Customer Book
The Customers section is the seller's book: the people they visit, sell to and prequalify. It is a list of cards with a search box on top, and a card opens a short detail page with the customer's address. That is all the section is meant to do. It helps a seller find someone and get to their door, and it never shows a figure about that customer's credit.
The section is on from the start: an organization that has never saved its portal configuration runs with the Customers section only. In the Hub, under Seller portal, the operator keeps it on or turns it off with See their book of customers (see Configuring the Portal). Which customers it lists depends on two things the operator controls: the sales routes the seller is assigned to, and the search scope.
Which Customers a Seller Reaches
Routes decide membership. A customer on one of the seller's routes belongs to that seller's book, and when the seller saves a simulation for that customer, the simulation is attributed to that route, and to that route's distributor. A customer on more than one of the seller's routes is attributed to only one of them. With the organization-wide scope described below, a seller can also save a simulation for a customer who is on none of their own routes, even one on another seller's route: that simulation is attributed to no route and no distributor, so it does not count toward any route. Routes never decide what the seller can do: what is enabled is set for the whole organization, in the Hub. How routes are built and assigned is covered in Sales Routes and Sellers.
The search scope decides whether the seller can reach customers outside their routes. It is set in the Hub's portal settings, under Prequalify a customer: turn on Customer search in this step and the Search scope picker appears below it.
| Search scope | What the seller reaches |
|---|---|
| Only the customers of their routes (default) | Only the customers on their routes |
| Every customer in the organization | Any customer of the organization, including when the seller has no route at all, together with that customer's detail and the actions on them (prequalify, simulate) |
With the organization-wide scope, the effect shows up in the Customers list itself, not only in the search. When no specific route is picked (the seller has a single route, or has All selected), the list shows every customer of the organization. Picking one route chip still limits the browsing to that route. A search, on the other hand, covers the whole organization whatever chip is selected.
The organization-wide scope opens the whole book
With Every customer in the organization, every seller can browse and search every customer of the organization from the Customers section, not only the customers on their routes, and can open their detail, prequalify them and simulate for them. Choose it only when that is what your sellers should see.
The search is available in two places: in the Customers section, when that section is on, and inside the prequalification step, when the Hub turns on Customer search in this step. With Only the customers of their routes, the prequalification search looks only inside the first of the seller's routes, in alphabetical order by name, while the Customers section covers all of them. Browsing the full list without typing anything needs the Customers section; the prequalification search only finds customers as the seller types.
The List
The list shows the seller's customers as cards, sorted alphabetically by name. A customer the seller reaches through more than one of their routes appears once. Each card shows:
- The customer's initials and name. A customer with no name on file shows as Unnamed customer.
- The business key: the value of the identity chosen as External ID Identity Key in the Hub's CMS Settings, followed by that identity's label, for example
1234509876 · Tax ID. When that setting is empty, or that identity is marked sensitive, the line is left out on every card. A customer who does not have that identity has no line either. The same value appears in the prequalification step, under each customer the search suggests and in the customer header of the result. - One address line, when the customer has an address.
Tapping a card opens the customer's detail. Email and phone never appear on a card.
Above the cards, a count says how many customers there are: 12 customers while browsing, or 3 results while a search is active. The list loads 20 customers at a time, and See more customers at the bottom loads the next 20.
A seller with two or more routes also sees a row of route chips: All first, then one chip per route. Picking a chip reloads the list from the first page for that route, and All goes back to the whole book: every route of the seller, or the whole organization with the organization-wide scope. A seller with a single route sees no chips.
Searching
The search box shows the placeholder Name, ID number or customer number. It appears as soon as the seller has customers on screen, and stays while a search is active, so a seller can correct a search that found nothing.
The search starts from the first character, after a 300 ms pause in typing, and accepts up to 64 characters. While the results load, the screen shows Searching customers.... The X at the end of the box (Clear the search) empties it and brings back the full list.
The text is split into words, up to 8, and every word has to match something about the customer. A word matches when it is found in any one of these:
| What is searched | How it matches |
|---|---|
| The customer's name | Anywhere in the name, in any order, ignoring accents and upper or lower case: "perez juan" finds "Juan Pérez" |
| The organization's customer number | Anywhere in the number |
| An identity document | From 3 digits in the word, anywhere in the document and by its digits alone: dashes, dots and other separators are ignored on both sides. A space, however, splits the text into separate words, so type the document without spaces |
| A customer field | From 3 characters, by the start of the field's value |
Data your organization marks as sensitive is never searchable. That includes identities marked sensitive, which cannot be found by their value (see Identities).
While the seller types, a line under the box explains the rules. Until the text holds 3 digits, it reads From 3 digits it also searches by ID number. From 3 digits on, it reads Searches the name in any order, the digits of the ID number (dashes and spaces aside) and the customer number.
There is no filter by initial letter: the list has no A to Z row.
Empty and Error States
| Situation | What the seller sees |
|---|---|
| The list is loading | Loading your customers... |
| The seller has no customers yet | You have no customers yet, with "Once customers are assigned to your routes, they will show up here." |
| A search finds nothing | No results, with "No customer on your routes matches that search. Try fewer letters or go back to the full list." and a See all my customers button that clears the search |
| The list could not be loaded | We could not load your customers, with "The request did not come back. Try again in a few seconds." and a Try again button |
| A further page could not be loaded | The cards already shown stay, with "The request did not come back. Try again in a few seconds." under them |
A Customer's Detail
The detail page has a back arrow and the title Customer detail. While it loads, it shows Loading the customer....
It shows the customer's initials and name. When the customer has an address, an Address card shows it with an Open in maps button, which opens a map search for that address in a new tab. Nothing else is on the page: no business key, no identities, no figures and no button to simulate.
Picking a customer in the prequalification step prefills the evaluation inputs that the Hub maps under Which identity fills each input with that customer's matching identity. Identities marked sensitive are never used, and customer fields prefill nothing. The prefilled value shows in the form, where the seller can check it. An input with no mapped identity, or whose identity this customer does not have, stays empty for the seller to type.
Two situations replace the detail with a message. When the customer is no longer on the seller's routes, or was removed, the page shows Customer not available and "This customer is no longer in your routes or was removed." Any other failure shows We could not load your customers with Try again. Both offer Back to the list.
Starting a Prequalification
When Prequalify a customer is on in the Hub, the top of the list has a Pre-qualify a customer button. It opens the simulator blank: whatever operation the seller left half-filled before is discarded, so the new consultation starts clean. What happens next is covered in Prequalification.
What the Book Never Shows
The portal shows no financial figure about a customer anywhere: not in the list, not in the detail and not in the simulator. There is no available credit, used credit, debt, next payment or client number. The only amounts a seller sees belong to the operation itself: what they type in the simulator, the payment plan the simulator calculates from it, and the limit the prequalification publishes, when the Hub shows it (Show approved amount).
The same goes for contact details. A seller sees a customer's name, business key and address, and never their email or phone.
Things to Know
Routes say whose customer it is, the Hub says what the seller can do. Adding a customer to a route puts them in that seller's book and attributes that seller's simulations for them to the route. A simulation for a customer on none of the seller's routes, possible only with the organization-wide scope, is attributed to no route. Adding a customer to a route does not turn on anything for that customer. Capabilities are set once for the organization.
The organization-wide scope changes the Customers list, not only the search. With Every customer in the organization, a seller browsing All, or a seller with a single route, sees the whole organization. Only an explicitly picked route chip narrows the browsing, and a search ignores the chip.
The scope keeps applying when the search switch is off. The Search scope picker only appears while Customer search in this step is on, but the choice is saved and still governs the Customers section if that switch, or Prequalify a customer, is turned off later. To go back to route-only books, set the scope to Only the customers of their routes before turning the switch off.
A seller can search by customer number without seeing it. The organization's customer number is searchable, but no card or detail shows it. The line under the name is the business key.
A document search needs 3 digits, typed without spaces. With one or two digits typed, only the name and the customer number are searched. A space starts a new word, so "30 71234567 8" is three words, and the short ones are only compared against the name and the customer number. A document stored with dashes or spaces is still found by its digits.
Every error and warning a seller can meet is listed in one place. See Errors, Warnings and Limits.
Access and Sessions
How sellers sign in to the portal, with a personal access link or a one-time code, how long a session lasts, and what each sign-in and session screen means.
Prequalification
How the seller runs the organization's evaluation on a customer, how its decision becomes an approved, review or rejected screen, and what the evaluation must return.