add them before linking customer users.

How do I add a new customer company?

Click Add customer, complete the required fields, and save to create the customer record.